OP, If you want the schools/metro and walking possibility. I would look in the North Highland/Rosslyn area. Not to much comes on the market regularly, but if you can get a realtor to help you with your search, it will be well worth for you and your husband - he can probably walk to Georgetown and you, walk to the Rosslyn metro if you can get the right house. But there are mostly townhouse and few sfh in North Highland, not to many of them comes on the market. I live in the area. Here's a map to get you oriented with the area. I think walkscore is between 70-80.

www.rosslynva.org/build/development

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haven't read all of the replies, but if you're willing to consider an excellent school that's not Yorktown, consider George Mason High School in Falls Church City. The Broadmont neighborhood, near the EFC metro would be perfect, FCC schools are excellent, and FCC is as close as you can get to a small town feel in the metro area.

Just drive through the Broadmont neighborhood and see if you like it. Only problem is, pries are high in that neighborhood, supply is low, and $1.2 million may not get you the type of house you are expecting.

It looks a bit like a compound, and it's not really close to Metro, but I like this house in FCC:

http://franklymls.com/FA7950734

Very interesting house, and probably worth looking at. That's the west side of FCC, though, not the East. It's about as far away from Broadmont as you can get, and not walkable to metro. Also, it's just barely in FCC boundaries -- the boundary line appears to go right through the property, probably giving the buyer a choice of FCC or Fairfax schools (McLean HS, I think), but many of the neighbors can only go to FFX schools, which probably hurts neighborhood cohesiveness.

Anonymous wrote:Haven't read all of the replies, but if you're willing to consider an excellent school that's not Yorktown, consider George Mason High School in Falls Church City. The Broadmont neighborhood, near the EFC metro would be perfect, FCC schools are excellent, and FCC is as close as you can get to a small town feel in the metro area.

Just drive through the Broadmont neighborhood and see if you like it. Only problem is, pries are high in that neighborhood, supply is low, and $1.2 million may not get you the type of house you are expecting.

It looks a bit like a compound, and it's not really close to Metro, but I like this house in FCC:

http://franklymls.com/FA7950734

Haven't read all of the replies, but if you're willing to consider an excellent school that's not Yorktown, consider George Mason High School in Falls Church City. The Broadmont neighborhood, near the EFC metro would be perfect, FCC schools are excellent, and FCC is as close as you can get to a small town feel in the metro area.

Just drive through the Broadmont neighborhood and see if you like it. Only problem is, pries are high in that neighborhood, supply is low, and $1.2 million may not get you the type of house you are expecting.

I'm from Connecticut, OP, so I can relate. The thing is, you have to let go of trying to recreate that feel, because I have not seen it in this area, certainly not anywhere near a metro. Arlington doesn't have a small town feel because it is not a small town--it is a city of over 200,000 people. I absolutely love living here because of the lifestyle, convenience, down to earth people, and family/community vibe. Arstetically it's not that pleasing for the most part, but we find the tradeoff to be well worth it.

OP, you should look in the Rosemont area of Alexandria.

While you may not find kids running through backyards (ahem, they are all fenced), you'll find playgrounds are full of children and parents after school each day.

While you may not find kids running through backyards (ahem, they are all fenced), you'll find playgrounds are full of children and parents after school each day.

You might consider a tear down-rebuild. My neighborhood, Madison Manor, is close to East Falls Church Metro, is quiet with lots of kids, and and feeds in to Yorktown. My house is 0.5 miles from the Metro and sits on a 0.4 acre lot -- which, admittedly, is unusual for this neighborhood, but it is not the only lot this size. However, the houses here do not cost close to $1.2 mil, which for me would be an upside - you could tear down and build a house to your specs.

Good luck!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you both work in DC and metro is important to you as well as a small town feel and prettier tree lined streets, then why don't you look in Bethesda/CC MD? The schools are great, there is more of a town feel to downtown Bethesda and the area of NWDC and border of MD is much prettier than metro accessible Arlington.

Arlington will be a tough choice for you, because the prettier parts are further from the Metro and near metro the options of quaint streets are pretty limited and extremely expensive, where your 1.2 mil will get you disappointing quality and super small if non existent yard. Arlington originally was even uglier and consisting of large blvds lined with car dealerships and strip malls, it was essentially cross roads due to its central location in the DC metro area. It kind of grew rapidly around the Orange line, but the old parking lots, dealerships and warehouses and busy expressways still remain.

jeezus-- it's been a long time since you've been to Arlington.

