We just purchased an oven 2,000 sq foot townhouse in Baltimore City with a 2 car garage and rooftop deck across from a school and large park. We will be limited to gardening in raised beds and containers, but otherwise, zero compromises on what we wanted. We are within walking distance to two grocery stores and countless bars and restaurants. You can have both city life and space if you want it.

You were too busy blowing cops

But do you seriously think there shouldn’t be laws against using a media empire to spread foreign propaganda? Or just spread any propaganda that is wildly conflicting with the good of the people?

Do media outlets have zero responsibility in your mind?

Honestly you might like catonsville. Close to the city, cute downtown to walk around, good neighborhoods, young people since it’s close to a college.

Check out Charles Village too! We have a decent sized row home and small front and back yards. It's family friendly but you can also walk to a lot of restaurants and bars.

If not planning to move around a lot. I would def suggest the county. It’s just so much easier if your the type of people that want a yard and not wonder who is that person. The other big thing is Baltimore doesn’t really have your normal grocery stores in the city. Towson, cockeysville, Lutherville, sparks not much further out and get more for your money. The market is tough rn here. You can expect to pay 50k over asking in all those areas

Why not be spontaneous. Move to the city and try a new way of living? Try to find a place with a parking pad that way you only have one car to find parking for. You get used to not having a yard. Instead of a yard you might have a back patio and a rooftop deck instead.

You mention you don’t want the same as you’ve had and you want something new, but you’re choosing more of the same.

If you dislike it after a year, move out to the county(outside the city).

How'd you go about getting a vibe? We had the exact same plan, Airbnb to eventually buy, before deciding to rent with the insane mortgage rates now. But I also wasn't sure how we'd even really get a vibe for a neighborhood anyways without living there? Drive to a new one each weekend and spend a day walking around I guess....?

I’m an attorney and a landlord, but your landlord is a shitbag.

That's awesome! Definitely what I miss about the ol' college days too. Being in suburbia can be pretty isolating especially without kids to help meet other people. Maybe that's an us problem though

We've definitely considered it. It's our plan B if we feel really unsure/can't find anything we like.

It seems that you want the backyard and a little more space. When you want to be in BBQ mode, invite people over. If you want nightlife, more activities, hit the city. It's really just an opinion of choice

I've gotten really good at grocery pickup/online orders so i never spend more than 5 minutes at a grocery store on my way home from work lol. We have a good system and not something I expect small city grocers to have, unfortunately. I hate shopping lol

Housing is so small and so expensive I feel like everyone who just decides to live in hampden just doesn’t like having money

Yeah this resonates a lot with me. Also why we're renting. If we hate the city we can always move. Burbs are boring but also safe, and if we start there idk if we will ever find the motivation to leave lol

Beverly Hills, Lauraville, Hamilton

Thank you! So maybe in a few years with a kid or two around Cockeysville/etc will feel more like home

This is the way . . .

>Yeah Cockeysville is like families and people in their 50s-70s.

Yeah this is kinda exactly what we don't want. It starting to sound like we'd be better off putting our best effort into trying out the city. I think we'd come around to it, just growing pains/foreign

Haha thank you for correcting me/educating me. See I don't even really know what it's like to live in a city! But I'm warming up to it. Sounds like we'd have a lot of fun and we're coming around on the idea. Thanks.

Our budget is pretty high. Or soft ceiling is 3k probably, but hoping for a 3 bed w parking which can be limiting regardless of budget...

Yeah and also the light rail is right there going downtown

Is Mt Washington a suburb? 😅 Boy i have a lot to learn still haha

Bayview is next to the Hopkins-Bayview campus. You can walk to Hopkins-Bayview and take the shuttle to Hopkins. I used to own a 2 unit rental in Bayview. At one point, I had 2 women (roommates), neither of whom had a car. They were nursing students and each day would walk to Hopkins-Bayview and take the shuttle to Hopkins.

Some here insinuate the neighborhood is not safe. All I can say is I owned the house for almost 20 years and never had a tenant tell me about any problems with the neighborhood.

You can routinely see people from the Hopkins-Bayview campus walking through the neighborhood during their lunch hour. Would they be doing that if they thought for a minute it might be risky?

I sold the house in 2016 but I doubt the area has gotten 'dangerous' as some here seem to think.

Yeah this is kind of our fear. For the past few years we've been smothered by people a decade + older than us just because of where we've needed to live and we're SICK of it lol.

>The suburban apartment complexes are like the worst of all worlds, trapped with people and their noise through the walls while lacking any kind of street life, community feeling or conveniences at the same time.

You've pretty much exactly described everything we've disliked about suburbs/apartments over these last few years haha. Thanks for taking the time to respond and giving some great suggestions

Arbutus!

Ideally one of the detached homes in between east drive and Shelbourne because it'll put you in walking distance to the restaurants, shops, movie theatre in town and the events center on UMBC. There are sidewalks everywhere (if you have a stroller down the road), it's right off of many major roads, the elementary and middle school are good enough, they just starting building a new high school, patapsco state park is near by, and it's relatively affordable compared to other towns nearby. There's live music fairly often on campus or in town so there's some semblance of a night life but it's still a fairly sleepy blue collar town. There are also yearly events like the arts festival, 10K, and 4th of July parade.