Moving to VA/ MD-- need suggestions, please!

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catholicinva

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Hello,

I am a wife and mother of 2 young children. We will be moving to the DC Metro area this summer, and my husband will be working by Capitol Hill. He has the option to drive or commute via bus/ Metro. We are unsure where to live and are looking for an area with other stay-at-home moms and young, devout Catholic families. We have found one place that seems to fit this bill in MD (Kensington) but are at a loss as to where to start in VA. Does anyone have recommendations of neighborhoods/ parishes which might fit the bill?

Any suggestions in either state would be greatly appreciated.
 
The DC area is very complex when it comes to finding the perfect place to call home. Budget will drive most of your housing. How much do you have to spend on housing. A small, townhouse, close in, can run you $400k easy. A moderate single family home is $650k. But if you go farther out, things get less expensive/more affordable… but then you deal with the commute (one of the worse in the nation).

You have to “budget” commute (the commute here can be horrible–so living far out of town might mean seeing less of a spouse/father). And then there is the cost of living. Then there are taxes and school systems. For example, are you going to sent your children to Catholic school, public school (and some of the best public schools in the nation are in this area), or are you going to home school (because there is also a big home school community here).

To be honest, I am not great at recommending places beyond the area in NoVa I live (Fairfax County). My Church is nearby, the public schools are the best (but the Church has a school too), and the commute isn’t too bad. I am not sure if the families are Catholic or not–we have such a mix of people and cultures. My next door neighbors are Muslim and Hindu and right next to one is an Orthodox family, and next to them is a Catholic family that goes to my Church. All the moms are SAHMs too (except me, I’m the rebel, lol).

If I may, this forum is really good with that kind of information. It’s not a Catholic forum, but people are very knowledgeable: city-data.com/forum/northern-virginia/.

Good luck! I am sure you will find something great–it’s just going to take a lot of homework.
 
I’m not current on the best housing prospects, but you should come to the 9am traditional Latin Mass at my parish, St. Mary, Mother of God in Chinatown. It’s wonderful! Also, donut hour is great and about half the people there are children so you’re sure to meet lots of moms.
 
I’m not sure what the percentage that are Catholics are, but have you tried Arlington, VA? My older sister used to live there when she worked on Capitol Hill (although now she has migrated to Columbia). It’s an easy commute, and a nice area, although it can get pricey.

Good luck!
 
I’ve lived in the DC suburbs of both VA and MD.
Arlington, Annandale, Alexandria, and Falls Church in VA could all be options for you. I recommend VA over Maryland for the following reasons:
  1. Taxes are lower
  2. Arlington diocese is one of the best in the country. There are tons of great Catholic families around.
  3. Very good school options, even the public schools are decent
As another poster mentioned, commuting is horrible. The best commutes I ever had in DC were when I could just take a bus straight to work. The metro is getting increasingly expensive, crowded, and dysfunctional. And driving–ugh. Don’t even bother.

Good luck!
 
One of your biggest issues is going to be the commute. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating how bad the downtown commute is going to be from your house.

Metro: when it’s working well, it will be your best option to get downtown, by far. Sometimes, there are sometimes breakdowns, and in rush hour, the commute quickly becomes a nightmare. On your average day, a Metro commute will be better than a driving commute, but when Metro’s having a bad day, it will be far worse. If you choose to commute by Metro, you may end up driving your husband to the station every day, as parking fills up quickly at any station in the neighborhoods you’ll be considering.

MARC/VRE: Similar situation to Metro, but the delays seem to be better announced and you can plan to work around them. I would personally choose to live near a MARC or VRE line if I was working on Capitol Hill.

Driving from Montgomery County (inside/near the beltway): This is a long drive over city streets, but there are numerous alternate routes in case of a backup. Not a bad option.

Driving the I-270 corridor (Rockville / Gaithersburg / Germantown): Nightmare commute. Don’t even think about it.

Outer counties in Maryland (Howard, Anne Arundel, etc): Potential for nightmare commutes.

Prince George’s County and Washington, DC: You’ll find some incredible housing deals in these neighborhoods (as in $250K single family houses in passable neighborhoods) and have a short commute. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend living in either of these jurisdictions because of the schools. Some of the neighborhood elementary schools are okay, but past that, your child might end up going to schools which are very, very bad. If you were already a local and had personally researched the Catholic school options…then it make make sense to take the plunge, but I would cross these areas off your list until you’ve had time to check out the situation for yourself.

