Need Housing In Virginia (Richmond, Arlington: real estate, rent, townhouse)

[tgordo]

All:

My family and I plan to relocate to NoVa near Fairfax next May 2007. Looking for a secure area, great HS for our daughter and affordable housing. Can any one help provide insight on the best area to live, I will travel to Fairfax, VA? I hear nothing but nice things about NoVa. I would like to know about income taxes too. As you can tell, I'm new to NoVa but trying to do my homework now to lessen the stress later. Thanks!

[mommyof5]

Well, the entire area is nice..there are very good schools in N.Va. I grew up in Northern Va..Arlington to be exact. However it is very expensive..especially Fairfax Va. and those surrounding areas. My husband and our 5 children live in Dale City Va now. It is not as expensive and my husband works for the sports division for Fairfax. He commutes from here to there and he avoids highway 95. Of course there is still traffic but not nearly as much as the highways. He gets there in about 45min.both ways. He gets off from work at 4:30 and is home usually by 5:15 or 5:30 the latest.
Prince William county is growing with new development going up with Single family homes. Hylton High School is the school district we are in and that has very good programs. We have specialty schools with AP and IB programs. You can pretty much choose your high school if you can get your child there if they are not in the district where they can catch the school bus.
You can go to www.ourwoodbridge.com for homes search or you can go to www.homesdatabase.com and put in PrinceWilliam or the zip 22193 which is where a lot of growth going on with manassas also. you could also go to www.militarybyowner.com I love Prince William County..and I am glad I live here. Of course growing up in Arlington where it is very busy (city life..traffic etc.) we have traffic here as the population grows but nothing like Fairfax, Arlington etc.

Good luck with everything.

[CityBoy]

I presently live in Frederick County, Virginia. If you go to one of the real estate search engine sites, like Homesdatabase.com or Realtor.com and use the zip codes 22655, 22601, 22602 you might be very pleasantly surprised. There are fantastic subdivisions in this area including "The Camp", "Raven Wing", Canter Estates and Red Fox Run. Each of these have some very beautiful new homes at very reasonable prices...many still in the high $300s to low $400s which is very good for the area. The schools are very good, taxes low, and the people incredibly nice. It has a home town atmoshphere but close enough to Fairfax (about 45 miles). Take a look, see if it works.

[DavidS827]

I second that reccomendation on PW County. The schools here are great and many of them are brand new. I'm in the Battlefield High School district and they have a technology program that is second to none. The commute to Fairfax from here isn't that bad either. They just widened 66 to four lanes each way, so a commute that used to take 45 mintues is now down to about 20-25. The state income taxes range from 2%-5.75% depending on your income. The houses around here vary greatly as there are many estate homes that will run you a few million , but typically a townhouse will run from 300K on up and a single family will run from 400k and up. It seems as though the gas is always cheaper out here too.

[saynotonova]

After living here in Centreville for almost 3 years, we are going to move as quickly as the market allows to Stephens City.

If you want your kids going to school with 115 different countries, so be it, the school programs in fairfax are some of the best in the country. However, some of the schools farther out are better, like montessori in front royal and a few of the christian schools. These are private, but the good ones usually are. And with your tax saving on average between fairfax and frederick, you will save 3-5k a year on a comparable home. Not to mention your income tax is cut in half.

If you like going to the store and driving 2 miles and it takes 20 minutes, your in the right area. If you like getting cut off by people who don't know what the stop sign says and doesn't speak english, your in the right area.

If you dine out, and your order isn't what you asked for or it takes 45 minutes for someone to notice you, your in the right area.

If you like the sound of jets overhead, especially air force one flying at like 2000 feet at 11 at night, then your in the right area.

If your doctor, teacher, or for that matter most service industry workers have a hard time speaking english, your in the right area.'

DMV gives the driving test (written) by last count in 37 different languages, since when has america adopted 37 languages???

So, come on down and live in fairfax, it's the greatest melting pot in the world and we have the traffic and high prices to back it up

Just a note: Fairfax County Tax collection for 2005 was over 4 billion dollars.

[puffle]

Originally Posted by tgordo

All:

My family and I plan to relocate to NoVa near Fairfax next May 2007. Looking for a secure area, great HS for our daughter and affordable housing. Can any one help provide insight on the best area to live, I will travel to Fairfax, VA? I hear nothing but nice things about NoVa. I would like to know about income taxes too. As you can tell, I'm new to NoVa but trying to do my homework now to lessen the stress later. Thanks!

Go to (broken link) and put in Fairfax and you can compare schools in the area. As far as prices, I don't know what alot is for you, but compared to where I live now, Ca. everything is cheaper! We lived in FairLakes in Fairfax and had no negative experiences as described on another post except that smoking is still legal in public places, especially restaurants. They have smoking and non-smoking sections. That my issue. Traffic..... I'm from Ca. Great areas with great schools that I would look at are Oakton,Vienna,Ashburn,Herndon,Burke, and Centreville. These are some of the best High Schools in Fairfax. If you want to drive a little farther, Langley High in Great Falls is great as is the area. You could rent before you buy and for what you get, it's low. The housing market must have hit hard in NoVa because the prices are better now than they were when we were there in 2004! Oh, my other negative was the humidity. Good luck!

[dullnboring]

To echo what others have said, finding a secure area is no problem as Fairfax County is incredibly safe. Even the "bad" areas aren't that bad. Although being in an urban, people are street smart and cautious, there's no place where you really have to fear getting shot or carjacked. Likewise, finding a good school shouldn't be a problem. Schools are terrific countywide. The best of the best tend to be in Western or Northern Fairfax County, schools like Madison, Woodson, Langley, Oakton and Centreville, although really most any school minus one or two in Fairfax County is terrific. Now, the affordability issue is a whole different story. It depends where you're moving from but generally, the cost of living here, housing in particular, is widely considered to be very expensive. Single family homes are generally at least 500K while townhomes are usually in the 400s.

[Bpo]

Northern Va is a great place to live. The school systems are great, housing areas offer many amenities, lots to do and a short drive or metro-rail to DC.
I've been here since '75.

[wendyr]

Richmond, VA is a good alternative. You could commute if you work south of DC.

[saganista]

Just to clarify on the VA state income tax question, the state system piggybacks the federal system, and your taxes will be $720 plus 5.75% of AGI in excess of $17,000. The current Fairfax County real estate tax rate is 89 cents per $100 of assessed value. Great Falls, McLean, Vienna, Oakton, and Fairfax are a sort of swath of well-established top tier communities running west from the Potomac River. The high-end here is very expensive, but it isn't all at the high-end. Worth looking at, particularly at 2007 prices.