The Search Process:

After deciding we would buy instead of renting we looked at quite a few properties with the requirements from the previous post in mind before we decided on Riverdale Park Station. These are all the other options we looked at and our thought process.

1. Otis Place Flats - Condo : Brookland, DC The location here was PERFECT for both of us, near where we are renting currently. It is only steps from the Brookland metro. But they were asking upper 500’s and the units were only 1200 square feet. Taking a tour of one of the units it just seemed WAY TOO SMALL.

2. Totten Mews - Townhouse : Fort Totten, DC This was about a 0.6 mile walk to the metro and in DC so good location. 1900 Square feet and 3 bed and 2.5 bath so it was big enough and the design looked excellent… The negatives were the base price was 600k and once we added our selections we were looking at 650k and the unit did not have a good outdoor space and the elementary school was poor.

 3. Hyattsville Arts District – Townhouse: Hyattsville, MD We liked the Arts District itself and the two townhouses for sale that we looked at here were nice. 1900 square feet, 3 bed, 2.5 bath with rooftop decks. Plus with asking prices in the low 400’s this would be below our budget. The killer for us is this was not walkable to the metro, you would have to drive or take a shuttle.

 4. Editors Park – Townhouse: Hyattsville, MD These townhouses here were great and had everything we needed. Also extremely close to the PG Plaza metro station and very walkable to everything. 3 bedrooms, 2 car garage and the floorplans were solid. The issue we had here is we really just did not like the PG Plaza area as we have shopped there many times in the past living not too far away. We also did not like the overall layout of the community.

5. Greenbelt Station – Townhouse: Greenbelt, MD This was the first property we looked at in December of 2016. The Strauss Attic was probably our favorite townhouse floorplan that we looked at out of all of them. Plenty of space and a perfect layout. Also the Greenbelt metro station was only a 0.8 walk from the unit. The only negative I had was there was really nothing good to walk to except the metro station. They had planned retail at some point but I did not see any being built yet. Once you got outside the community the surrounding area was not very nice. Still we probably would have ended up buying here had we not looked at Riverdale Park Station as this was 95% of what we were looking for. The idea to create this blog was actually after I found a few blogs while doing research for a purchase at Greenbelt Station. Shout out to http://greenbeltmatisse.blogspot.com and http://allstraussnostress.blogspot.com/ and http://najstraussgreenbelt.blogspot.com for giving me the idea for this blog.

 6. University Park –Single Family Home: Riverdale, Maryland After deciding that we really liked the Riverdale area we seriously considered buying a single family home in the area directly behind where Riverdale Park Station is currently being built. We figured this way we would still get everything the community has to offer without a HOA fee and we get a yard, don’t share a wall, and even be closer to the metro… Although the prices were lower (350-400k) the homes were all from the 1920’s and had small rooms and small square footage. (most were from 1200 sq feet to 1500 sq feet). Many still had radiators or baseboard heat and needed a lot of updates (no open floor plan, etc). Also when we considered that at some point in the future we would want to rent the home and low maintenance was important to us we reluctantly ruled these out.

The next post will focus on why we went with the Towns at Riverdale Park Station.