Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. What about the houses in Takoma Park, MD that are zoned for Blair HS? The home prices look very reasonable. Those look appealing too.

Thanks for your input!

Takoma Park is great. Real estate is a bit more expensive than in Silver Spring, because Takoma Park has additional town taxes. Residents do get town services for those extra taxes, but it’s something to factor in. A comparably priced house in Takoma Park will cost more in monthly payments than a house in Silver Spring due to the taxes.
And by the way, I’m a single mom who has lived in Silver Spring for 14 years. I love it, and have never experienced any crime. Silver Spring and Takoma Park are great places for single moms, because there are all sorts of families here (straight couples, gay couples, single parents,etc).

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. What about the houses in Takoma Park, MD that are zoned for Blair HS? The home prices look very reasonable. Those look appealing too.

Thanks for your input!

You have no idea what you are talking about. I work in the industry and trust me we are doing fine with Discovery leaving.

Further, a developer just brought the Discovery building for $70 million and is doing $30 million of renovations so you can just stop with your sky is falling post. I'm tired of your agenda and am reporting you to Jeff.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
OP - I would 100% go for W&L.

I cry when I look at the appreciation in Arlington for houses since 2005 compared to Silver Spring. Just cry. Houses that sold for 600K-800K in Arlington have sold for 1.2-1.6 M in the past year or two. Silver Spring in the 600-800K range is barely recovering to 2005 levels. There is nothing in Silver Spring to draw people in except DC getting expensive. Discovery is gone. There is nothing interesting on the horizon. The schools are the same as they have always been which is undesirable to many buyers. Arlington has the job markets in VA and DC. Appreciation on the 2M houses in Arlington very well may flatten out but there's still room for the 500K THs to appreciate.

Discovery is not gone. They just leased a smaller space across the street. https://www.bisnow.com/washington-dc/news/office/d...ter-selling-headquarters-92633

No Discovery moved to NY. It left behind a small portion that it sold off with the rights to keep the name. The hit is more than Discovery too as Discovery was an anchor for other small media companies. They have been slowly moving away too. There was high hope years ago that Discovery, a film institute and all the creative secondary businesses would make the area flourish. Back then it really seemed that Silver Spring was better positioned than Arlington. It all failed. Arlington was smart in building luxury high rises at the right time and VA was smart in being business friendly. People who chose Arlington made $$$$ in equity, people in Silver Spring did not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
OP - I would 100% go for W&L.

I cry when I look at the appreciation in Arlington for houses since 2005 compared to Silver Spring. Just cry. Houses that sold for 600K-800K in Arlington have sold for 1.2-1.6 M in the past year or two. Silver Spring in the 600-800K range is barely recovering to 2005 levels. There is nothing in Silver Spring to draw people in except DC getting expensive. Discovery is gone. There is nothing interesting on the horizon. The schools are the same as they have always been which is undesirable to many buyers. Arlington has the job markets in VA and DC. Appreciation on the 2M houses in Arlington very well may flatten out but there's still room for the 500K THs to appreciate.

Discovery is not gone. They just leased a smaller space across the street. https://www.bisnow.com/washington-dc/news/office/d...ter-selling-headquarters-92633

No Discovery moved to NY. It left behind a small portion that it sold off with the rights to keep the name. The hit is more than Discovery too as Discovery was an anchor for other small media companies. They have been slowly moving away too. There was high hope years ago that Discovery, a film institute and all the creative secondary businesses would make the area flourish. Back then it really seemed that Silver Spring was better positioned than Arlington. It all failed. Arlington was smart in building luxury high rises at the right time and VA was smart in being business friendly. People who chose Arlington made $$$$ in equity, people in Silver Spring did not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. I appreciate all of the input. Only folks who know both Silver Spring and Arlington will be able to answer this but is Silver Spring thought of as “similar” (in demographics and school quality) to south Arlington and Bethesda/Chevy Chase is thought of as similar to North Arlington (whiter, wealthier, schools with higher Great Schools ratings)?

The schools matter to me A LOT, and as much as I’m skeptical of the Great Schools ratings, it’s all I have to go on. They are generally good for Silver Spring. Montgomery Blair and James Hubert Blake are both 6s. Einstein is a 5.

OP, Great Schools ratings should not be "all you have to go on" if you are truly interested in what makes a good school for a given child. You can do further investigation into e.g. the peer cohort at given schools (including what the data look like for them), special programs available, and what the local community is like.

It sounds like you don't want to consider that kind of information, though, so you'd best just find some housing in Bethesda or Chevy Chase and call it a day.

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. I appreciate all of the input. Only folks who know both Silver Spring and Arlington will be able to answer this but is Silver Spring thought of as “similar” (in demographics and school quality) to south Arlington and Bethesda/Chevy Chase is thought of as similar to North Arlington (whiter, wealthier, schools with higher Great Schools ratings)?

The schools matter to me A LOT, and as much as I’m skeptical of the Great Schools ratings, it’s all I have to go on. They are generally good for Silver Spring. Montgomery Blair and James Hubert Blake are both 6s. Einstein is a 5.

Anonymous wrote:
OP - I would 100% go for W&L.

I cry when I look at the appreciation in Arlington for houses since 2005 compared to Silver Spring. Just cry. Houses that sold for 600K-800K in Arlington have sold for 1.2-1.6 M in the past year or two. Silver Spring in the 600-800K range is barely recovering to 2005 levels. There is nothing in Silver Spring to draw people in except DC getting expensive. Discovery is gone. There is nothing interesting on the horizon. The schools are the same as they have always been which is undesirable to many buyers. Arlington has the job markets in VA and DC. Appreciation on the 2M houses in Arlington very well may flatten out but there's still room for the 500K THs to appreciate.

Discovery is not gone. They just leased a smaller space across the street. https://www.bisnow.com/washington-dc/news/office/d...ter-selling-headquarters-92633

Anonymous wrote:

The schools matter to me A LOT, and as much as I’m skeptical of the Great Schools ratings, it’s all I have to go on. They are generally good for Silver Spring. Montgomery Blair and James Hubert Blake are both 6s. Einstein is a 5

Blair's poor performance is masked because there us a magnet that pulls in the best students from many schools, including the top performers. The general ed program is not good even though many non-magnet posters pretend to ride on the coat tails of the magnet students. If schools are very important to you, I don't know why you would consider the worst schools in MCPS.

The schools matter to me A LOT, and as much as I’m skeptical of the Great Schools ratings, it’s all I have to go on. They are generally good for Silver Spring. Montgomery Blair and James Hubert Blake are both 6s. Einstein is a 5

Anonymous wrote:OP - I would 100% go for W&L.

I cry when I look at the appreciation in Arlington for houses since 2005 compared to Silver Spring. Just cry. Houses that sold for 600K-800K in Arlington have sold for 1.2-1.6 M in the past year or two. Silver Spring in the 600-800K range is barely recovering to 2005 levels. There is nothing in Silver Spring to draw people in except DC getting expensive. Discovery is gone. There is nothing interesting on the horizon. The schools are the same as they have always been which is undesirable to many buyers. Arlington has the job markets in VA and DC. Appreciation on the 2M houses in Arlington very well may flatten out but there's still room for the 500K THs to appreciate.