Nope, they still remain. Busy intersections, cut through traffic and unsightly strip malls are still plentiful even if it has improved a lot over the last few years. Let's be honest, Arlington has never had a reputation of a quaint pretty town. 10 years ago, this was the place people went to when they wanted cheaper living and easier commutes and it was full of low income apartments and crap box houses. There also were a lot more immigrants than yuppies in late 90s This was my impression, I don't live in Arlington and don't go there very often you are right, but when I go, I see changes, but it's still not all that, it just became very expensive because of its convenient location.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you both work in DC and metro is important to you as well as a small town feel and prettier tree lined streets, then why don't you look in Bethesda/CC MD? The schools are great, there is more of a town feel to downtown Bethesda and the area of NWDC and border of MD is much prettier than metro accessible Arlington.

Arlington will be a tough choice for you, because the prettier parts are further from the Metro and near metro the options of quaint streets are pretty limited and extremely expensive, where your 1.2 mil will get you disappointing quality and super small if non existent yard. Arlington originally was even uglier and consisting of large blvds lined with car dealerships and strip malls, it was essentially cross roads due to its central location in the DC metro area. It kind of grew rapidly around the Orange line, but the old parking lots, dealerships and warehouses and busy expressways still remain.

jeezus-- it's been a long time since you've been to Arlington.

Not the poster to whom you're responding, but there are still plenty of big parking lots near Ballston and warehouses in South Arlington. But some of the stretches that used to be semi-industrial, such as Lee Highway near Cherrydale, are full of new condos now.

Chevy Chase is much prettier than anything in Arlington, but it's not as close to Metro.

Anonymous wrote:If you both work in DC and metro is important to you as well as a small town feel and prettier tree lined streets, then why don't you look in Bethesda/CC MD? The schools are great, there is more of a town feel to downtown Bethesda and the area of NWDC and border of MD is much prettier than metro accessible Arlington.

Arlington will be a tough choice for you, because the prettier parts are further from the Metro and near metro the options of quaint streets are pretty limited and extremely expensive, where your 1.2 mil will get you disappointing quality and super small if non existent yard. Arlington originally was even uglier and consisting of large blvds lined with car dealerships and strip malls, it was essentially cross roads due to its central location in the DC metro area. It kind of grew rapidly around the Orange line, but the old parking lots, dealerships and warehouses and busy expressways still remain.

jeezus-- it's been a long time since you've been to Arlington.

OP, what would you consider walking distance to metro? If you can tolerate a slightly longer walk, there is some nice housing stock in Overlee knolls and Tara/Leeway heights. These are the neighborhoods bounded by Lee Highway to the North, 66 to the south, and Sycamore to the west. Depending on where you end up, it is probably a quarter mile to one mile walk to East Falls Church.

You may also want to look at Madison Manor (behind McKinley ES). It's across 66 from the neighborhoods just mentioned and an easy walk to EFC from anywhere in the neighborhood. Currently it seems to be the southernmost protrusion of the Yorktown district in that direction. Most of the original houses there are fairly modest 50s ramblers, but there are a number of teardown lots with nicer new homes in your price range.

If you can compromise on W-L versus Yorktown, look at the neighborhood just north of Clarendon metro, which has lots of good-sized houses and is very walkable to metro (and expensive). If you can compromise on metro accessibility, you are probably good anywhere in Yorktown. For sheer beauty, I love Bellevue Forest (if you can put up with the airplane noise).

If you both work in DC and metro is important to you as well as a small town feel and prettier tree lined streets, then why don't you look in Bethesda/CC MD? The schools are great, there is more of a town feel to downtown Bethesda and the area of NWDC and border of MD is much prettier than metro accessible Arlington.

Arlington will be a tough choice for you, because the prettier parts are further from the Metro and near metro the options of quaint streets are pretty limited and extremely expensive, where your 1.2 mil will get you disappointing quality and super small if non existent yard. Arlington originally was even uglier and consisting of large blvds lined with car dealerships and strip malls, it was essentially cross roads due to its central location in the DC metro area. It kind of grew rapidly around the Orange line, but the old parking lots, dealerships and warehouses and busy expressways still remain.

OP here. Thank you for all the feedback and for the neighborhood suggestions. We will check them out!