bargain older homes in this housing market -- with transit accessability -- Lakeridge, etc? (Manassas: fit in)

[lgl525]

I'd love any pointers of where to narrow down our search.

We have a 2yo daughter and another one on the way, but a great school district is a bonus rather than required, as we'll likely be going private.

Ideally what we're wanting is to stay around 200-220k -- which of course knocks us out of Fairfax county, but would leave us with no mortgage, thus the appeal.. of PW county when the prices fall so dramatically right over the border.

I realize this price range may sound entirely unattainable, but we're seeing things in parts of Montclair, etc, on ziprealty which fit in that range. We realize we'd be buying an older house with cosmetic issues, but we're obviously fine with that at this point.

We just want a safe neighborhood. And commuting potential without long drives. We figure in Montclair or the better side of Woodbridge, my husband could drive to the VRE station and take that in.

We do own a hybrid, but it doesn't have a VA plate yet, as we're in DC at the moment, so I guess it rules out that 95 hov lane for him.

We were previously looking at the bargains available in Rockville at the moment for around 250, which is still insanely low, but we just felt like we had to investigate some of these further out VA properties for the potential of zero mortgage.

We don't need amazing, but we do need safe -- not brand new and shiny, and I realize there are pockets of bad areas in these areas, but just a decent area where we wouldn't feel unsafe with children. It looks like there are some properties in areas that look okay (from past posts I've read, N of 95, some in Lake Ridge, etc) in this price range w/ the current short sale/foreclosure market.

We're going to drive the area this weekend, but would love some more thoughts as to parts of that area that are good/bad, and other places we've not thought of, even.

I looked at Manassas, but it looks as if the part we could buy into in this range is not so safe.

Bonus points for walkability to transit rather than needing to drive, but it doesn't look as if that would be possible to me, as all the stuff near US-1 is pretty horrid from what I've read.

Thank you for any thoughts.

[tgbwc]

Are you looking at townhomes, single family, or both?

[lgl525]

Well, we're seeing single families not too far out of that range in montclair, etc, so I guess single families! Couldn't really justify buying a townhome with that commute if we could live in walking distance of the metro in Rockville and own a home at 250. The extra price for the Montclair houses would be worth it to us for that space and for how nice the community is (well, at least looks) from what we've seen and researched.

[tgbwc]

Montclair is a nice community. Good schools. Very family friendly and only about 2 miles or so from 95 and commuter lots. VRE would be an option too. I live just next to what is officially considered Montclair.

[lgl525]

Great to hear about Montclair. How far away from what is technically Montclair is still nice? There's a bunch of listings on the far side of Cardinal drive from Montclair -- near Neabsco Elementary. Is that already a not so great area?

[Mike From NIU]

There's also some Single Family Homes under $250K in Lake Ridge (22192) not far from Tackett's Mill, a large slug line/Omnride destination. I don't know what the neighborhood is like, but that's a little closer in than Montclair.