Crossing State Lines
It's the Road Less Traveled, but Some Home Buyers Head Across the Potomac

By Tomoeh Murakami Tse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 18, 2006

Next year, Brad Nathan, a renter in Alexandria, will be moving into a new condo he bought in Hyattsville. Marlene and Art Hartstein, who lived in a single-family house in Rockville for 30 years, are downsizing to an Arlington condo. And Kacey and Jay Hoffman, both Virginians by birth, are putting down roots in Anne Arundel County.

These home buyers -- from all walks of life, with different financial situations and expectations for their homes -- share a common trait: They are the crossovers, that rare breed among home buyers in suburban Washington who move across the river.

While the route out of the District has been well-worn by buyers seeking suburban lives, less common are those who cross the border between Virginia and Maryland.

According to 2000 Census figures, Montgomery County drew about 5,000 residents from Fairfax County, its neighbor on the other side of the Potomac, while receiving roughly four times as many people from Prince George's County. The survey asked which county respondents resided in then and where they lived five years prior.

Arlington County attracted about 19,000 people from Fairfax County for the same period, roughly three times as many as those who moved from the Maryland counties of Montgomery, Prince George's, Howard, Frederick and Anne Arundel combined.

And although Frederick County is right across the river from Loudoun County, it drew just 360 people from there while taking in nearly three times as many people from Anne Arundel, miles and miles away. Loudoun County, meanwhile, attracted more people from Los Angeles County than from Frederick County.

But for whatever reason, some buyers such as Nathan do cross the state line, putting up with the hassles of new driver's licenses and plates, doctors and dentists -- and gentle ribbing from friends.

"The people in Virginia can't believe I'd go to Maryland, and the people in Maryland can't believe I've spent this long in Virginia," Nathan said. He doesn't see much difference.

He's a Pennsylvania native, now living in Alexandria and engaged to a woman in Maryland. He plans to move to Hyattsville when his new condo is ready next year. Finances and an easier commute were the main reasons. He was ready to buy a home and found prices more reasonable in Hyattsville than in Arlington or Fairfax. The location of the condo, now being built near the Metro station at Prince George's Plaza, was also a plus. These days, his commute to his job as a Web developer in the District can take 90 minutes.

"It wasn't Maryland calling me necessarily. . . . It was convenience to work," he said.

The teasing from some of his friends reflects an underlying gap between the states. Some describe it simply as a matter of loyalty to their states, while others point to differences in mentality -- North vs. South, liberal vs. conservative, East Coast hustle-bustle vs. something a lot more laid back.

Robert Lang, a demographer at Virginia Tech, said that in the Washington suburbs, that gap is quickly disappearing, as evidenced by the mid-term elections last week when the Commonwealth delivered James Webb, a Democrat, to the Senate over Republican incumbent George Allen.

"Before, there were people who would say, 'I just wouldn't feel comfortable moving to south of the Potomac,' " Lang said. "It's a pretty permeable boundary now. It's hardly the Berlin Wall."

These days, he added, the driving forces behind where people settle have less to do with ideology than with hard numbers: housing costs, property tax rates, school test scores and commuting times.

Ted Unnikumaran, a real estate agent who works in Fairfax County, examined such numbers for his move to Silver Spring from Falls Church this fall.

The bottom line? The move is costing him several hundred dollars a month. But he said being closer to family more than makes up for it. Both he and his wife, Yekaterina, grew up in Maryland.

His commute is longer, which means that he spends more money not only on gasoline, but also on car insurance, which went up by about $80 a month. His take-home pay, he said, shrunk by $173 a month because of state taxes.

Not all costs increased. The Unnikumarans no longer will pay the Virginia state car tax. And although the couple's house is larger than the Falls Church townhouse they used to own, their property tax will not rise significantly because the tax rate is lower in Montgomery County.

Unnikumaran, a sports fan, also likes that he is closer to Baltimore teams and to sports events at the University of Maryland. He does miss the easier drive downtown to the Kennedy Center and Smithsonian.

Kacey and Jay Hoffman both grew up in Culpeper County, attended James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., and were renting in Alexandria. But in 2003, when they married, they were ready to look elsewhere.

The traffic was "too ridiculous, and the housing was too expensive," Jay Hoffman said. "All the things people complain about Northern Virginia became too much to bear."

Because Jay Hoffman was commuting to Calvert County at the time, moving farther out in Virginia wouldn't work. Besides, "that area is a little bit too slow," he said. They purchased a townhouse in Odenton in Anne Arundel County.

Although the Hoffmans, both 28, don't think of themselves as Marylanders just yet, they are enjoying their lives in a residential community, without having to give up the urban conveniences.

"It's all there in Maryland, too," said Kacey Hoffman, adding that they shop in Annapolis. It's about a 15-minute drive. "I have no issue with it. I'd rather drive somewhere to do something rather than sit in traffic and do nothing."

Marlene and Art Hartstein had no plans to move to Virginia when they decided it was time to downsize and be closer to their daughter in Georgetown.

"That never even crossed my mind," said Marlene Hartstein, 63. "I was almost skeptical. . . . When my daughter said Virginia, it was not like a known entity, even though it was the next state."

It wasn't as if the Hartsteins had never been there. There were the occasional shopping trips to Tysons Corner as well as visits to some friends who live near there.

But the Hartsteins had raised their children in Rockville. Marlene Hartstein had retired as a teacher in the Montgomery County public schools. For her, Virginia seemed a daunting blur of highways.

In the beginning, the couple looked in Chevy Chase, where they are renting until their condo is ready for them to move in. They looked in Bethesda. They looked in the District.

Then they looked in Rosslyn, where they ended up buying a two-bedroom condo. The building was just five minutes across the bridge from Georgetown. They could ride Metro, or even walk to see their daughter and their baby grandson. And there were new shopping and dining in the area that they had not known about before.

Even after they move, the Hartsteins plan to regularly visit friends in Maryland. They will still attend their synagogue in Gaithersburg. It's just off Interstate 270 and they figure the drive will take 10 minutes more than it does now.

"Really, I have the best of both," Marlene Hartstein said. "I don't give up my old associations that made me happy in Maryland. And I get to be part of something new."