Virginia: I don’t know much about the quality of specific neighborhoods in Virginia, but I think the schools are generally okay. Your biggest problem in Virginia is transportation. Don’t live in a neighborhood where you rely on a single highway to get you to work, because one highway or another is often jammed on any given day. Virginia residents seem to suffer hard whenever there’s a Metro delay, because trains get bottlenecked as they cross the Potomac river. The river crossings are also major bottlenecks for car traffic, which you don’t deal with on the Maryland side. If I lived in Virginia, I would live in a neighborhood with multiple, viable methods to get to work on any given day (meaning a choice of highways and bridge crossings, or the viable ability to choose between driving and Metro on any given day.)
 
To add to what Ack said… at least in Virginia. I used to use the VRE (Virginia Railway Express) and it’s pretty good. Sometimes it will be late if something happens like the tracks flood or it’s windy and a tree falls on the tracks, but in general it’s pretty reliable. You can look for places to live along the VRE lines as well. I think Burke, Virginia is pretty nice area and almost looked at living there myself–but there are plenty of other options too.

Here is a link to the VRE lines if you want to start there: vre.org/
 
You definitely need to check out Hyattsville (“Old Hyattsville” or “Hyattsville Hills”) in PG County. It’s exactly what you are describing - small, charming, tight knit, very Catholic, great church, lot’s of young families, SAHMs, walkable neighborhood, and some members of the community have actively been recruiting young Catholic families to live there for many years. It is an awesome location for someone who works on Capitol Hill, as it is a very reasonable driving commute (down Bladensburg road to Maryland Ave). Housing prices are extremely low given the close proximity to downtown, although you won’t find a gorgeous house – lots of older bungalows, many needing renovations. The downside is that it may seem too poor a neighborhood for your tastes (of course, I have no idea what your tastes are but this is the chief concern when people dislike the neighborhood). Yes, it is grittier than other close-in neighborhoods, but some people feel that is part of the charm. Also, the public schools are okay at the elementary level, but not so good for highschool. Many families either homeschool or send their highschool kids to private school.

The parish is wonderful: www.stjeromes.com, and has a really fantastic, affordable elementary school connected to it. You can head to the 10:30 Mass and stay afterwards to ask people about the community and/or take a walk around.

Good luck with your move, DC is a great place to live.
 
I have not been living in the D.C. area for very long. I work in PG county. I live in Bowie.

Bowie is kind of a standout in PG county. Low crime rate and 4 Catholic churches and a school within 4 miles of my home. 👍
 
MtnDwellar said:
I have not been living in the D.C. area for very long. I work in PG county. I live in Bowie.

Bowie is kind of a standout in PG county. Low crime rate and 4 Catholic churches and a school within 4 miles of my home. 👍
Click to expand...
Yeah, Bowie is nice. I would recommend it, as long as the family had an ironclad plan to avoid the PG County public middle/high school system.

My experiences with PG county high schools are awful. 😦
 
I grew up in a little suburb called Sterling Park in eastern Loudoun co., VA that was started as a bedroom community in the 70’s. I loved it then, but it has grown up too it seems. Dulles airport is nearby as is the toll road and rt. 66. You can drive a country mile or two to East Falls Church metro. Herndon, Reston are bit closer in western Fairfax co. Go west!
 
Prince William County here, and I believe I hit the jackpot! 👍

I have lived in both Glen Burnie, MD and Woodbridge, VA. I can say without a doubt that VA is the far better option.

If your job is Monday through Friday, business hours, then commuting is awesome on our end, thanks to the slug lines and HOV lanes. The Pentagon has a steady stream of commuters. I have switched back and forth as both a driver and a rider, and I have never been disappointed. The train station at the Pentagon can take you anywhere else you need to go within DC, all without having to pay for parking or filling up your gas tank every week. If you have to drive everyday, multiple driving routes in this area are not an issue.

Public schools here are much better than in MD, even in Anne Arundel county, which is considered better than PG or Baltimore. The curriculum is apporpriate until you reach the middle schools, at which point you can pick Catholic school or home school. Homeschooling in VA is far less regulated than in MD. The requirements are simpler.

Catholic parishes here seem to have more families, and there are more churches within the local area than I found in MD. Whether or not they are faithful parishes, unfortunately, that depends on who the pastor is. Yes, my pastor is a decent priest, but I really do miss his predecessor. 😊

Houses down here vary. You can find really cheap to really nice, and everything in between. Property taxes are lower in my county. Sales tax is lower in VA, and so are gas taxes, utility rates, and overall prices. I still live close enough to everything that I need or would want without having to worry about distance.

Take a look down here. I think you’ll love it. 😃
 
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