How do you even find out the racial makeup? When I view houses I see 2 Neighbors. I do check the racial makeup of the elementary school. I've avoided a school area where my minority kid would be only one of two in her class. The area was 90% white.

I'm more concerned with political affiliation than race.

I happen to live close to downtown DC and we consider diversity a plus. I love that my preschooler interacts with professional people of all races on a daily basis and hope it leaves an impression on him.

That said, if I ever had an overwhelming desire to move to the burbs for safety, schools, and the posh suburban life (unlikely), yeah let's be honest that I'm going to take race into account in the sense that if I find out the neighborhood is 90 percent black (say pg county) that it's going to be a pretty clear sign that we probably wouldn't fit in. Even the same if I found out a neighborhood is 90 percent Jewish. These are communities that are very tight, have strong religious affiliations and otherwise have some core cultural cornerstones that we either may not totally jive with or alternatively may feel excluded from. Anybody on here arguing that this doesn't still happen in droves is deluding themselves. That said, if my agent drove me to a nice posh suburb and there were some white kids biking on the street, a black family walking a baby, and some Hispanic kids playing in the yard, it would be a big plus to me - as opposed to seeing a bunch of white people doing all that stuff, which would freak me out about the burbs and probably convince me it wasn't the right place for me!

Anonymous wrote:No pp, MoCo high schools absolutely aren't all a consortium! Hence the massive differences in real estate.

Jeff did you start this thread just to increase your page views this month? Because it touches every DCUM hot button!

OP here: who is Jeff?

I see. My kids are not anywhere near HS age so I have not done much research on MoCo HS. From a quick google search I see that the "DCC" only includes schools east of county, which tend be predominately black and hispanic. I find that peculiar. And it does explain a lot in terms of housing.

perhaps black families aren't buying in that neighborhood precisely because they know they aren't welcome by neighbors like yours?

FYI we have had an influx of black families moving to our neighborhood, and they have all been much better neighbors than the families they bought the house from! Took care of their yard, and made sure their kids are not running amuk around the neighborhood. One kind boy even now mows the yard of our elderly neighbor (for free). So no, they have not brought our property value down, but rather added a community aspect to our neighborhood that was lacking before!

Not so much the racial makeup but whether or not it was permissible for owners to rent out their homes. There is an HOA but it's really just a covenant of rules. We don't pay any dues. Papers for conduct are signed at the sell.

No loose animals.
No multifamily living.
No renting or leasing.
Yards have to be kept up.
No parking on grass in yards.
Home upkeep.
No non operational autos parked in driveways.

Regular stuff.

There are many black families, many middle eastern, many whites. Nobody cares about your color. They care about home values.

My new neighbors are black and the lady told my husband she sold her urban home because the neighborhood was ghetto. LOL.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The truth is that racist government-sanctioned housing policies for a long time DID mean that an influx of non-Whites would tank home prices in affluent areas.

If you want to understand the impact of housing policies on race and race relations in this country, I would strongly recommend that you read this article: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

I am a conservative (generally) Republican, and I thank you for posting this. I have started reading it and find it very interesting. I look forward to finishing it later tonight.

OP: here. Thank you for this.

Funny, before moving to the states, I always thought of liberals as more inclusive. If thats the case, then why are liberal cities so segregated and there is such a disparity between blacks/hispanics and others i terms of education, wealth and health? I know the answers to this are loaded, but it makes me wonder what liberal politicians are really doing to advance "equality." Perhaps the idea of equality is joke in a capitalistic society. I digress.

Sounds like Good Fences to me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Fences

No pp, MoCo high schools absolutely aren't all a consortium! Hence the massive differences in real estate.

Jeff did you start this thread just to increase your page views this month? Because it touches every DCUM hot button!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where is this neighborhood where it's apparently 1968? Jesus.

Eh, immigrant Asians are pretty racist about this stuff. I had a friend who wanted to buy a condo in Shaw, his older Chinese immigrant parents were gifting him the $100K downpayment (he's an only child, a total Chinese "princeling"). Parents refused to give him the money unless he bought in Dupont or Georgetown, citing that they thought "those people" in Shaw would bring down property values.

