Best neighborhoods in Vienna - $1.5M house budget (Arlington, McLean: real estate, new house)

[ask47]

We are considering moving to Vienna and would appreciate advice on best neighborhoods. Our housing budget is $1.5 million. Also have heard concerns about elementary school overcrowding - would appreciate any thoughts on schools that might have a more reasonable class size.

[spencgr]

I you are not too familiar with the schools or neighborhoods, why Vienna, specifically? While your budget is certainly large enough, it also provides you the opportunity to live in a multitude of places. What specifically are you looking for in a neighborhood? Where will you be commuting to? What are you looking to get for 1.5M?

[Bigfoot424]

I don't think I have any advice on this price range.

[FCNova]

There aren't really any bad neighborhoods in Vienna. Especially in neighborhoods where there are 1M houses. So I wouldn't worry about that. I think overcrowding may be an issue at some of the schools. I've heard at Stenwood there is a crazy long wait list for after school care. Like 2-3 year wait list according to my neighbors.

[ask47]

My husband will be commuting to Washington DC - where we are moving from in CT, he has a commute of almost 2 hours one way, so he's ok with 45 min or so - his office is also close to the Orange line metro. I'm a stay-at-home mom. We've heard that Vienna has a small-town feel and good sense of community and that a housing budget goes farther than in McLean or N. Arlington. We'd also like to be within a 5-10 minute drive of schools, grocery, etc - Oakton looks beautiful, but my sense was that everything is farther away.

Where we live now, our kindergartener has a class of 17, so it's hard for me to even imagine a kindergarten class of 25-30 kids...but that may just be the reality for my husband to have an easier commute!

We'd love a new construction home with 4BR or 5BRs, but not sure if that's realistic on our budget in areas within 45 min of downtown DC.

Thanks so much for your help!

[vermonter16]

I wish I could give advice in that price range, lol! I can't even give advice about Vienna - they won't let me in

[FCNova]

Originally Posted by ask47

Where we live now, our kindergartener has a class of 17, so it's hard for me to even imagine a kindergarten class of 25-30 kids...but that may just be the reality for my husband to have an easier commute!

I think you can get class size info on greatschools.com or fcps.com. You'll probably be hard pressed to find many around here with classes sizes that small though. Even the schools that aren't overcrowded probably will have 20+.

[JD984]

Originally Posted by ask47

My husband will be commuting to Washington DC - where we are moving from in CT, he has a commute of almost 2 hours one way, so he's ok with 45 min or so - his office is also close to the Orange line metro. I'm a stay-at-home mom. We've heard that Vienna has a small-town feel and good sense of community and that a housing budget goes farther than in McLean or N. Arlington. We'd also like to be within a 5-10 minute drive of schools, grocery, etc - Oakton looks beautiful, but my sense was that everything is farther away.

Where we live now, our kindergartener has a class of 17, so it's hard for me to even imagine a kindergarten class of 25-30 kids...but that may just be the reality for my husband to have an easier commute!

We'd love a new construction home with 4BR or 5BRs, but not sure if that's realistic on our budget in areas within 45 min of downtown DC.

Thanks so much for your help!

In that price range, if your husband wants a 45-minute commute, you really should be looking at Arlington, Falls Church or McLean, not Vienna. Vienna to downtown during rush hour is more like an hour each way, and sometimes longer. Some in Vienna will claim to have a 45-minute commute to DC, but that really is the exception, not the norm, in that area. I lived in Vienna for over a decade and experienced this first-hand.

In the $1.5 million price range in Vienna, you generally have two options. The first option is to buy a new house (aka a tear-down/in-fill home) in the Town of Vienna (22180 zip code). There are many such houses in your price range in the Town now. They are usually new Craftsman-style houses with anywhere from 3500-6000 SF mixed in with older, smaller ramblers built in the 1950s. This is the part of Vienna that is considered most walkable, but it bears little physical resemblance to a small town in the Mid-Atlantic or the Northeast (it's much more suburban in overall appearance, with a number of strip malls with a good mix of restaurants and retail along Maple Avenue, the main commercial street). The Town of Vienna has its own community center, local government, and police force, but the kids attend Fairfax County schools.

The other option in your price range in Vienna is to buy a house built in the 1990s or later in a newer, stand-alone subdivision. Most of these subdivisions will be in the 22182 zip code north of the town of Vienna out towards Wolf Trap (the performing arts center). There are quite a few subdivisions like this, for example, off Beulah Road and Old Courthouse Road. Most will have somewhere between 10-20 homes that were built at roughly the same time in a similar style. These areas will tend to look a bit more manicured than the Town of Vienna, which can be a bit of a mish-mash due to the mix of housing styles. The commute to DC will be slightly longer than living in the Town of Vienna. Either option would put you within 5-10 minutes of an elementary school and local shopping. Depending on where you live, the middle and high schools would be more like 10-15 minutes away.

In general, based on what you've said, it sounds like a new house in the Town of Vienna would appeal to you the most, but the commute to DC generally would be longer than 45 minutes each way, regardless of whether it's a trip by car or also one that involves Metro. If you did look in McLean or Arlington, you'd have plenty of choices with that budget, although new houses might be more expensive. Another area that people considering Vienna often consider is the Falls Church/22043 or Falls Church/22046 zip codes - they are closer to DC than Vienna but not as expensive as Arlington or McLean.

[Fallout Zone]

Everyone will have a different opinion on this one. While DC real estate is expensive, it isn't as bad as NYC and $1.5M will basically put you anywhere you want. Personally, I'd be looking at the newer builds between Military Rd and the Potomac River in North Arlington. Nice wooded neighborhood, good elementary school, and a short trip to DC for work and the Cherrydale neighborhood for daily living stuff. Now, I don't know this for certain, but the drawback with such an expensive area is that there may not be a lot of elementary school aged kids. People are probably either long-timers who bought before it became exorbitantly expensive, or high-powered people later in their careers.

[JD984]

Originally Posted by Fallout Zone

Everyone will have a different opinion on this one. While DC real estate is expensive, it isn't as bad as NYC and $1.5M will basically put you anywhere you want. Personally, I'd be looking at the newer builds between Military Rd and the Potomac River in North Arlington. Nice wooded neighborhood, good elementary school, and a short trip to DC for work and the Cherrydale neighborhood for daily living stuff. Now, I don't know this for certain, but the drawback with such an expensive area is that there may not be a lot of elementary school aged kids. People are probably either long-timers who bought before it became exorbitantly expensive, or high-powered people later in their careers.

There are new houses in that price range in that part of North Arlington; the trade-off is that you get a smaller house and lot for the money compared to Vienna, or a smaller lot for a house of a similar size compared to Falls Church or McLean.

But, there's no shortage of elementary school kids in that area. Arlington is planning to build another elementary school near Williamsburg MS in North Arlington to address the overcrowding at current schools like Nottingham, Jamestown and Taylor. Nottingham, for example, had fewer than 400 students 10 years ago and now has over 700. Taylor also went from roughly 600 students 10 years ago to over 700 this year. However, to date, Arlington has managed to keep its average class sizes smaller than in Fairfax, even with the growth in enrollment.