Married w/children, moving from Midwest to Northern VA -- best place to raise family (on a budget)w/in 75 miles of D.C.? (Manassas: houses, good schools)

[ChewyCarmel]

Originally Posted by twinmma

I live in Ashburn and really like it. Housing prices have come down but seem to be inching back up. My guess would be a townhome for that price in Ashburn. There are a few single families that you could possibly snatch up... We have good schools, and the area is very family friendly.
South Riding is also very nice. Not sure about the prices there but the area is good for kids.
Leesburg could be another choice...I don't know if you want to go much further out than Leesburg to get to D.C. You are already looking at at least an hour commute from Ashburn. (My neighbor does it and with traffic it is more like 1 1/2 hours commute)
Purcellville is even further from Leesburg but housing is a lot more affordable.
You could find something in Sterling I would think. The home would be on the smaller side for that budget but areas like Countryside in Sterling are very cute and looks great for families. (we would have bought there is the home I liked had a basement!)
Good luck!

twinmma -
Thank you for the suggestions. Leesburg is definitely on my list. I'll add Sterling and Ashburn as well, but I think South Riding is way too close to the airport for my liking. Which reminds me, do you get much airplane noise in the Ashburn area? We want to make sure our babies sleep well at night.

[ChewyCarmel]

Leroy Brown -
Thank you -- Gainesville looks pretty good -- strong schools and reasonable housing. Also, I see there is another town, Haymarket, right next to it. Are the two towns pretty similar, or do you recommend one over the other? Are they both safe areas?

BTW, I'd love to live in C'ville again -- what a beautiful place! (But definitely too far from D.C. for my current situation.)

[ChewyCarmel]

twinmomkris -
Thank you. Ashburn looks very nice but I'm not having much luck finding anything under $400k there. It looks like Ashburn may have to be our move-up community someday in the future.

[ibecowtippin]

Originally Posted by ChewyCarmel

ibecowtippin -
Thank you for the advice -- that website looks like it could be very useful.
Regarding the "commute time" issue, please keep in mind that I will not be commuting. I'll be working from home and driving to appointments throughout VA/MD, but just want to be within 75 miles of D.C. because a majority of my appointments will be in the D.C. metro area. I have flexibility to live just about anywhere, but just want advice on the location you think would be safest, best schools, and most affordable (and convenient to a major highway). If that changes your recommendations at all, please let me know.

Well if the driving doesn't bother you, all the other suggestions are very good. If I had my "rathers", and didn't work in Arlington every day, I would set the target for the Front Royal area myself. Just because I grew up in a small town in Tennessee (600), and while you won't find that around here, Front Royal has the small town feel to it. A co-worker of mine is also in Warrenton which he really enjoys raising his three small girls.

Good luck with the search. All the schools in the area are very good. My stepson is in Middle School in Prince William County at Woodbridge Middle School. The thing we LOVE about that particular school is they offer same genered classes for the core classes. Our son actually asked us to enroll him in those classes and when I asked if he wanted the normal classes, we got a rather passionate NO from him, so we couldn't be happier with him keeping his mind on the businesses instead of the opposite sex

[anonymous703]

Originally Posted by ChewyCarmel

ibecowtippin -
Thank you for the advice -- that website looks like it could be very useful.
Regarding the "commute time" issue, please keep in mind that I will not be commuting. I'll be working from home and driving to appointments throughout VA/MD, but just want to be within 75 miles of D.C. because a majority of my appointments will be in the D.C. metro area. I have flexibility to live just about anywhere, but just want advice on the location you think would be safest, best schools, and most affordable (and convenient to a major highway). If that changes your recommendations at all, please let me know.

Food for thought -- is your income dependent on the number of appointments you can get to in a day? (Ie, a plumber can "work from home" but if he isn't on a client site, he's not getting paid.) If yours isn't, and you can schedule your appointments mid-day (ie 10am-2pm) you should be able to live that far out and not hate the time you spend on the road.

[anonymous703]

Originally Posted by ChewyCarmel

twinmma -
Thank you for the suggestions. Leesburg is definitely on my list. I'll add Sterling and Ashburn as well, but I think South Riding is way too close to the airport for my liking. Which reminds me, do you get much airplane noise in the Ashburn area? We want to make sure our babies sleep well at night.

Have you spent any time in the South Riding area to determine that it is in fact too noisy for you?

Honestly, somehow, the Dulles airport was constructed in such a way that really does minimize noise to the surrounding area. Most of the time, the traffic departs to the south. The runways are also very long, meaning a vast majority of the aircraft are going to be quite high overhead as they pass over your house, so you shouldn't hear them.

(My office is under the approach path to the runway that parallels 28 on the east side. We're literally right on the airport property -- adjacent to the employee parking lot on the north side of the airport. I can see aircraft passing overhead during meetings, and when they land, I never hear them. When they take off, they make the tiniest of noise.)

[twinmomkris]

We don't get much airport noise but we see lots planes. It's kinda fun especially for the little ones. My husband works from home and the heart of his territory is the DC metro area, like yours will be. It's much easier to drive south, away from DC, then it is to drive in, which is why I suggested staying within 35 miles. I am not sure whether you would be driving during rush hour but the traffic on the major highways will be factor if you are.

[Pom]

Originally Posted by ChewyCarmel

claremarie -
Front Royal looks like a nice town -- I like the name -- but do they have good schools there?

No!

Check out Shenandoah County - Strasburg has good schools, great prices on houses and is at the crossroads of two major highways, 66 and 81.

It's very safe and friendly, not to mention beautiful, with stunning mountain views.

[Alicia Bradley]

Front Royal is kinda scary and dumpy.. Yeah, it has maybe one good restaurant in the downtown area (which is more than I can say for a lot of Fairfax Co. "communities"), but it's far from what I'd call "cute." Someone (who knows my tastes well) said I should check out Winchester, VA and Shepherdstown, WV. I don't know if you're as picky as I am (I'm also from the Midwest and am very disappointed in NoVA on the whole), but you might want to check out those two communities.

[leighland]

Originally Posted by Alicia Bradley

Front Royal is kinda scary and dumpy.. Yeah, it has maybe one good restaurant in the downtown area (which is more than I can say for a lot of Fairfax Co. "communities"), but it's far from what I'd call "cute." Someone (who knows my tastes well) said I should check out Winchester, VA and Shepherdstown, WV. I don't know if you're as picky as I am (I'm also from the Midwest and am very disappointed in NoVA on the whole), but you might want to check out those two communities.

Actually, the exurbs of Front Royal are very nice and family oriented. I know several BIG homeschooling families who live out there (not in town). I believe Human Life International is headquartered out there too. Again not in town.