What to do? What to do?
Then I thought, “Today would be a great day to go to some open houses.”
For the past couple of months or so I’ve been on again, off again house hunting, mainly due to changes at work. And, while I’m kinda-sorta in the middle of another work change, I’m settled enough to seriously start looking.So hither and yon I went with a friend who’s much further into the process than I and we saw some nice places. One in particular in Columbia Heights is sooooo cool it would probably require some type of cool test to live there. A test I would fail miserably, I’m sure.
Another place looked really nice and was a just-completed total renovation and was pretty damn big, but was in an area that is a little eh, sketch. Not sketchy enough to keep me, personally, from living there, but enough to be of a bit of concern. While talking about this place with a friend who’s actually small enough the sketchiness of the area would be a major concern, another issue was brought to the forefront: Money.
Specifically what I’ve come to learn is the gigantic chunk of change the District of Columbia would take out of my pocket in the form of income taxes without actually really giving me anything in return if I were to relocate there. My friend is a current resident of the District, but a former NoVa neighbor who described the difference in services received from her previous and current government thusly: “Arlington really does rock”. This echoes my pretty darn smart youngest brother who last year moved from the Hill to Arlington or, as he called it, “the country.”
After a lot of thought I’m wondering is if the intangibles of living in the city really offset the real, tangible amount of money that ends up in my pocket every month?
In the comments tell me why you think it is or isn't worth it to cross the Rubicon?
