any body live in Gaithersburg Md?

[asscherisme]

Does anyone live in Gaithersburg or did live there? I grew up in Bethesda and am pining to move back to the DC area. I posted a few months ago about a job opportunity that came up but we turned it down because it would have been a paycut and that area is so expensive.

However, now my husband has found another job and I was looking at housing prices in gaithersburg and they are very comparable to where I live now so unlike Bethesda, we could actually afford a house there.

My main concern is schools and safety. I miss DC so much!

 

[Regular Guy]

some info here....

 

[Fed]

My husband and I used to live in Gaithersburg. We were only there for a little less than a year while our house was being built in Southern Maryland. We lived by NIST. NIST is also close to the Kentlands, which is also a fairly expensive "planned community" in Gaithersburg. For what we built our house for, we could not afford a single family home in Gaithersburg (at least in the area that we lived in). If you move further out in Gaithersburg, closer to Germantown (and further away from the Shady Grove metro station) house prices drop. The Shady Grove station is a mess and it''s a bit of a drive - just in case you plan to work downtown. I work downtown by the White House and hated the commute.

You can check out www.homesdatabase.com to look up homes in the DC metro area. We were also really happy with our realtor in case you need a recommendation.

 

[Odilia]

I live in Rockville. (although we've been thinking of moving away from the area.)

 

[aprilcait]

I''ve lived in Gaithersburg/North Potomac almost all of my life. I just moved from there at the end of January to Northern VA.

Though I LOVE the DC area and will probably never move away from it, the housing prices are pretty nutty. Now, Gatihersburg (like most cities/areas) has it''s divisons of safe and not quite as safe (I wouldn''t say dangerous...just a bit rowdy/troublesome) sections. So, you want to be wary of that when you see lower housing prices. Now, in the safer areas, condos are running, on average, at $300,000+ for a 1-2 bedroom 1-2 bath. Townhouses are around $500,000+ for newer builds, and houses are pretty pricey as well. All in all, it depends on where you''re looking, what type of housing you''re going for, etc.

 

[aprilcait]

OK, I hope I don''t offend anybody with this, but I''d like to recommend some school districts to you if school and safety are main concerns. Quince Orchard HS, Wooton HS, and Churchill HS (I belive Churchill might technicaly Potomac, but it is a GREAT public school) are very good schools with good elementary and middle schools. They are also within safer areas. So, you maight want to look inthose school distrcits for housing. Northwest HS and Gaithersburg HS are schools to be a bit wary of; they are kind of known to be a bit...swarthy.

There are also a lot of great private schools in the area too, if you are interested in that.

 

[Beacon]

I grew up in Potomac and went to Churchill! It is a great school. I think they also have some students from Rockville too.

Every now and then I think about moving back. I have great memories of MD.

 

[aprilcait]

Churchill was always known as "the public private school". Meaning that it was as close to a private school as you could get for a public school.

 

[Beacon]

Well, it''s pretty far from private school. I went to private school for middle school at Georgetown Day School and when I went to Churchill it looked like a jail to me! We never had locks on our lockers in private school and we called the teachers by their first names and it was a *totally* different scene. That much said, Churchill was a good school and I had some good teachers and some bad ones too!

 

[asscherisme]

I went to Walt Whitman High School in the 80's. I have no clue how it is now but back then people at Walt Whitman had this snotty attitude like they were the best around public and private. I hated that attitude! The thing that sticks out to me in memory was how the student parking lot had nicer cars than the teacher parking lot. Parents would give their kids super expensive cars because they felt guilty for not spending enough time with them. There was HUGE money there. But that was Bethesda and Potomac feeding into the school. I remember at that time they were named one of the top 10 high schools in the country and such a big deal was made of it. I have heard they rebuilt the school. I have not been back in years though. Churchill and Walt Whitman were rivals in the 80's. They are pretty close geographically.

I actually loved growing up in the DC area but it has changed so much since I grew up. Its SO crowded and over priced. I waffle between wanting to live there and then reality check of how expensive it is and why I moved away from there. I even went to University of Maryland College Park.

 

[aprilcait]

I have to say that, even though I do love the DC area, I have to agree with Amylikesrocks. I was a private school kid (preschool-college) and definitely was witness to the surplus of money in the DC area. Still, some areas around here are more "ritzy" than others. So, it just all depends on what you''re looking for.

Beacon- I had a friend who went to Georgetown Day.