Living anywhere near the beltway is going to be expensive!! Truly, the reason we bought our house down here in King George is because we looked and looked and looked and it's the only affordable, decent sized housing left within an hour and a half of DC. The thing is, most of the people that work in DC commute. Your hubby may have to just suck it up. I know that's not what you want to hear, but it's the truth. My hubby works in DC and we live about an hour and 15 minutes from his work. It's totally doable, especially if your hubby can find someone else at work to car-pool with. The most important thing you're going to want to look at is his route to work. You should try to live on the same side of the river as his work. Truly. There are only so many ways to cross the Potomac and they're all major choke points. Since he's going to be working in Arlington, you should consider living in Southern, MD or across the river (but further away from the city) in Virginia, which is where we live. Avoid living anywhere that would necessesitate using 95 or 495 too much. It's not really going to be totally avoidable, but stay off of it as long as possible.
Of course, Arlington is easily accessible from where my hubby works (Suitland) and my hubby takes 301 to 5 to work instead of 495 so it can be done. 301 is definitely a better way to get into DC if you have to commute.
I really recommend someplace like La Plata, MD, Waldorf, MD or our town of King George, VA. Like I said, it takes my hubby about an hour to an hour and a half to get to work every day and we're the furthest away of the suggestions I made. His work place is close to Arlington and we live in King George, VA. Look all of this up on a map and then accept that anything between DC and our town is where you're going to want to be. Also remember that the closer you get to DC the more expensive the housing becomes. Where we live we bought a 2400sf home on just under an acre of land in a great neighborhood, but a rural setting for $230,000 which is a super great deal for the greater DC area and was accomplished because of the market now and because of our location. There are a lot of foreclosures in our area too, so look into that if you're interesed in buying maybe. A lot of people around here are renting homes now as well.
As far as schools go, I can't help you there. I got so fed up with the whole government school system as a whole that I chose to homeschool. I love homeschooling around here because there is so much history to see and we get to see it all since my kids aren't stuck in a institutional school all day. Maybe you could think about something like that.
Private message me if you have additional questions, or want a pre-made friend when you get here. I'm happy to help with anything you might need and welcome to the DC area!
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Oops, also wanted to mention that the green line of the Metro comes all of the way out to Suitland, so commuting could be made easier if your hubby is willing to drive to Suitland and then take the Metro for a couple of stops down into Arlington. This would really cut out a lot of hassle and time since he wouldn't be driving actually IN to DC. The Suitland Metro station is accessible if you take 301 to 5 and then get on the Suitland Pkwy. You don't even have to have anything to do with 495. So really I think the 301 corridor is going to be your best bet.
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BTW, $2000/mo for rent is on the LOW side. I'm so glad we bought where we did. Our mortgage for our nice large, stand alone home is only about $1400/mo!