Moving to the DC Area With Family

First, take a deep breath. I’ve raised my kids here. We actually live in DC in a residential area, and it’s not all downtown city living here.

Second, if city life isn’t for you, I have great news. Maryland and Virginia both have suburbs that are close to the city that offer a range of lifestyles from urban and city vibes to more suburban and even rural areas. And bonus, much of Northern Virgina and to a lesser extent, Maryland, have several employment areas so you may not even need to commute to downtown DC.

DC
Let’s start with DC proper. Yes, people actually do live in the city. DC offers everything from city living where it’s densely populated with condos and a few houses (we call them rowhomes) scattered around to more residential neighborhoods. Kids can play in streets or alleys without fear of being run down by cars and buses in many of these neighborhoods.

Rowhomes are usually 3 or 4 levels and can have as much as 4000 sf, though that is not the norm. You will see these larger homes in areas like Dupont Circle, Logan Circle, and Woodley Park. I live in Glover Park and we have more moderate style rowhomes here which have between 1400 to 2200 square feet.

Virginia
There are the very close areas of the DC Suburbs in Virginia such as Arlington, the City of Alexandria and the eastern parts of Fairfax like McLean and Falls Church. Then there is the rest of Fairfax County as well as Prince William and Loudoun counties. People also live farther than this if they only commute to DC once a week or less and if they want a horse farm or larger property.

People are drawn to Arlington because of the proximity to DC and the Northern Virginia business areas like Tyson’s. The schools have historically been great and score well but the school district did lose a lot of students to private schools during and post-pandemic. There are also reports that children with learning disabilities don’t receive the support they should, but I hear that it takes a lot of advocating to get services in most districts.

The school district is one that families target because Fairfax County has one of the top school districts in the country. Different areas of the county have different school scores. Most of Fairfax County schools have pretty robust sports programs at the high school level as well as a variety of academics such as Honors, AP and IB offerings. They have Blue Ribbon Schools in the County, but there are only about seven of them in Fairfax County. Blue Ribbon is a designation for schools with high academic excellence or who have closed learning gaps in subgroups of students.
There is a relatively new Superintendent for Fairfax County who began in 2022. There are some concerns about her ability as a leader that mostly seem to affect staff relations, and there has been a bit of an exodus of staff to surrounding school districts. The School Board is up for election this fall, so stay tuned here.

The downsides in Fairfax, like in some other school districts in the area, is that there has been inadequate support for special education. Parents have sued over Fairfax County failing to provide students with IEP’s and 504’s the support they need, so something to keep in mind here as well. And you may recall the news from Spring, 2023, when winners of the National Merit Award were never notified. This information would have been critical for those college applications, and this resulted in a lawsuit as well.

Maryland
I’m mostly going to focus on Montgomery County for this conversation. Bethesda is an urban/suburban area and Silver Spring has a downtown which feels more like a city at times than parts of DC. Once you pass Bethesda heading north, it becomes suburban right away, and then in northern Montgomery County it can even feel rural in some places.
You will be able to find any type of living situation here that you could want. Generally people move to Montgomery County to get more space, and more affordable housing when compared to Virginia. Maryland has less employment centers and more regulation on growth and density. These are your true bedroom communities here.

When families leave DC to move to Montgomery County, they do so for schools and sports opportunities. Montgomery County spends almost half its budget on schools and it’s well-deserved as over 86% of the teachers have a master’s degree or beyond.

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I work with clients from all over the world who are relocating here. Email, call or text anytime, I'm happy to help!

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If you have any questions about this video, leave a comment! If you have questions about real estate in DC, Maryland or Virginia, my contact info is below.

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Melissa Terzis
📲 (202) 253-9105
📩 Melissa@MelissaTerzis.com
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TTR | Sotheby's International Realty
1515 14th St NW
Washington, DC 20005
Office: (202) 234.3344

- Melissa Terzis | DC Real Estate Mama

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