Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somebody in the other thread the OP referenced noted that many desirable neighborhoods are full of residents that were "grandfathered in" and could not now easily afford the houses they live in. So if you move into a $1 million house, there probably many families that bought their houses for half that a few years ago and are living a lifestyle well below what a $1 million house implies. So this would pose a favorable force on OP's concerns about being "outclassed" by neighbors.

Waving hand-- Over here! We are in southern McLean HHI of $150-$180k. We could not afford our current home and still keep our current work/family life balance. However, unless poster has children in MS and HS, that is changing fast. Families with younger kids definitely make more than the MS/HS cohort. We used to call our section of McLean the "braownbag" section, but that is changing faster than the teardowns are being turned into McMansions.

This stuff makes me upset but whatever. We have a HHI of over 300K but since we just started out and are in our early 30s and have high kids costs we don't have enough saved to buy in places where people make half.

Why is that upsetting to you. The pp just stated her HHI but not how hard she has worked to afford her lifestyle. I have a similar HHI and I live in a well over 1 million home, but we've worked and invested since we were in our early 20's. We are very handy with our hands and have invested in real estate by buying shitty homes and worked at it ourselves, we were landlords while our friends were partying in college. So yes, you make more money than we do, probably smarter too, but not more deserving of a better lifestyle, we likely have worked harder. But it's easier to think there's come kind of inheritance involve, not good planning and hard work.

I'm sure most people in DC work hard, whether hammering and painting or attorneying it teaching.

Please do not come off so much better than everyone else because you had the risk profile and resources to afford to be a real estate speculator while still in college. Most of us were borrowing money to pay for college.

You can afford hat fancy neighborhood only because the bubble paid off your speculation; your elbow grease and 'hard work' really had nothing to do with it and added little real value. You just won the roulette wheel, but with a speculative leveraged bet like real estate (like saying you graduated and didn't have a job and the bubble wasn't pushing up prices) you would quickly go bankrupt. Or be bailed out by family, I suspect.

If you have said I married a guy with a plain and who knows how to put is nose to the grinder you would be right. But you're completely wrong about you speculative idea. We moved here 4 years ago for our jobs from an average to low real estate market. We were shocked by the sticker price for real estate. It took us a year to recover from our shock and then we went to work. In our home state we had 6 rental units we have been renting for 15 years. Being a landlord, handyman, accountant for 6 units is no walk in the park when dealing with some of the renters we've had to deal with. Anyway, moving here meant we had to sell some of our real estate investments. We put down $750,000 on a 1.2 million dollar home that is now worth about 1.6 million. If we sell the rest of the stuff we can pay off the mortgage, but we're keeping them to pay for kids college. We're able to afford this area on < 200k because of elbow and grease hard work not real estate speculation.

Umm you have 6 rental units you bought BEFORE THE BUBBLE so please spare us and get over your hard work bullshit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somebody in the other thread the OP referenced noted that many desirable neighborhoods are full of residents that were "grandfathered in" and could not now easily afford the houses they live in. So if you move into a $1 million house, there probably many families that bought their houses for half that a few years ago and are living a lifestyle well below what a $1 million house implies. So this would pose a favorable force on OP's concerns about being "outclassed" by neighbors.

Waving hand-- Over here! We are in southern McLean HHI of $150-$180k. We could not afford our current home and still keep our current work/family life balance. However, unless poster has children in MS and HS, that is changing fast. Families with younger kids definitely make more than the MS/HS cohort. We used to call our section of McLean the "braownbag" section, but that is changing faster than the teardowns are being turned into McMansions.

This stuff makes me upset but whatever. We have a HHI of over 300K but since we just started out and are in our early 30s and have high kids costs we don't have enough saved to buy in places where people make half.

Why is that upsetting to you. The pp just stated her HHI but not how hard she has worked to afford her lifestyle. I have a similar HHI and I live in a well over 1 million home, but we've worked and invested since we were in our early 20's. We are very handy with our hands and have invested in real estate by buying shitty homes and worked at it ourselves, we were landlords while our friends were partying in college. So yes, you make more money than we do, probably smarter too, but not more deserving of a better lifestyle, we likely have worked harder. But it's easier to think there's come kind of inheritance involve, not good planning and hard work.

I'm sure most people in DC work hard, whether hammering and painting or attorneying it teaching.

Please do not come off so much better than everyone else because you had the risk profile and resources to afford to be a real estate speculator while still in college. Most of us were borrowing money to pay for college.

You can afford hat fancy neighborhood only because the bubble paid off your speculation; your elbow grease and 'hard work' really had nothing to do with it and added little real value. You just won the roulette wheel, but with a speculative leveraged bet like real estate (like saying you graduated and didn't have a job and the bubble wasn't pushing up prices) you would quickly go bankrupt. Or be bailed out by family, I suspect.

