Relocating from Cincinnati to DC (Burke, Manassas: real estate, mortgage, loan)

[Cincinnati to DC]

Greetings,

I posted this question in the DC area and was advised to try here.

I'm sure this question has been beaten to death, but I've looked through some threads and can't seem to find a place to even start my look for housing.

Here are the facts. My wife and I both work for the Federal Government in Cincinnati OH. She is taking a position at her agency's headquarters in a few months. I will request a transfer, let the kids finish out their year at school, sell the house and move . . . hopefully this summer.

We are looking for an area around DC, a 4 bedroom home, good schools (1 kid in elementary school, the other in high school), and within a reasonable drive to public transit. If we could find such a thing, any idea how much it would cost? There is a very limited COL increase for us to relocate, but it isn't much. A house like I described here in Cincy would cost (don't laugh) somewhere between $200-$300K. I'm guessing that it would easily be double that in the DC Metro area.

Where should I concentrate my search? We need to commute to downtown DC near the Metro Center and Federal Triangle metro stations.

I thank you in advance for any advice you all have.

Regards,

[CaliTerp07]

Need more info from you.

-How long of a commute are you willing to tolerate?
-Public transportation = bus/metro/train?
-Are you willing to do transfers on public transport? (From bus to subway, between subway lines, etc?)
-4 bedroom home: Is a home 40+ years old okay? Most closer in developments are from the 70s. Is a garage necessary?

In general, the schools are well respected around here. All schools within the county follow the same curriculum, and all teachers are hired with the same required standards. The difference is the economic diversity. Higher test scores correlate closely with the cost of housing in that school's boundaries.

A 4 br SFH will start around $500k here. They can easily go up to $800k or higher for a not-very-ostentatious home. (My inlaws just moved to Cincinatti last year, and bought a house 5x as nice as the one they sold here for half the cost!) You can find ones for less, but usually they are in less desirable areas. It is also extremely common here for families to have townhomes. The newer developments are almost all TH communities (unless you go far out to the mini-mansions).

My typical response for people looking for what you want is West Springfield/Burke. There are express buses to the Pentagon where you can catch the metro to either of your stops, or there is the VRE train you could take and transfer to metro. There are also "slug lines" which are carpools designed to allow you to use the HOV lanes into the city. Lots of transportation options. West Springfield, Lake Braddock, and Robinson are all well respected high schools with generally solid feeder schools.

[Cincinnati to DC]

Wow Thank you for the detailed response!

I would like to take public transit. 60-90 minutes commute would be ok. I would do transfers if that was what was needed. My wife and I will be commuting together.

I know that we are in for a real shock when we look for housing. $500K here would buy you a McMansion. How do you all afford to live? I'm not even sure if we would qualify for a loan that large. We are both civil servants and do ok, but we certainly aren't wealthy.

I never considered a townhome. Perhaps I will have to do that.

[CleoShahateet]

I agree with CaliTerp - it depends how much of a commute you can tolerate and also your budget. The farther out the less expensive the houses are. Not prices like you are used to but you can get nice homes in the 300's in Prince William County but your commute would be a minimum of 1 hour and could take up to 2 in really bad traffic depending what you use - HOA, VRE, metro etc.

[leavingwash]

I have a family member who works in DC - they live in Fairfax. Good schools and decent commute with transit.

Good luck

[CaliTerp07]

Originally Posted by Cincinnati to DC

I would like to take public transit. 60-90 minutes commute would be ok. I would do transfers if that was what was needed. My wife and I will be commuting together.

I know that we are in for a real shock when we look for housing. $500K here would buy you a McMansion. How do you all afford to live? I'm not even sure if we would qualify for a loan that large. We are both civil servants and do ok, but we certainly aren't wealthy.

If you check out Metro - Home page there is a "trip planner" feature where you can type in potential addresses and see the exact commuting times (well, scheduled--generally pretty darn close though, especially at rush hour). It will tell you which bus to catch, which metro to transfer to, etc. Search within your budget on your favorite real estate site and punch in prospective addresses.

I think in general, people in the DC metro (or area on the coasts) spend a larger than average percent on housing compared to the middle of the country. We make up for it by cutting back somewhere else. As a public school teacher married to a gov't contracter making less than 6 figures, we were still able to buy a 4 bedroom house in this area. We just saved like heck to put 20% down, and factored the mortgage into our budget. We are fortunate (or unfortunate?) to have always lived in a high COL area though--I don't have a cheaper place to compare it to.

[CleoShahateet]

Since you are open to a longer commute and you will be commuting with your wife and can use the HOV lanes (which is what I meant above) then I would check out some areas like Bristow, Gainesville, and Lake Manassas if you want a home with say 1/4 acre, single family etc. and great schools.
There are a lot of people (I live in Bristow) that commute to DC and the Pentagon from here.

[Tiger108]

Talk to a realtor. Well, more than one. Northern Virginia may be most practical, but some places in Montgomery County in Maryland might also work, IF in fact your budget is double what you would pay for in Cincy. Just what IS your budget? We lived in Silver Spring, a mile from the Glenmont Metro station, and I took about an hour to get to work (in Southwest) between walking or taking a bus to the station, then Metro rail, then walking. In NoVa we could probably have afforded just a townhouse, but we weren't looking out as far as Gainesville (an area we considered retiring to but from where I'd hate to commute to DC unless I could take Virginia Railway Express).

I do know realtors in both NoVa and MD if you want to PM me. Of course, always talk to more than one and see who you like working with best.

[slim04]

Originally Posted by CleoShahateet

Since you are open to a longer commute and you will be commuting with your wife and can use the HOV lanes (which is what I meant above) then I would check out some areas like Bristow, Gainesville, and Lake Manassas if you want a home with say 1/4 acre, single family etc. and great schools.
There are a lot of people (I live in Bristow) that commute to DC and the Pentagon from here.

OP, FYI, living that far or commuting that long isn't practical. The reason is that if you have BOTH parents working in downtown DC, you are going to have big problems with getting afterschool care for your younger child. Aftercare ends around 6pm, so you'll probably be dependent on your high schooler, but who knows if he or she can drive or has afterschool committments of their own. In essence, one parent would have to work an insanely early schedule (i.e. 6am to 3:30pm) and that kind of schedule is very difficult to get for new employees. Also, the parents would have separate commutes and then couldn't drive together in a HOV lane.

The only people I know that live that far out and still commutes into Downtown are families with a stay at home mom or one that works a limited schedule locally.

[Vectorhead]

I would reiterate the suggestion to seriously consider townhouses. They don't have the stigma that they do in a lot of places, and there are some really nice ones. I would suggest looking in West Springfield (specifically 22152 zip code). Lots of nice townhouses for under $400,000. You could catch the express bus to the Pentagon (there are three different express bus lines running through this area) and then transfer to the metro, or you could drive 10 minutes to the Franconia/Springfield metro station. We have had kids in several of the schools in this pyramid (Cardinal Forest ES, Keene Mill ES, Irving MS and West Springfield HS) and I can recommend them all. My kids can walk to the ES, MS and HS from our house. It's a lovely, established area -- no McMansions to be seen. Very nice for families.