While bored at work I came across a link to Newsweek article about the top 1000 High Schools. I was happy to see that good old QOHS [editor: Quince Orchard High School] was number 314 out of 27,468.
Granted, there were 5 schools from Montgomery County in the top 100, 314 isnt too bad. I started looking thru the rest of the list to find several of(almost all) Montgomery County schools on the list. Other area schools were on the list too, most from Northern VA and other areas that are somewhat “rich” areas. Areas which even if i was able to afford a house in, I wouldnt be able to afford to have children. As some of you know, i am lived with just my father and he was able to support the two of us living in montgomery county. But now adays the townhouse he bought for $60k is going for almost $300k.
I don’t even want to think about how much Matt’s old house is worth.
So when I have kids (and a wife), looks like I would have to make a choice. If I want to give them a nice house that I can afford, they won’t get the best education.
Or I could live in an area with good schools but only be able to afford a condo.
Or hope to marry somone that is making as much if not more than myself to maybe be able to get close to both.
I know I’m behind on the baby making compared to others so I’m still in the “what if” thought process. But is this the problem that those who already have children are dealing with?
EDIT by matthew: Linked, tpyos corrected, small edits.
COMPLETLY!!!!!!!!
Montgomery County has forced the issue and has forced out any sort of middle income family. It doesn’t exisit anymore here.
You are either in the what we used to think of as the Potomac income bracket or the dirt poor. They have raised the property tax so much here that you can’t even rent a one-bedroom for less than 1200 dollars a month. While mind you that the minnumum wage has stayed at about $6.00 dollars and hour with NO benifits.
Then they have the nerve to wonder why our teacher’s and firefighter’s live outside of the county and how can they get them back here. They have the nerve to wonder why two years ago there were more than 14,000 people who signed up in a 24 hour period for only one of the three HOC program’s out there. Mind you that these may or may not open only for that 24 hr’s once every two years. Than people have to wait to see if they are lucky enough to have there name drawn from a hat.
The Montgomery County Council knew that there was going to be a signifigant housing problem 10 years ago and still insisted on raising the property tax. Disallowing anyone with a mediocre pay to ever live the dream of owning a home.
Then this past week our wonderfull council member’s decided to go against all recomandation’s and cut the school budget by $6 million dollars. D-Dist. 5’s Tom Perez’s responce to the school board was “You phones dial out, if you’ve got a beef , call me.” When dealing with the housing problem his and their soulution was to hold a charity banquet selling of local artist painting’s. That was there big solution when they knew that the amount of housing being set aside was running out or had for years on a plan that was never intended to stay perminet.
So yes in order for my children to have a better education I had to move my whole family into a tiny bedroom at my in-laws. Have my kids sleep on the floor. Lose everything we had a prayed for our name to be drawn. Thankfully it was. Because even with two incomes we couldn’t even afford the one-bedroom apartment’s out there because you have to make at least $35,000 just to qualify.
How more unreal can you get than the fantasy land of Montgomery County? Where the council beileves that everyone here makes a 3 figure income.
— Teresa the Flautist and fire dancer
EDIT by matthew: Broke up the “wall of text”. I love your posts, Teresa, but please include line breaks so we can separate one idea from the next 🙂
Evaluation
We evaluated the costs of moving back there, and found Monkey County far too prohibitive. Here’s a quick comparison.
Our home in Tooele, UT cost us $110,000 new. It’s a townhome, 2200 square feet on 3 levels, on 1/10 of an acre. It was a little more than we could afford when we first bought it. I was making $37,000 a year at the time, and Christy had to do day care and preschool just so we could keep up on the bills.
I make substantially more than that now. But even with that improvement in pay, we balked at the fact that a similarly-specced home in Montgomery County exceeded $300,000, with many in “prime” locations breaking half a million dollars.
Now figure payments a second. Our base mortgage payment is somewhere in the area of $750. Then with insurance, property taxes, etc., we’re paying maybe $80.00 more than that. I’m just using rough numbers, not the real thing, but fairly close.
so $830.00 a month for a home.
If this same house cost us $330,000, our payment would be 3x that base, with similar fees. So bump that number up to $2,250 a month base, PLUS 3x the property tax, and similar fees. So you’d be looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,400 a MONTH just for a mortgage payment.
That’s $28,800 a year just for your home. Assuming it’s a modest home, figure a hundred bucks a month for electricity. Another fifty for gas. How much is income tax in MD now? I remember it being rather high. 7% sales tax on everything but food.
According to US Poverty Statistics, you’re “poor” if you’re making less than $22,050 a year (source: US federal poverty guidelines, using family of 4 as a base; adjust by roughly $3500 per family member for poverty level).
In Montgomery County, tack about another $20K onto that figure for the base poverty level.
We couldn’t possibly justify living there when we were looking at moving. Maybe Frederick, barely, but MC is just horrible.
Sure, the schools are good. But dang, I could educate my kid in a private school with a top-flight education for far, far less than the cost differential of living in or near Montgomery County, MD.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
–I am just glad to beat Sene
–I am just glad to beat Seneca Valley once again. I think they came in 733rd. LOL Teresa the Flautist and fire dancer