NOVA or MD? (home search, neighborhood, to buy)

[sparks5967]

As I posted some time ago, we are a family of 4 relocating from South FL to the DC metropolitan area in June. We have pretty much focused our home search on the NOVA area upon the recommendation of friends that live up there; however, we are recently getting input from friends that live in the DC metro area that we should consider MD.

Up until now, we've been looking closely at the Springfield/Burke area as well as Alexandria. To recap, we are a dual career family (one going to downtown DC, the other to the area near Reagan Natl) with 2 young elementary children and our priorities are: very good schools, family-oriented neighborhood with a 45-minute max commute to downtown DC (to include drive time and metro). We hope to buy a single family home with $550 k being our max. Any thoughts or insight would be appreciated.

Sincere thanks,
Sparks5967

[caution]

I think "good schools" and "45-minute max commute" are mutually exclusive. There may be private school options I'm not aware of.

Check the MD forum and read up on Columbia. Howard country schools seem to be the rage right now in the DC/Baltimore corridor -- the commute to DC is the kicker.

Your decision is probably going to boil down to schools > commute. That's what I see happening to most of my peers with kids in middle and high school. That's what seems to be driving the sprawl here, and everywhere else.

EDIT: Remember, working near National Airport and living on the MD side is going to give you a double whammy on the commute. You'd be hitting the crowds getting to DC and heading into the NOVA mess. Even if you ride metro, on those occasions when you have to drive, for whatever reason, it would be a mess, IMHO.

[nbdinz]

I'd recommend Montgomery County, Maryland... try for the new town of Clarksburg or even Germantown. Commute using the Calcutta Line (oops) Red Line.