Almost seven years ago, we purchased our first home in Georgia. Our home was a lovely single family home that met all of the things that we really wanted in our season of life. Honestly, we thought it might be our forever home.
We made a lot of memories in that home from finding out I was pregnant to purchasing our first tickets to Europe. We had a large sprawling yard, a huge garage, and a play house in the backyard; however, those very things we also found overwhelming.
When we decided to pack up our family and move to the Washington DC metro area, we debated heavily on whether we would chose a town home over a single family home. After a lot or back and forth lists on pros and cons, this is why we chose a town home over a single family home in DC.
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WHY WE CHOSE A TOWN HOME OVER A SINGLE FAMILY HOME IN DC
LIVING IN A TOWN HOME IS VERY COMMON IN THE DC AREA
When we first discussed moving to DC, we didn’t know what to think about living in a town home. We had rented a town home once, but the layout was very inefficient and had a lot of wasted space. We both grew up in single family homes in areas where it wasn’t common to have a town home.
However, DC is very different and living in a town home is often the norm! Out of the twenty homes we looked at, we only looked at two pairs of town homes that had almost the same layout and we were surprised at how many options there were.
YARD WORK IS VERY TIME AND MONEY INTENSIVE
When we were house hunting, we knew that we could buy another single family home, but we honestly evaluated whether or not we wanted to do yard work.
Yard work requires expensive tools and it takes a lot of time. We knew this well from previous experience. There were many single family homes we could have looked at in our home search, but we ended up not looking at any of them. The more we thought about it, the more we realized that we would want to spend time together as a family instead of doing yard work on the weekends.
Our experience in Georgia with having a large yard was very time intensive, but not very rewarding. Within the first few weeks of buying our house, we hauled our several trailers full of yard debris out of our backyard alone.
Over the next five years, it felt like all of our free time went to our yard. The dream was to have a beautiful yard where our children could play someday. While our yard became beautiful and very clear with our work, we could never get rid of the mosquito or poison ivy infestations.
We thought we’d have friends over to spend time around our fire pit, but the reality was our backyard was a large inhabitable space. While this situation is extreme, it was our experience. We knew we would have a smaller yard in the DC metro area regardless, but we knew how much time it could truly take and we weren’t interested.
We sold or gave away all of our lawn equipment before we move to DC, and we have no regrets. Choosing a town home over a single family home has been an excellent experience because we still have a lot of green space, but we don’t have to maintain it at all.
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OUR NEIGHBORS ARE CLOSER
We have met so many of our neighbors in DC since day one.
I was honestly a little overwhelmed at first because I had three different people ring our doorbell to introduce themselves within a week- something I had never experienced! Neighbors brought us mail, told us when our dryer vent was clogged because it had been an issue for the previous homeowner, and just introduced themselves. It was honestly very refreshing after our previous experience.
In Georgia, there was one day we made a cake because we wanted to get to know people in our neighborhood, and after knocking on four doors, someone answered the door.
By choosing to live in a town home instead of a single family home in DC, we have gotten to know our neighbors quickly and we’ve loved it! I know if we had picked a different neighborhood in Georgia with an Home Owner’s Association (HOA) that it possibly would have been friendlier, but that isn’t something we thought about at the time.
our ranch style single family home in Georgia
THE HOME OWNER ASSOCIATIONS ACTUALLY DO THINGS
We didn’t belong to a Home Owner’s Association (HOA) in Georgia, but we realized there were often a lot of social advantages and activities by being a part of one. From our previous experience, people were very to themselves and the neighborhood had been established for a long time. We knew regardless of where we lived, we wanted somewhere more social and neighborhood oriented.
When we began debating on whether we would choose a town home over a single family home, we began looking at different neighborhoods. We ended up making a list of HOAs we liked for child-based amenities and activities. We were surprised at how many activities were often included in the DC area HOAs from book clubs to ethnic food potlucks.
We ended up picking our current home because we loved all of the features of our HOA. There were other places that we enjoyed, but the smaller HOAs often cost as much and offered fewer options for our family.
LIVING IN A TOWN HOME IS MORE AFFORDABLE IN THE DC AREA
All in all, when it came down to buying a home, buying a town home is much cheaper in DC than living in a single family home. We could have easily bought a single family home, but it wasn’t worth it to us financially or with the time investment of a yard.
There are many things we really love about living in the DC area. The side walks and trails are amazing. There are historical sites, ethnic food restaurants, and green space. There are so many opportunities and free things to go visit!
All in all, choosing to live in a town home instead of a single family home in the DC area seemed like the best decision for us. We were able to find an amazing deal on our house, we love the layout, and it is a home that we can see ourselves living in for a very long time.
We feel really lucky to call northern Virginia home!