If you have said I married a guy with a plain and who knows how to put is nose to the grinder you would be right. But you're completely wrong about you speculative idea. We moved here 4 years ago for our jobs from an average to low real estate market. We were shocked by the sticker price for real estate. It took us a year to recover from our shock and then we went to work. In our home state we had 6 rental units we have been renting for 15 years. Being a landlord, handyman, accountant for 6 units is no walk in the park when dealing with some of the renters we've had to deal with. Anyway, moving here meant we had to sell some of our real estate investments. We put down $750,000 on a 1.2 million dollar home that is now worth about 1.6 million. If we sell the rest of the stuff we can pay off the mortgage, but we're keeping them to pay for kids college. We're able to afford this area on < 200k because of elbow and grease hard work not real estate speculation.

Anonymous wrote:[/b]

Yes, this. These are the people who settle in Del Ray, South Arlington, PG County, and the cheaper parts of DC. And it really is possible for children to thrive in these places, but it can mean playing the choice/charter games and it certainly means more general anxiety and worry about school than parents in Bethesda and McLean have. More constant vigilance, if you will.

I completely agree with this! I live on Capitol Hill and I am very involved and vigilant about our kids' education. I think the vigilance will pay off and I find it deeply rewarding and satisfying work, but I understand that is not everone's cup of tea!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don't you buy a smaller, less expensive house in a close-in area like Bloomingdale or Capitol Hill, and use the money you saved for private school?

. I suspect private schools will have many of same problems of only wealthy students, perhaps worse than in close in suburbs?? Is there a Mecca for middle class parents that value education AND not driving forever?

I think the problem is that families in the <$200k range (which is not middle class by the way) expect the sort of education that comes in close-in places like Bethesda, Upper NW, or McLean, which come with the wealthier families. The very best schools come with the very highest costs. If you do not want to pay those costs, then you must adjust your idea of what is acceptable in schools.

Yes, this. These are the people who settle in Del Ray, South Arlington, PG County, and the cheaper parts of DC. And it really is possible for children to thrive in these places, but it can mean playing the choice/charter games and it certainly means more general anxiety and worry about school than parents in Bethesda and McLean have. More constant vigilance, if you will.

Wow, I'm surprised this poster says they can't afford private school! Do they have some kind of massive down payment lined up? If not, and if they are getting a $1M house, they would need a big mortgage. A mortgage of $700,000 would run them about $28,000 a year in interest alone. Interest they don't get back. If you can afford a $1M house, you can afford private school.

Anonymous wrote:Is there a Mecca for middle class parents that value education AND not driving forever?

No. Everybody wants the same things: good schools, short commute, nice house, affordable cost, good neighbors, and amenities that are convenient and abundant. You absolutely cannot have it all, and unless you have an exceptional emphasis on that list of priorities that is substantially out of line with everyone else's, you can't even have everything you want, especially around here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somebody in the other thread the OP referenced noted that many desirable neighborhoods are full of residents that were "grandfathered in" and could not now easily afford the houses they live in. So if you move into a $1 million house, there probably many families that bought their houses for half that a few years ago and are living a lifestyle well below what a $1 million house implies. So this would pose a favorable force on OP's concerns about being "outclassed" by neighbors.

Waving hand-- Over here! We are in southern McLean HHI of $150-$180k. We could not afford our current home and still keep our current work/family life balance. However, unless poster has children in MS and HS, that is changing fast. Families with younger kids definitely make more than the MS/HS cohort. We used to call our section of McLean the "braownbag" section, but that is changing faster than the teardowns are being turned into McMansions.

This stuff makes me upset but whatever. We have a HHI of over 300K but since we just started out and are in our early 30s and have high kids costs we don't have enough saved to buy in places where people make half.

Why is that upsetting to you. The pp just stated her HHI but not how hard she has worked to afford her lifestyle. I have a similar HHI and I live in a well over 1 million home, but we've worked and invested since we were in our early 20's. We are very handy with our hands and have invested in real estate by buying shitty homes and worked at it ourselves, we were landlords while our friends were partying in college. So yes, you make more money than we do, probably smarter too, but not more deserving of a better lifestyle, we likely have worked harder. But it's easier to think there's come kind of inheritance involve, not good planning and hard work.

I'm sure most people in DC work hard, whether hammering and painting or attorneying it teaching.

Please do not come off so much better than everyone else because you had the risk profile and resources to afford to be a real estate speculator while still in college. Most of us were borrowing money to pay for college.

You can afford hat fancy neighborhood only because the bubble paid off your speculation; your elbow grease and 'hard work' really had nothing to do with it and added little real value. You just won the roulette wheel, but with a speculative leveraged bet like real estate (like saying you graduated and didn't have a job and the bubble wasn't pushing up prices) you would quickly go bankrupt. Or be bailed out by family, I suspect.

New suggestions: East Bethesda, and the part of Chevy Chase that is closest to Silver Spring (near Rock Creek Park/Meadowbrook/horse stables).

You will find down-to-earth, neighborly, very intelligent people. You'll be in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School district, which does provide some diversity. Sounds like you could afford a home in one of these 2 places.

