WASHINGTON — It’s becoming impossible to find affordable housing in the immediate D.C. area. The average median price for a home is roughly $486,300 and that’s sure to increase, Zillow reports.
So maybe it’s worth moving to one of the region’s smaller cities in the Maryland or Virginia suburbs. Several area spots were included on Money.com’s list of the nation’s 50 best small cities and towns to live in.
The top community from the D.C. area is North Laurel, Maryland, which ranked No. 23. Money says the big draws to the area are an unemployment rate of 4 percent, significantly below the state average of 5.3 percent.
While Howard County has a graduation rate of 93 percent, Money acknowledged that the median home price is getting pretty high, and rush-hour traffic to D.C. or Baltimore “can be brutal.”
Damascus, Maryland, which came in at No. 31, has a tight-knit community in which teachers and students know each other outside the classroom.
“It’s a comfortably paced lifestyle,” says Catherine Matthews, Regional Director of Montgomery County’s Upcounty Services office, which represents Damascus. “It has a real sense of community. People come out and look out for each other.”
Damascus also has an 8.1 percent job growth, as well as the newly formed Damascus Art Festival.
At No. 35 comes Urbana, Maryland. Money cited the town’s “booming economy” led by the MD-355/I-270 tech corridor that includes Lockheed Martin and MedImmune, as well as the recent opening of a Social Security Administration data center.
Sadly, though, there isn’t much nightlife in Urbana, but that’s just down the road in Frederick, says John Fieseler, Executive Director of Visit Frederick. There were 622 Urbana residents, according to the 2000 Census. In 2010, there were 9,175 people living there.
“We know what a great place it is,” Fieseler says. “It’s popular here because people realize you have access to D.C.
Vienna, Virginia, still ranks highly, coming in at No. 48, Money reports that that’s down from No. 3 in 2013.
They still like the “vibrant downtown,” the W&OD Trail and the low unemployment thanks to its overlap with Tysons Corner, home to companies such as Booz Allen Hamilton, Capital One and Hilton Worldwide.
But the growth of Tysons is a potential problem, they say, and housing costs are high and projected to go higher.
The list was compiled from data on income growth, local unemployment, tax burden, test scores, crime rates, leisure activities, population density and more.
