Hi. I'm not sure if anyone currently lives in the DC area but I recently received a job offer for a firm in the DC area (North Bethesda, which apparently is very expensive). If anyone is familiar with the area, do you have any recommendations for places to live that are safe, (relatively) affordable, easily commutable (hopefully via public transit but I would consider driving) and quiet? I don't need any night life (and I'm sure if I do, I can find some). The general feel I'm getting is Germantown/Gaithersburg but I really don't know anything about the area. Thank you in advance for any advice.
I used to live in Richmond, and moved to DC about a year and a half ago. As OG said, the Richmond area up to Fredericksburg is where you will find the cheapest housing. However, when you take 95 up, you will want to kill yourself. If you are not driving, then it is not too bad. A couple co-workers live in Stafford, VA, which is pretty cheap and about half way between DC and Fredericksville. There's also a train that allows you to commute to Union Station.
Basically most of DC is pretty nice. The places to stay away from are anywhere south of Navy Yard on the Green Line and anywhere east of Eastern Market on the Blue line.
If you are close to a metro, the area the job is in is the red line. The redline breaks down like 5 times a day, so if thats how you want to commute, expect to be late a lot.
As to affordable, it all depends on what you want. Our original place was only $1,400 a month, but it was in a crappy part of town and I had only 2 weeks to find a place. We just moved into a brand new building across the street from the Nationals Park and that's $2,400 a month, with parking.
Use Zillow too when looking for a place.
http://www.zillow.com/homes/bethesda,-md_rb/
You can filter it to show you just apartments instead of houses for sale. That gives you an idea of the rent in any given area.
