Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No offense, but your plan sounds horribly boring for DINKS.

+1. Why on earth would someone without school aged kids move to these locations? They look the same as suburbs anywhere and are way lot edpxemsive. Live in dc, ditch the cars and enjoy life. You’ll have the rest of your life to live in the burbs.

He is in his late 30 and GF is in mid 30, and they are getting married soon. Better to buy something long term. That clock is running close to the finish line for GF.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think 2x income is overly conservative here. FWIW I have an HHI of $125k (also expected to go up, but not too dramatically), have been renting a couple years, and am now looking to buy in the $275-400k range in MD. (We are savers and have over 20% down but want to be cautious about monthly payments at our income level.) 2x income is just...not a thing at $125k here. I am interested to hear people say money will go further in a year or two, do you really think prices will fall more than appreciation and interest rates will rise?

OP have you considered Frederick County if you work in Rockville? You can get more for your $ there.

OP here. We've looked at homes in southern Frederick County and couldn't be happier. The Urbana area has some beautiful townhomes that would fit the top-end of our budget. Also, they have stellar schools.

Though I'm curious to find out where most folks like us live ($175k-$185k HHI), and if their in so-so areas, desirable or undesirable communities. Urbana is at the top of our list choice wise.

False to the bolded

Totally wrong. Urbana has one of the best high school in the area.
The school is rated 9/10 by GreatSchools.
https://www.greatschools.org/maryland/ijamsville/646-Urbana-High-School/
And it is a top 10 school in the state of Maryland according to USNews ranking.
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/maryland/districts/frederick-county-public-schools/urbana-high-9100

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think 2x income is overly conservative here. FWIW I have an HHI of $125k (also expected to go up, but not too dramatically), have been renting a couple years, and am now looking to buy in the $275-400k range in MD. (We are savers and have over 20% down but want to be cautious about monthly payments at our income level.) 2x income is just...not a thing at $125k here. I am interested to hear people say money will go further in a year or two, do you really think prices will fall more than appreciation and interest rates will rise?

OP have you considered Frederick County if you work in Rockville? You can get more for your $ there.

OP here. We've looked at homes in southern Frederick County and couldn't be happier. The Urbana area has some beautiful townhomes that would fit the top-end of our budget. Also, they have stellar schools.

Though I'm curious to find out where most folks like us live ($175k-$185k HHI), and if their in so-so areas, desirable or undesirable communities. Urbana is at the top of our list choice wise.

False to the bolded

OP here. Can you please elaborate on Urbana not having stellar schools. I'm hearing from multiple sources that they are not what they used to be and are facing overcrowding issues. Even though we're DINKS (as another poster put it), we'd still like to be in a good school district.

Also Urbana and clarksburg have no yard or balcony privacy. They are like really really big townhouses. All smooshed together, very cookie cutter. Not a fan, especially if you have to commute.

We have a HHI of anywhere between 160k-205k depending on the year. We have 4 kids. When i go back to work we’d be making between $200-270k depending.

DH bought our house for 275k in early 2000’s and it’s Now worth 400k. He still doesn’t think we can afford to move, even with the 100k in equity. Houses we (me) are looking at are between high 600’s-700’s.

So there’s that.

Rockville has some nice neighborhoods. Why not cut your commute and consider those?

Everything here depends on commute. Once she finds a job, then look at commute times to both jobs and determine the best location for a home.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No offense, but your plan sounds horribly boring for DINKS.

+1. Why on earth would someone without school aged kids move to these locations? They look the same as suburbs anywhere and are way lot edpxemsive. Live in dc, ditch the cars and enjoy life. You’ll have the rest of your life to live in the burbs.

Stupid post. OP doesn’t want to spend thrice the money to live in an old house the size of a prison cell in a dirty DC neighborhood.

Anonymous wrote:No offense, but your plan sounds horribly boring for DINKS.

+1. Why on earth would someone without school aged kids move to these locations? They look the same as suburbs anywhere and are way lot edpxemsive. Live in dc, ditch the cars and enjoy life. You’ll have the rest of your life to live in the burbs.