His parents are stupid rich, live in a gorgeous part of Southern California.

Well they aren't stupid. good advice.

X2 there is a reason shaw cost less and isn't as stable as the other two. There are still huge pockets of poverty there and that holds down values

Property values are skyrocketing in Shaw and there are bidding wars for any and everything. Meanwhile condos in Georgetown are lingering on the market. But you know, whatever, black people = bad.

Anonymous wrote:I look and make sure there aren't Hispanics in the area. I am against catering to illegal aliens. I look at the school zone, ESOL and FARMS. I also don't like high Jewish populations because they are very inclusive, self-centered and snobby. So living in MoCo, it is very hard to not find one or the other. Otherwise Asians, Europeans, African Americans, Indians etc.... love the diversity.

1. Hispanic <> illegal. There are plenty of Hispanics that are not illegal. You realize that Hispanics are native to the US, that the whole of the SW of the US used to be owned by Mexico, and there are generations of Mexicans that have lived in the US.
2. Most of my immediate neighbors are Jewish. They are very friendly towards, and my kids play with their's. We are mixed white/Asian couple.

Like others, we purposefully chose a neighborhood that was diverse. I wouldn't want to live in an area that was 90% of any one race. That's not our ideal. We also have several black families in our area, and there are a few homes on the market right now. The only type of people that I hope move here are ones that have kids my kids' ages. Home prices seem to be doing fairly well. We are not close in, so the home values won't ever be as good as closer in, but this is a great diverse area, with good schools.

Anonymous wrote:DC is so pricey, that we based our purchase mostly on what we could afford, then school district. Anything else didn't really get to be a priority or a concern.

I hear this quite often. People chose their home based on school stats. One of my neighbors recently moved from Silver Spring because she wanted her son to go to Bethesda Chevy Chase HS (our zone HS) instead of Blair, which from what my co-workers say is very diverse and a "good school." My neighbor cited test scores as the difference. The differences between the schools in my opinion, weren't that much to uproot her family across the county. Is her son going regress if he goes to Blair? (On a separate note, I didn't get why her son could not apply to Bethesda Chevy Chase HS through the school district's consortium. Wouldn't MCPS's consortium include all district HS schools? Otherwise what is it really?)

When I hear this, I always feel like its a "chicken or the egg" kind of issue. From some of the data I have seen in the Washington Post on MCPS and local blogs prior to coming here, it appears that kids with predominately white/asian students have higher standardized test scores, which appears to be the primary driver behind school rankings in the country in general. If is the primary driver for housing then those families with more means can essentially self segregate and you end up with schools that are just as segregated as housing. Based on this, race seems to be an important factor in home buying decision making.

I guess what I don't get is, what happens if your county re-districts? Do you move again to achieve the same desired effect? I thought the greatest factor in a child's success was their parents, not their school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where is this neighborhood where it's apparently 1968? Jesus.

Eh, immigrant Asians are pretty racist about this stuff. I had a friend who wanted to buy a condo in Shaw, his older Chinese immigrant parents were gifting him the $100K downpayment (he's an only child, a total Chinese "princeling"). Parents refused to give him the money unless he bought in Dupont or Georgetown, citing that they thought "those people" in Shaw would bring down property values.

His parents are stupid rich, live in a gorgeous part of Southern California.

Well they aren't stupid. good advice.

X2 there is a reason shaw cost less and isn't as stable as the other two. There are still huge pockets of poverty there and that holds down values

Well I'm one of those black people. I used to live in a 95% white suburb in Ohio before moving to DC.
I wanted a neighborhood that was truly diverse and when we bought a home we chose eastern MoCo.
My old neighborhood wasn't welcoming and we had neighbors that flat out said my kids could not play with their kids.

When we buy a home we look at the FARMS rates of the local schools. If the FARMD rate is low, then we buy. I don't care about race at all.

When the farms is low everything falls into place and property values stay strong.