North Beach, Owings, Chesapeake Beach (Ocean City, Chesapeake Beach: housing, condos, rental)

[melzee]

Moving from RI to Maryland, came across these communities,,any info,,housing prices, areas , streets to stay away from?? We aren't concerned with school districts, kids are off and in college,,2 professional adults looking for a safe friendly community

[Ex-Ithacan]

Here's a thread I posted on another site. Hope this helps a bit. I actually live in Owings, and love the area.


I live a couple of miles from the Twin Beaches towns of North Beach & Chesapeake Beach on the west shore of the Chesapeake Bay. The towns border each other and use to be the summer playground for the DC area back before The Bay Bridge access to the Ocean City, MD/Delaware Beaches resorts made them the places to spend ones vacation. There was even a railroad (now defunct) set up to bring DC tourists the 35 miles between the city and the twin beaches activities. After the towns lost their allure, they went through a decline and turned into affordable (if isolated) places for year round living. They actually got a reputation as a rough area since most of the residents were blue collar and tended to look the other way if there was some "victimless" crime type activities going on.

In the last couple of decades the twins have experienced quite a change. As commuting to the exurbs became more the norm, the twins started seeing lots of white collar folks and well-to-do retirees moving in. Not sure I could afford to move into my house (I've been here for over 15 years now) nowadays. Anyway, here are some pics from last Sunday morning. Not great, but I think you'll get the idea. btw, there's about 1,800 people in North Beach, 3,200 in Chesapeake Beach, and another 5,000 in housing on the outskirts of the twins.

1. North Beach shoreline


2. The old town hall (suppose to build a new one)


3. North Beach Health Center


4.


5. Senior Citizen Activity Center


6. Wine/gift shop


7. Bed & Breakfast


8. A man relaxes with his dog and a cup of coffee at Sweet Sue's (the building in the background is a restaurant (Thursdays) the wife & I go to every once in a while)


9. Candy store & laundromat


10. All right, who does the empty beer can belong to?


11. Old house (for sale) on left, new one on right.


12. Row of million dollar homes facing the bay.


13. Across the street from homes above, breakwall for the bay.



There's a boardwalk along the shoreline in North Beach. It's 1/2 mile long, and the center of community activity. Needless to say, property along the boardwalk has become quite valuable in recent years. Much of the boardwalk was damaged by Hurricane Isabel back in '03, but all has been repaired now.

14. Welcome center on the boardwalk.


15. Swimming restricted to the small beaches, fishing to the fishing pier near the welcome center.


16. Nearly all the houses along this section were damaged by the hurricane.


17. One of the older homes which survived the storm.


18. Price for one of the renovated homes on the boardwalk.


19. The house for sale from the backside (double lot on this side).


20. The same house from the bayside boardwalk.


21. Another little gem which made it through the storm.


22. Signs, signs, everywhere signs....


23.


24.


25. Old hotel (from the heydays) turned into condos.


26. Empty lot next to above condos, which is poised for development.


27.


28. View up the boardwalk from the south end.


29. Some private piers from the south end of boardwalk.


30. What's at the end of those piers above.


31. Another old hotel turned into condos.


32. Bonus spiral staircase and lookout for the top corner unit.


33. New condos across the street from the North Beach Fire Dept. (back side of bldg)


34. Looking south along the shore from the south end of the boardwalk.


Thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed seeing a place you probably never heard of before.

[Ex-Ithacan]

^ Not sure why the pics aren't showing up. You can see them if you click on the blue address.

[melzee]

thank you so much,,the pics are great,,this looks like a beautiful area,how is weather though? many hurricanes,tornados?? my biggest fears,,,

[Ex-Ithacan]

The weather gets 4 seasons, but they do sometimes get blurred. Being on the Chesapeake Bay tend to moderate the weather a bit. The only real bad weather I've experienced here was Hurricane Isabel. There have also been a couple of big snow storms and one ice storm (very rare from what I've been told, but we were without power for a week). Generally, the weather is fine and I try to get a walk in every day at one of the boardwalks.

[Bagira]

Ex-Ithacan

Is N.Beach worth going to...to sit on the beach we live in rockville and do not want to drive all the way to oc or rehoboth. Haven't been to either since fairly new to the area.

thanks.

[Ex-Ithacan]

To be honest, there's not much of a beach in North Beach, and it costs some bucks ($6 adults, $5 children) to use it (even though it's public). There is also a water park in Chesapeake Beach, but again there's an admission fee ($18 adults, $16 kids). I know there's a couple of free beaches further down in Calvert County, but no protection nets from the creatures around them. Sorry.

Here's a site for North Beach:

http:Welcome to North Beach, MD


And Chesapeake Beach:

Chesapeake Beach - Home Page

[BCreegan]

We moved to North Beach in 1991 because it was quite affordable. Rather decent-looking townhouses were being built, and it suited our needs. The neighbors were very friendly. Then, as our neighbors' families got bigger, they moved out, and the townhouses became rentals. Apartment buildings went up. 2 houses down, the police rammed in the door looking for drugs. That was our queue to move out. I do miss the boardwalk, and the way that the whole area is sometimes blanketed in fog.

[Ex-Ithacan]

The Twin Beaches are by no means perfect. There is some crime (drug activity and some rowdy teens), but I've never felt unsafe there. I think most of the new folks moving in are more upper income, and property values have increased very dramatically in the last 5 to 10 years.

[twinbeach2128]

North Beach is a very growing community of course not like OC but its a nice area low crime and about 25-30 min from d.c