PLEASE HELP!! Which Town or City in North VA? Help Please!! (best towns, lease)

[princem3]

I'm in early stages of researching a possible relocation to a Northern VA town / city in the coming months.

With this move I will also be relocating my business to VA and I need some help in choosing TWO of the best towns to meet both the following needs.

For my personal place of residence I would prefer to be within a Max 20 - 35 min outside the DC area in VA to be able to enjoy the great city social scene, life, culture and to be able to network.

For my business location I'm willing to be as much as 20 minutes away from my town of residence in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION of the CITY in order to keep my office spaces commercial lease cost down. We are mostly an internet based company with very low traffic so location means nothing to us.

Just in case the previous paragraph was not clear.. I wish for my office and DC to be in opposite directions while I live right in the middle. So my office could be south of my home while DC is north of my home.

RESIDENTIAL TOWN PREFERENCES :
1. Close access (20 min or less) to major downtown areas with great nightlife
2. Diverse population with lots of culture
3. Affordable housing (I plan to rent for a few months but hope to buy within a year of moving there)
4. Relatively safe area with low crime rate.
5. 20-30 min access to excellent school(s) with great MBA programs
6. Personal property Taxes (Car, housing, etc.)

TOWN OF BUSINESS PREFERENCES:
1. Desolate town likely with cheap office space
2. No more than 20 min outside town I will reside
3. No more than 40 min outside of DC
4. 20-30 min access to excellent school(s) with great MBA programs

A friend of mine recommended living in Woodbridge, VA which seems great on paper and is only about 30+ min from Downtown DC, but I'm open to hearing other suggestions.

Thanks

[juniperbleu]

Originally Posted by princem3

A friend of mine recommended living in Woodbridge, VA which seems great on paper and is only about 30+ min from Downtown DC, but I'm open to hearing other suggestions.

Just a note, during times of low traffic it takes me longer than 30 minutes to get to Woodbridge. However, those times are very infrequent, so the trip can often take more like 45+. If you try during rush hour, it's at least an hour.

Given your stipulations, I'd look to live somewhere like Arlington (Ballston, Courthouse, Clarendon, Pentagon City, Crystal City) or Alexandria (Del Ray, Old Town, West End). From there you can commute to another VA suburb (i.e. Burke, Tysons Corner, Springfield, etc). The one thing that will be difficult is "affordable". There are relatively affordable places here, but in general the entire area is pricey. If you don't need Metro access, you can try living a few miles away from a station. These complexes are usually much cheaper than those that are right next to a metro station. For example, I lived in a nice 2-bedroom place in Alexandria for ~$1600 (after utilities) that was 2-3 miles from a metro station. When we moved closer to a station (any station from King Street on north) we couldn't find anything lower than $2200.

Since you're concentrating on NoVA, you might want to try posting on the Northern Virginia forum.