Buying in Howard County versus Baltimore County (Catonsville, Pikesville: real estate, homes)

[mams99]

We really like the planned Community of Howard County but find other Baltimore County towns also very nice - Catonsville is OK and Owings Mills and Pikesville seem like good alternatives too, but is there a downside to living in Baltimore County versus Howard County? Everyone raves about Howard County, I know, but I'm curious how the schools and such are with these other communities?

[Bong477]

On *average* Howard county is nicer with better schools but significantly more expensive. Howard county is probably less ethnically diverse as well. You can find nice parts of Baltimore County and not so nice parts of Howard county though (without trying all that hard)... they are both fairly large areas.

[checking out]

Originally Posted by Bong477

On *average* Howard county is nicer with better schools but significantly more expensive. Howard county is probably less ethnically diverse as well. You can find nice parts of Baltimore County and not so nice parts of Howard county though (without trying all that hard)... they are both fairly large areas.

Huh? Guess you haven't been to Howard County lately.

[Bong477]

I live in the city, but yes, I do go to Howard county regularly. Compared to Baltimore County, Howard county is more white, although not by a huge margin. Compared to Balt County, Howard has a slightly higher percentage of asians and lower percentage of blacks but they aren't vastly different demographics like say, comparing Baltimore City to either place.

As I said, both are big places and you'll find specific areas that have a high percentage of blacks, asians, and hispanics in both locations.

[jonjj]

Diversity in Howard County:

• White Non-Hispanic (72.6%)
• Black (14.4%)
• Hispanic (3.0%)
• Korean (2.5%)
• Two or more races (2.2%)
• Asian Indian (1.9%)
• Chinese (1.7%)
• Other race (1.1%)
• American Indian (0.7%)
• Other Asian (0.6%)

Diversity in Baltimore County:

• White Non-Hispanic (73.4%)
• Black (20.1%)
• Hispanic (1.8%)
• Two or more races (1.4%)
• Asian Indian (0.8%)
• Korean (0.7%)
• Chinese (0.6%)
• Other race (0.6%)
• American Indian (0.6%)

All of the information came from the city-data site. Just look it up for more.

[mams99]

In this case, I wasn't talking so much about diversity (as I had looked it up and it's GREAT stuff they have on the database), but other things about living within Baltimore County versus out of it.

Like, the county is the same school system as the city. What are the ramifications of that? What does it do with resale of a home? What are the trends of moving into or out of Baltimore County. Tax difference? Etc.

[Bong477]

Baltimore county and city are different school systems. Most taxes, including real estate, are substantially higher in the city. You will pay somewhere in the neighborhood of double the tax on your home in the city vs outside.

[mams99]

See, learned something new. I thought they were the same school system. Because I hear people sound kind of 'downish' about Baltimore county schools (when compared to Howard).

[trickymost]

A lot of choosing Baltimore County vs Howard will depend on where the people in your household will work.

The good schools in Howard county are excellent, the good schools in Baltimore county are excellent, but slightly less excellent than Howard.

The biggest downside to Baltimore county is that it is in the same state as Montgomery and Howard, and will never be able to compete just looking at statistics. The other downsides, IMO, are offset by the positives.

The only things which Howard has to offer which Baltimore County doesn't yet, IMO, are more public walking/biking/running trails and higher wages/better job market (mainly b/c of proximity to DC as well as presence of Ft. Meade/NSA.

Housing costs are much less for comparable homes in comparable neighborhoods in Baltimore County vs Howard County. For me, as an example, the difference in cost of living means my commute to work in DC metro sucks, but my wife can afford to be a full time stay at home mom and we don't need to scrimp and save. If we lived in Howard, we'd both need to work, we'd probably need to hire a nanny/au-pair, and in the end would have much more stress and probably less take home pay at the end of the day.

[rubytue]

Hi mams! I tracked you down... This is the subform I was talking about here: http://www.city-data.com/forum/real-estate/