We are looking in Reston and starting to look in Loudoun County (as of this weekend). The tricky part is the commute and finding that sweet spot where it can take you less than an hour to get to the city if I have to work there and then leaving 15 later and taking 1.5 hours.
We are going with less of a house so we can still save 15% of our income, she can work part time so we eventually wont have to pay for daycare and also have the flexibility of commuting. I think the majority of people that live where we are looking are not saving that much and not doing well on retirement funds, all things that we are focused on. AT least there is the metro going out to Loudoun, buses and slug lines. I think if I am out the door by 6am I would be fine.
We thought about her working full time longer but to be honest, I feel like we would be trading dollars. If we look to start a family in the next year or so day-care would be $1500 a month and residual income from her full time job would not be worth it compared if she worked part time. If she worked full time for another year and no kids then not sure what we are really going to gain from that besides being able to save more? She is eventually going to be going part-time no matter what, so if we buy a 600k house, not sure how much we could get that down if she goes part time and we still have a 3000k mortgage Besides, talking with Ken he said over the next year or so stuff will start heading up in the housing market around here. We want to lock in that 4% now lol