Working at the Pentagon w/kids and TOO MANY rental choice! HELP (Woodbridge: neighborhood, middle school)

[JfromReston]

There is an express bus from Reston to the Pentagon that takes 35-40 minutes. Adding the time to get to the bus and to get to the office would make the total commute from Reston about an hour.

Route 595: Pentagon Express*- Fairfax County, Virginia

Here is a house in Reston that meets your needs.
1319 WESTHILLS LN, RESTON, VA 20190 | Listing Information | MRIShomes.com

Here is the link to Reston's website - it has great things to offer your family - like 15 swimming pools for the summer included in the assessment your landlord will pay!
Welcome to Reston Association

[robbobobbo]

Originally Posted by ChristineVA

Not sure why Ft. Hunt was deemed WAY to far:

Seriously! I wondered as well. I know people who bike to work from Fort Hunt to the Pentagon. You're right about not expecting to drive and park at the Pentagon. I don't know what the bus lines are in south Alexandria (in Fairfax County), but I'd guess there are buses to Huntington Metro, which goes to the Pentagon.

[airjay75]

Since I'm most familiar with Springfield, I will offer that as a suggestion. In particular, I would check out areas that are a short drive to one of the local Park and Ride lots - roughly speaking, zip codes 22152 and 22153. Fairfax Connector routes 394 and 395 (see http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/connector/pdf/395.pdf) are Pentagon Express buses that can get you to/from the a Pentagon in about 30-40 minutes. You will also be very close to the Franconia-Springfield Metro which provides an additional commuting option. I personally take the 394 bus almost every day and then transfer to Metro at the Pentagon to go into DC where I work. Always plenty of Pentagon employees on the bus. My door to door commute time is about an hour - if I worked at the Penatgon, it would be under 40 minutes. There are many other Pentagon Express buses in the Springfield/Burke area as well as many other places in NoVA - I'm just not as personally familiar with them, but I'm sure there would be some good options along those other routes too.

As to housing, plenty of SFHs in the Springfield area that will be within your budget. You won't find a lot of new construction - a lot of 1970s era SFHs and some that are both older newer than that. As someone else said, when looking at square footage, basements are not included even if they're finished, so I wouldn't necessarily discount a house that listed a square footage below 2,000. My own home has a listed square footage of about 2200 sq. ft., but with the finished basement, the total living area is close to 3,000.

Fairfax County public schools (which is where you'd be in Springfield) are generally considered very good. You can find a lot of information about any particular school on fcps.edu. I don't have children myself, so I can't really offer much more by way of experience with any particular school.

[airjay75]

Just did a quick rental search in 22153 and 22152. Top end of your rental budget, but this home certainly looks to have a lot of square footage and a great backyard.

8000 GREELEY BLVD, SPRINGFIELD, VA 22152 | Listing Information | MRIShomes.com

[ArtyGuy]

Originally Posted by kcarpenter

We will be moving to the area in April. My husband will be working at the pentagon. We have Four girls (2 will be in school-4th and Kinder). Our 5 year old will be in Special Ed Speech. We are wanting a nice rental but the most important is safety and the schools. I look online and their are soooo many choices. We obviously need room because of our family size. All the rentals I've found so far that are large and newer homes are about 20 plus miles away from the pentagon. Some even more. We are used to living in a 3500 sq foot home on 6 acres but I realize thats NOT possible right now. Is it crazy to look at the far out places like Bristow etc? I don't want my husband to be taking a bullet for us everyday and be miserable with his commute! Our budget is $3,200 and I don't want him driving more than 1 hour.

The places I've found rentals we like are Manassas, Gainsville, Haymarket, Bristow, Herdon, Reston, Fairfax, Vienna, West Springfield, Alexandria, Burke, Dumfries, Woodbridge and Fort Hunt..... UGH!!! THANKS!!!!!!

You will eat up your BAH quickly the closer you get to the Pentagon. Plenty, and I mean plenty, of military families live in Woodbridge. Your husband will have a few options getting to/from the Pentagon....and one of them won't be personally driving because he won't have a parking pass.

BTW-- as someone who is also military, I can tell you that the rental market and competition for homes is probably a lot higher than any other place you have been stationed at. Your one advantage is the timeframe you are PCSing

Transportation Options

1- There are Pentagon buses, run by OmniRide, that leave out of Woodbridge. His commute will be under an hour because the bus uses the HOV lane.

2- He can also slug out of the commuter lots where the buses come. Last public transportation option will be driving up to Springfield and take the Metro to the Pentagon. Won't be a bad option in the morning, commute wise, but getting home from Springfield in the evening will be tough.

3- Last option, and I don't know anyone who does it out of Woodbridge but you can is to take the VRE out of Woodbridge. I'm stationed at FT Belvoir so I'm not the authority on the VRE but I think it stops in Springfield and he can hop on the Meteo there. Parking is free at the VRE stations versus $4+ at a Metro station. Plus you avoid a bad evening commute from Springfield going south.



Slug lines-- About Slugging

VRE- General Schedule Information - VRE

[tgbwc]

Originally Posted by airjay75

Just did a quick rental search in 22153 and 22152. Top end of your rental budget, but this home certainly looks to have a lot of square footage and a great backyard.

8000 GREELEY BLVD, SPRINGFIELD, VA 22152 | Listing Information | MRIShomes.com

I saw that one too. I know of this one which is a rental for $3,400 and I think it is in either 22152 or 22153. It's newer with a pool and will be available later this spring (no, it's not mine). It's a little higher $ amount than the OP mentioned, but shows there are rentals sure to be more in their range.

[slduvall]

Kingstowne 22315 would provide as close as access to the blue line metro as you can get. A SFH goes for about $3300 - 3500. Very close to Ft Belvoir for commisary and Exchange.

I have a 4 bed/3.5 bath/2 car on a cul-de-sac ~4200 sf including basement; though yards are almost nil. No fences, which can be hard, but I didn't see a pet on your list.

It is doable, but you will have to up your budget a bit. Which if you take off the cost of commuting 1 hr each way, ($$ and time) might be worth doing.

I'm moving this summer and my landlord will list my place for $3400. You will start seeing rentals popping up soon, (check militarybyowner.com) as the orders start coming. But beware they go really, really fast!

[Fallout Zone]

Good options in this thread so far. I'll add in the west side of the Orange line (West Falls Church, Dunn Loring, Vienna stops). A lot of larger 60s/70s homes, but many are updated, and they have decent yards and good neighborhood schools. Your husband would probably park at the Metro and then it would be a ~35-45 minute ride (more time from Vienna, less from WFC) with a transfer at Rosslyn. We have two military families renting on my block.

[kcarpenter]

Thank you all for the replies. This helps so much. As we are new to the area, all the options can be overwhelming. The information on the basemenst is very useful. I wasn't aware of that.

We can go up a bit on the budget. We view it like paying for private school if it gets our kids into a great school.

We had considered woodbridge at first but then after looking at the schools I got nervous. Good rankings for elementary but once you got any higher they really dropped. Is this area considered safe? The homes are beautiful but with lower rankings for some of the schools I wondered.

Thank you again for all your help!

[johnsonkk]

Woodbridge is a larger community that includes Lake Ridge which changesdepends on what school. There is large variances between high schools. Garfield vs Lake Ridge HS could be considered night and day. Houses in Lake Ridge feed both. Devil is often in the details and writing off something based on one criteria can be risky.