Anonymous wrote:

why, buying a house is a long term investment of 10 years+ usually. So it makes perfect sense to compare areas, especially if they are close by. DC, bethesda and fairfax county are all within 10-20 miles of each other. The quality of life is significantly effected by things like commute time, schools and yes home appreciation.

I agree. If the appreciation differences were smaller then people could argue, boost and make whatever irrational arguments they want as to why one is better than the other. If you are looking at a difference though of netting an 800K profit vs losing 50K when you go to sell years later then it becomes a whole different ballgame.

I guarantee you that if any of the silly MoCo boosters had the opportunity to go back in time and choose moving to NOVA and making 800K vs moving to MOCO and losing 50K, they all would take the 800K profit move to NOVA.

This is only going to get worse. Prices in Montgomery County are softer in 2019 than 2018. The people who bought high in Montgomery County in 2018 will be crying in several years just like the people who bought high in Montgomery County around 2005/2006. NOVA residents will keep laughing their way to the bank.

Anonymous wrote:

why, buying a house is a long term investment of 10 years+ usually. So it makes perfect sense to compare areas, especially if they are close by. DC, bethesda and fairfax county are all within 10-20 miles of each other. The quality of life is significantly effected by things like commute time, schools and yes home appreciation.

I agree. If the appreciation differences were smaller then people could argue, boost and make whatever irrational arguments they want as to why one is better than the other. If you are looking at a difference though of netting an 800K profit vs losing 50K when you go to sell years later then it becomes a whole different ballgame.

I guarantee you that if any of the silly MoCo boosters had the opportunity to go back in time and choose moving to NOVA and making 800K vs moving to MOCO and losing 50K, they all would take the 800K profit move to NOVA.

This is only going to get worse. Prices in Montgomery County are softer in 2019 than 2018. The people who bought high in Montgomery County in 2018 will be crying in several years just like the people who bought high in Montgomery County around 2005/2006. NOVA residents will keep laughing their way to the bank.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could we PLEASE quit this annoying and ridiculous pissing match between suburban Md and NoVa? Compared with most of the country, both of these regions offer a superior quality of life. Each state has its unique strengths. Each state has its challenges. Neither is perfect.

Many of these posts sound like they're coming from spoiled brats in a schoolyard. We're better than that...I hope?

Someone said it earlier. We're more alike than different.

why, buying a house is a long term investment of 10 years+ usually. So it makes perfect sense to compare areas, especially if they are close by. DC, bethesda and fairfax county are all within 10-20 miles of each other. The quality of life is significantly effected by things like commute time, schools and yes home appreciation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could we PLEASE quit this annoying and ridiculous pissing match between suburban Md and NoVa? Compared with most of the country, both of these regions offer a superior quality of life. Each state has its unique strengths. Each state has its challenges. Neither is perfect.

Many of these posts sound like they're coming from spoiled brats in a schoolyard. We're better than that...I hope?

Someone said it earlier. We're more alike than different.

why, buying a house is a long term investment of 10 years+ usually. So it makes perfect sense to compare areas, especially if they are close by. DC, bethesda and fairfax county are all within 10-20 miles of each other. The quality of life is significantly effected by things like commute time, schools and yes home appreciation.

why, buying a house is a long term investment of 10 years+ usually. So it makes perfect sense to compare areas, especially if they are close by. DC, bethesda and fairfax county are all within 10-20 miles of each other. The quality of life is significantly effected by things like commute time, schools and yes home appreciation.

Anonymous wrote:Could we PLEASE quit this annoying and ridiculous pissing match between suburban Md and NoVa? Compared with most of the country, both of these regions offer a superior quality of life. Each state has its unique strengths. Each state has its challenges. Neither is perfect.

Many of these posts sound like they're coming from spoiled brats in a schoolyard. We're better than that...I hope?

Someone said it earlier. We're more alike than different.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There are more people who live in Maryland and work in VA, than those that do the reverse. Based on most recent census data in 2009-2013 time frame, approximately 68,500 people who lived in Virginia work in Maryland. Conversely, approximately 122,700 people who lived in Maryland work in Virginia. You guys can download and look at the raw data yourself:

https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dem...commuting/commuting-flows.html

It's very clear that VA does a better job at providing people with, err, jobs, than Maryland.


Agreed, and I suspect in the 10 years since that census was taken, a lot of people have decided to locate or relocate to NoVA, driving up housing prices there compared to MD. It's rational to assume that if one area is creating a lot more jobs than another one, this will have a short-term effect of a lot of people commuting there, and a longer-term effect of people locating there and therefore driving up housing costs relative to other nearby areas.

This X100. I think this is the #1 reason why there is such a stark difference between Montgomery County appreciation and NOVA appreciation. Higher paying jobs are being concentrated in NOVA. This starts a snowball effect with wealthier, high income people moving to NOVA and newcomers choosing NOVA over MoCo. MoCo loses both revenue from not having any jobs or business and losing the high income residents. This makes the area more affordable but less attractive so prices fall further. Poverty increases because there are more options for low income housing and programs. The schools suffer as they lose more highly educated people. Eventually taxes will need to go up spooking away other buyers or tipping the scales for more wealthy people leaving the county. Buyers see the huge differences in appreciation and worry about investing in Montgomery County.

Some of the fundamentals are really stark:



So Fairfax has about 10% more people and 10% more businesses with employees, but the businesses with employees in Fairfax generate 38% more employment and 66% higher payroll than the businesses in Montgomery County. So not only are the businesses in Fairfax County employing far more people on average, but the jobs are significantly higher paying. And year over year Fairfax is enjoying 1.3% employment growth versus 0.2% for MoCo. This does not even take into account the business/employment in Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, and Fairfax City. Here's the underlying raw data for people that want to see for themselves:

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/montgomerycountymaryland,fairfaxcountyvirginia,US/PST045218

Face it, Virginia is providing substantial employment opportunities to Marylanders, MoCo should be thanking their lucky stars for their proximity to NoVA.

NP here. Seriously. To the point, that PP is finding and posting tables on this thread to prove a point. Do you all work? LOL!

PP here. I am an owner of one of the "employer establishments" in Fairfax County. I do work, but set my own schedule.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just looking at the appreciation forecasts for Arlington and Fairfax and feeling very depressed. If you had told me 15 years ago that houses would be selling for over 1M in Falls Church I would have never believed it. Our decision to move to Montgomery County over Falls Church or Arlington has probably cost us 600K-800K in lost opportunity equity. We were really on the fence at the time but thought that there was more room for appreciation in Montgomery County.

Is there any chance that things will flip around or will Montgomery County be stagnant or dropping for another 10 years?

if say NOVA becomes the SV equivalent, then maybe MOCO would be the east bay (Union City, Fremont, Hayward), so a SFH in palo alto would be 3 million, while they are 1 million in fremont and union city as all the poor people get pushed into those areas. It would have still gone up like 2 found over 10-15 years, not bad, but nowhere close to the 4-5x that would have happened in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View or even SF.

I live in NoVa and agree that it will be like palo alto, menlo park and mountain view. Expensive and ugly. But close in.

But with terrible weather.