Young 20-somethings looking for nice home less than $200k in Bmore suburbs -- pipedream? (Baltimore: townhouses, neighborhoods)

[PennStater818]

Hi all,

I have perused these forums for a while and am finally getting around to posting! You all are so helpful and knowledgeable, I'm hoping you can give my wife and I some guidance. We currently live near Olney and are looking to move to one of the more affordable neighborhoods near Baltimore proper (my wife currently works in the Inner Harbor area, and I anticipate eventually working near the city soon too).

Here's the "quick and dirty" on what we're working with for our house hunt. We need a house that is:

- A single-family "starter" house (so, no townhouses or duplexes with shared walls) with some decent yard space (we have a dog and have wanted a real yard since we first got her!)
- In a safe, semi-quiet neighborhood, filled with generally nice people
- On the market for no higher than $200k (we can really only spend around $150k)

Now, that last point may have made some people laugh out loud -- but we're young, and that's all we can spend at this point on a starter home. We know we're going to get a house that is older, but are looking for modern insides and minimal repairs and updates given our fairly meager budget.

It would be great to be close to decent restaurants and shopping too -- we are HUGE foodies.

We've identified Pikesville, Nottingham/Perry Hall, and potentially Randallstown as areas that may be worth looking in. Originally I thought Owings Mills was out of the question due to crime, but people on these boards seem to believe that OM is not such a bad area (and there are nice-looking houses online in our price range there).

I've also heard Sykesville/Eldersburg is good. Can anyone give me their two cents and help a young couple out?? Any advice would be *much* appreciated.

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

Sounds difficult but maybe there's something out there. More importantly, what will happen in 2-5 years when one of you gets married?

[PennStater818]

Originally Posted by HandsUpThumbsDown

Sounds difficult but maybe there's something out there. More importantly, what will happen in 2-5 years when one of you gets married?

We are married now....? LOL.

[Michael21214]

Have you considered Parkville?

[PennStater818]

We actually did look at a couple houses in the Parkville area, but where we looked it was urban, but without the bonus of the city...the houses seemed very close together! Are there better areas of Parkville than others? We could certainly look there again.

[Michael21214]

The older areas of Parkville with small houses on small lots would certainly be in you price range, but from driving around there there seem to be areas with larger lots and homes. Sorry I can't be more specific, other than to say keep checking over Parkville listings and listings for Carney, a neighboring area.

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

Originally Posted by PennStater818

We are married now....? LOL.

I mentally merged your post with another one I had been reading. Woops!

[PennStater818]

Originally Posted by HandsUpThumbsDown

I mentally merged your post with another one I had been reading. Woops!

HA! No worries, I do the same thing frequently.

Does anyone have any strong feelings about Owings Mills (good or bad)? I know we'll be fighting bad traffic frequently since we'll be right off the beltway there, but how about the area itself? Safety is our number one priority wherever we end up living.

[davecj]

DM sent

[B_More Boy]

It's not everyone's first wish but check out Arbutus and Catonsville. I own a single family house in Arbutus that is 1,500sf and was purchased for $210k about 6 years ago. Helpful tools like zillow.com and phone apps like Trulia can go a long way to help you're search. Also check out VAhomes and see if you can pre-qualify.

The other benefit to Arbutus is that you're property is right outside the city limits thus the taxes are WAY lower than city taxes. That's a big jump for a family with limited income.