Too many stairs in a townhouse for an elderly parent? I’d look for a ranch in the Manor Woods area of Rockville. You can find one that needs updating writhing for budget of around $400K and the schools are good.

No offense, but your plan sounds horribly boring for DINKS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think 2x income is overly conservative here. FWIW I have an HHI of $125k (also expected to go up, but not too dramatically), have been renting a couple years, and am now looking to buy in the $275-400k range in MD. (We are savers and have over 20% down but want to be cautious about monthly payments at our income level.) 2x income is just...not a thing at $125k here. I am interested to hear people say money will go further in a year or two, do you really think prices will fall more than appreciation and interest rates will rise?

OP have you considered Frederick County if you work in Rockville? You can get more for your $ there.

OP here. We've looked at homes in southern Frederick County and couldn't be happier. The Urbana area has some beautiful townhomes that would fit the top-end of our budget. Also, they have stellar schools.

Though I'm curious to find out where most folks like us live ($175k-$185k HHI), and if their in so-so areas, desirable or undesirable communities. Urbana is at the top of our list choice wise.

False to the bolded

Daycare is pretty expensive in this region, so make sure you factor that in if you have young kids or plan on having them. Unless you mom will help out.

OP here. As mentioned in initial post, this is my first post on DCUM. Thanks for all of your suggestions (even the ones where I've thanked God that I don't have sensitive skin, lol).

I should have probably included more in my posts, so here it goes: I'm in my late 30's and GF is in her mid 30's; after 18+ years we're hopefully not going anywhere. Marriage is on the table, and something we would either do before or right after relocation. Only after GF has found a full-time position here in her field (HR hiring coordinator) will we consider purchasing a home. We are worried about her finding a job, but hopefully it will not be an onerous task (she's mid-level and seeking additional HR certifications). If she doesn't find a job within the federal government (she's Schedule A), she may apply for a position with the State or a local municipality.

While we'll be renting initially, we still want to be prepared for 2-3 years down the road when we're ready to buy. This post is for us to gauge what other's thoughts are, and we appear to be on track. We also thought that we should be conservative and not take a mortgage more than 2 to 2 1/2x our HHI. We're just surprised to find real estate here so expensive for what you get (that's coming from NYers), and wondered if others are borrowing more than the 2 to 2 1/2x HHI rule. I guess one note of mention is that we're planning on applying for a VA loan, which we've heard is extremely strict on containing buyers within the HHI rule and really looks at debt ratios. GF has no CC debt, but does have student loans. I have no student loans, but CC debt of which will all be paid off by time of purchase. Even though VA loans require minimum down, we'd still like to put down more than what is required (will save once CC debt is down).

A large TH would serve us well; however, my somewhat elderly mother will more than likely be joining us (yes, I'm nuts, and yes, GF and my mom have a good relationship). As such, we've had to look at larger and more expensive SFHs. My mother has about $500k equity in her home, and has volunteered to assist, but we rather do it all on our own. Was just really trying to determine how much home we could afford without her assistance. While I'm not looking for a McMansion, I'd like to have enough room to where everyone is comfortable. Frederick Co seems to fit that bill.

As I mentioned previously, for the last year or so, I've been working out of Rockville for a week every few months. It has given me a chance to ride I-270 on occassion, and while it's a nightmare of a commute at times, it's not undoable. But all of this will greatly depend on where GF finds employment. If it's down in DC, Frederick is completely off the table and we'll look at other areas close-in. Not to get into politics, but we've even looked at parts of PG county, and while their homes are affordable, we're surprised by the school ratings, which we know are not everything.

Anonymous wrote:OP, Urbana in Frederick County is a very nice place to live. Schools are top-notch. A PP mentioned traffic nightmare on 270. That's true but because you would commute to Rockville, it would be 30min on average and that's not bad. My sister lives in Urbana and commutes to Gaithersburg/Shady Grove every morning.
If you want to be a little bit closer, you should consider looking in Clarksburg as well.

We live in a $650k home on a $170k income. We are very comfortable with it. We stretched to buy a house in a neighborhood that we really love.
We are risk takers and have been rewarded more often than not. But I wouldn't necessarily recommend you do the same.

30 min from Frederick to Rockville during regular commute times? OP, this is totally misleading.