Looking for housing advice in the Greenbelt-Silver Spring area (Bowie: apartments, rent)

[supra]

We (wife, infant kid and I) live in a rented apartment near historic Greenbelt. We are both from South Asia. My wife goes to school at UMD-CP (PhD-a little less than 2 more years to go) while I go to work to NOVA. We are both fairly educated and have friends from diverse communities. We like where we live but we need more place to live and are seriously contemplating buying a home for ourselves.

We would like to get some advice on some nice places where we can consider buying a house. Since we are relatively new to the area, detailed tips that include neighborhoods or zipcodes would be really useful. As I understand there can be enough variation between neighborhoods in a city.

We like Greenbelt Coop, but they have some stiff rules about how long you must stay and renting. We are currently paying around 1200 for a rent which I think can be better paid off for mortgage.

What we are looking for: Safe, somewhat quiet neighborhood. We can afford upto 350K (maybe more but we prefer being risk averse). 3 Bedrooms is perfect.

Constraints: My wife would want to avoid a long commute to College Park so a close-by place would be nice. We want to avoid condos/apartments. I am contemplating an MBA in about 1 and 1/2 year so we would like to have the option of renting out the house or selling it off (not at a loss!).


Any advice/tips would be very welcome.

[dkf747]

I would think $350K is enough for a house in College Park.

[emsgoof]

Berwyn Heights (on the south side of Rt 193 only), Greenbelt (east of Kenilworth Dr), Glenn Dale, Bowie. If your wife is able to use the campus transit system (don't know her hours, they normally stop running the routes in the late evening), maybe check out their routes for communities you might like, and take that information with you to a realtor.

[mr_agba]

You should be able to find an older townhome in the Silver Spring area for 350K. Go to HomesDatabase and search under Montgomery County and Silver Spring. Play with the site and I'm sure you'll figure it out.