Opportunity in Rockville MD. Where to live with a reasonable commute, not insanely expensive, and not too crowded?

[BCB75]

It's about 50% on site, so a 45 minute commute wouldn't bother me much. 30 would be better. My educated guess would be an offer ~140k. It would be a nice step up in salary, but my home here in PA was 190k a couple years ago and is everything I mentioned above. Maybe I just need to recalibrate what is a good salary for the area and my expectations on what is affordable. Not sure what my wife will be making either, as she will need to find a job once we make a move.

[BCB75]

To clarify, those are the towns they lived in, not where they suggested I look.

[BCB75]

I wanted to revisit this. The offer and relocation package were really great, and I accepted. We did another scouting trip and are honing in on some areas and our budget.

I think we'll be ok in the 650k range. Requirements still the same, but wanted to clarify that we wouldn't mind a ranch or split level from the late 70s or later. We have our sights on Damascus, Mt airy, Olney, Poolesville, and a few select neighborhoods on the west side of Gaithersburg (near QO).

Mt airy has best home prices, but longest commute. It's an easy ~30 minutes from a lot of cool areas like frederick, rockville, and Ellicott city. I worry that may be too far.

Damascus is a bit more expensive and a bit less interesting than Mt airy to us. Closer to other Montgomery County areas though.

Olney feels like the best mix of everything but home prices. We've definitely seen a few pop up in our price range over the last 2 weeks though, just not modern homes with 2500+ Sq ft. We'd be ok with that though since the area seems to check all the boxes. Parks, safe, not too busy but with things to do, good schools, nice neighborhoods.

West Gaithersburg is really nice, but we'd be limited to just a few older neighborhoods. Not sure we're willing to sacrifice that much (or raise our budget high enough) to be there.

Poolesville felt great, but they don't even have a grocery store. You can get to rockville in a decent amount of time, but its not really "central" to anywhere else, like Mt airy is. I think this one will come off the list unless someone can convince me otherwise.

[SethGrayson]

Your car hobby will probably put you in Olney or Damascus.

I personally have driven from Damascus to Gaithersburg many times and even without traffic, it gets old having to spend 25 minutes at best(no rush hour) to go down Woodfield or travel down 270 into Gaithersburg, never mind Rockville.

Poolesville's attraction is basically a high-performing school and that's it. It is isolated and without that school, would have much lower property values. Pretty creative work by the county government to get wealthy earners into such a place.

You'll probably need to look at the logistics of the house to see if others can see your vehicles. Plus you might tire having them all registered and insured if a neighbor feels like reporting them.

[goldenage1]

Originally Posted by BCB75

Ok thanks. I figured for 500k I could get a decent single family if I was willing to go out towards Mt airy. Oh well, were also looking to Raleigh durham area, which may be a better fit.
The HOA thing is a bummer. We have no noise problems or issues with 5 cars and loud music on .38 acres here. No HOA though.

It's a moot point now that you have accepted the job in Rockville, but you would have a similar problem finding an affordable house on larger acreage in North Carolina. The RDU airport area is in between two large cities, and I estimate you would need to commute 40-60 minutes to find acreage without an HOA. Most new communities have an HOA.

Besides Olney, you might look at Sandy Spring and Fulton where you could commute along Route 28. There used to be numbers of older houses on acreage when I lived in the area. Try this one, as there may be room to negotiate:
https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...9_M68603-18790

[goldenage1]

Originally Posted by goldenage1

It's a moot point now that you have accepted the job in Rockville, but you would have a similar problem finding an affordable house on larger acreage in North Carolina. The RDU airport area is in between two large cities, and I estimate you would need to commute 40-60 minutes to find acreage without an HOA. Most new communities have an HOA.

Besides Olney, you might look at Sandy Spring and Fulton where you could commute along Route 28. There used to be numbers of older houses on acreage when I lived in the area. Try this one, as there may be room to negotiate:
https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...9_M68603-18790

Or this one with a separate garage to house that car collection, and a better price:
https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...il/M6817500222

BTW, both these are in Howard County, which probably has better schools than Montgomery County. The wife could find job opportunities in Laurel, Columbia, etc. The commute time in rush hour is 28-50 minutes, which is not bad for the area.