1AP12NV

Have you thought of looking a little bit farther north, like the Clarksburg area?

Arora Hills for example is only 5 mins up Rt. 27 from Germantown and is offering brand new townhomes in the $320's.....

tan0116

We put a hold on a lot for a couple of days but I am really second doubting the area now. We've been through the neighborhood 3 times now and the previous visits we hesitated thinking we could find something better. We didn't really take much consideration on the quality of life until I raised the question. Thanks guys. I am going to swing by the area and see what it's like after 7PM and rethink this tonight.

1AP12NV- We haven't looked at Clarksburg yet. We been trying to stay as close to NOVA as possible since that's where my in-laws live, but we'll keep looking.

1AP12NV

Ah I missed the NoVA bit......

If you're ok with extending the trip to VA by just a little bit I highly suggest the Clarksburg area, nice setting, diverse (in a good way), close enough to Rockville and DC to not feel disconnected, and should yield good value whenever the market restarts and urban spraw continues to slowly creep northward

I live in that area and (for reference) when I do go into the office I'm in Rockville in about 25 minutes with rush hour traffic.

goldenfri

One problem with Clarksburg is that they road system is not being built up at the same pace as developments. Once that place fills up 27 and 355 are going to be nightmares at rush hour.

1AP12NV

8 months ago I would have agreed with you but the pace of the development has slowed significantly with the housing market as it is right now.

With the slowdown in new homes going up, it may just serve to bring the two a bit more back in sync (especially when the commercial area in Arora Hills goes up in 2010). There is even a new I-270 ramp going in but don't know when that is happening (or if the recent stimulus has changed its timeframe at all).

For now, 27 can be kind of a pain, but adds no more than 5 mins to my drive in the mornings and most of that congestion is comming from Damascus and not CBurg anyway. Only time will tell how that goes

ninja05

Yeah I live maybe 5-10 minutes outside of Montgomery Village. Like Olegator said, there are some nicer parts of it that are newer. I haven't heard of anything bad happening around there in a long time. There was a time about a couple years ago where there was a rash of wheel thefts, but I'm not sure if that is still happening around there.

As far as the gangs, I dunno if they are even that bad in Montgomery Village. Most of the time, it's just a bunch of wanna-be-thugs. I hear the street across from LakeForest Mall (Lost Knife Road), has some MS13 members though...

All in all, I don't think its that bad. I grew up in Wheaton, so I laugh my ass off when someone from northern Montgomery County thinks he's hard. LOL

tan0116

We canceled our contract and will continue searching else where. I think our agent hates us. Haha.

ninja05

Yeah, like a lot of people said, Clarksburg is fairly new and is nice. Germantown has some nice spots too, but some parts of germantown is just as bad, if not worst, than Montgomery Village. I guess every city you look at is going to have its good parts and bad parts...

Good luck on the search though!