Re: What people say about size of backyard and house -- who the heck cares? My cousin and her husband almost bought a house more than they could afford (different part of the country). They didn't, and were SO glad when they had more time with their kids than some of their friends in Mcmansions. Now, their twins have started college (mine are in college). You can't get those years back.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don't you buy a smaller, less expensive house in a close-in area like Bloomingdale or Capitol Hill, and use the money you saved for private school?

. I suspect private schools will have many of same problems of only wealthy students, perhaps worse than in close in suburbs?? Is there a Mecca for middle class parents that value education AND not driving forever?

I think the problem is that families in the <$200k range (which is not middle class by the way) expect the sort of education that comes in close-in places like Bethesda, Upper NW, or McLean, which come with the wealthier families. The very best schools come with the very highest costs. If you do not want to pay those costs, then you must adjust your idea of what is acceptable in schools.

Not here

Anonymous wrote:Why don't you buy a smaller, less expensive house in a close-in area like Bloomingdale or Capitol Hill, and use the money you saved for private school?

. I suspect private schools will have many of same problems of only wealthy students, perhaps worse than in close in suburbs?? Is there a Mecca for middle class parents that value education AND not driving forever?

Anonymous wrote:Different poster here. HOW on earth does a "bubble pop properly"?

PP, you know buying houses is all timing, right?

I know this is an insanely expensive area, but I really don't think you would want to be one of the houses "grandfathered in" - resenting the big new houses, that is for sure.

Bubbles pop properly when not propped up by unelected representatives of the banks.

Even better, don't stoke bubbles in first place to help politics, like Greenspan did.

Why don't you buy a smaller, less expensive house in a close-in area like Bloomingdale or Capitol Hill, and use the money you saved for private school?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somebody in the other thread the OP referenced noted that many desirable neighborhoods are full of residents that were "grandfathered in" and could not now easily afford the houses they live in. So if you move into a $1 million house, there probably many families that bought their houses for half that a few years ago and are living a lifestyle well below what a $1 million house implies. So this would pose a favorable force on OP's concerns about being "outclassed" by neighbors.

Waving hand-- Over here! We are in southern McLean HHI of $150-$180k. We could not afford our current home and still keep our current work/family life balance. However, unless poster has children in MS and HS, that is changing fast. Families with younger kids definitely make more than the MS/HS cohort. We used to call our section of McLean the "braownbag" section, but that is changing faster than the teardowns are being turned into McMansions.

This stuff makes me upset but whatever. We have a HHI of over 300K but since we just started out and are in our early 30s and have high kids costs we don't have enough saved to buy in places where people make half.

Why is that upsetting to you. The pp just stated her HHI but not how hard she has worked to afford her lifestyle. I have a similar HHI and I live in a well over 1 million home, but we've worked and invested since we were in our early 20's. We are very handy with our hands and have invested in real estate by buying shitty homes and worked at it ourselves, we were landlords while our friends were partying in college. So yes, you make more money than we do, probably smarter too, but not more deserving of a better lifestyle, we likely have worked harder. But it's easier to think there's come kind of inheritance involve, not good planning and hard work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not live close to work? You could find something nice for $1 million on Capitol hill and SFH on the Hill hold value extremely well.

I live a few blocks from Eastern Market metro and would not want to live anywhere else in the world. Seriously. My whole family feels the same way.

You could walk to work-- or bicycle. Imagine how nice that would be!

and it is a great place to age in, too. Lots of empty nesters move from suburbs into Captiol Hill. why not just skip the suburbs entirely?

what about this place?

http://www.redfin.com/DC/Washington/613-A-St-SE-20003/home/9899937

Off street parking, Brent elementary gets a 9 out of 10 on Great schools (and it is a really great school!), lots of public parks near by. Its unusual for SFH on Capitol Hill to have a backyard, so no one will blink a the lack of one at this house. instead, kids go to parks: Yards, Garfield, Lincoln, Marion etc. You could walk to work. your family could walk to the Mall. Am I missing something?

Wow, this would be sublime. And I like the diversity in school demographics. What about middle/high school, as we can't afford private?

Stuart-hobkins is considered a good middle school by DCPS standards. And it is only a handful of blocks from this house. The house is not inbounrdary, but there's a good chance you'd get in since the IB is so much farther away. In fact, since boundrys are in the process of being redrawn, I would bank that you would get S-H at some point pretty soon for this house.
My don't live so close to S-H so a couple of charter middle schools is in our sights: Washington Latin and or BASIS bound. Brent lost many of it's 45h grader population to those schools, so that is a bit bitter-sweet. Latin and BASIS do seem like very good middle schools. Also take a look at Jefferson that SW neighborhood is pretty exciting (marina, Arena stage, crazy close to Smithsonian museums, etc.). Jefferson used to be considered on of the very best middle schools in DC, but that was a decade or so back when the principal had a very tight tracking program.

How old are your kids? the landscape for middle schools could be totally different by the time they are of age. If you don't get into any charter that you like and DCPS is not an option, you could easily rent out this house and rent in a dreamy middle school area for a few years. When the renters leave and you are ready to move back into the city, voila! -- Easy retrurn to city living!

YMMV!