
Stephanie Cooper
RLAH @properties
(202) 883-6205
78 Total Sales
1
$355,000 Price
Located in Prince George's County
Forestville is one of those Washington, D.C. suburbs that’s been directly affected by the reshaping of that city’s residential market. As people in the city have shuffled where they live, some have left the confines of urban living altogether and opted for the suburban lifestyle a place like Forestville offers. “A lot of people who are leaving D.C. for an affordable suburban life might choose Forestville,” says Tiffany Stone, a Realtor with RE/Max. “It’s very close to Washington. I would say most of the people who are choosing to leave Washington and move to the suburbs want to be in a place that’s convenient. Forestville literally feels like an extension of DC.”
Not far from Upper Marlboro and District Heights, Forestville is a mix of garden apartments and single-family homes. “It has small Cape Cods and ranch-style houses and ramblers. There are a lot of town house communities there too,” Stone says. The homes sit on smaller, neat, well-maintained lots with moderate space between them. 65% of people who reside in Forestville own their homes, while 35% rent.
The median home value in Forestville is around $275,000, with houses generally ranging from the low $200,000s to mid-$300,000s. “Most starter homes, smaller homes and town homes are in the $300,000s,” Stone says.
Forestville students attend school in the Prince George’s County School District, one of the nation’s largest school districts, which Niche rates C. Students enroll in North Forestville Elementary School, Drew Freeman Middle School and Suitland High School. As well, Forestville is home to Bishop McNamara High School, a nationally regarded private Catholic School known for its top-shelf curriculum, championship athletic program and stellar alumni list, which includes industry-leading professionals, creators, professional athletes and even an astronaut.
While Forestville doesn’t have any parks of its own, its residents frequent a couple that aren’t so far away. Watkins Regional Park has an abundance of recreational amenities, including a miniature train, two playgrounds, playing fields and a walking trail. Walker Mill Regional Park is south of there and a tad closer to Forestville and has barbecue grills, playing fields and courts, picnic tables and a skateboarding area. If those sound like your sort of activities, the Prince George’s Sports and Learning Complex might tickle your fancy even better. “You can do everything there. There are exercise facilities, football fields, picnic tables, an indoor track and swimming,” Stone says. “It’s in Landover but very close to Forestville.”
You’ll work up an appetite for sure. And when you do, you’ll want to make your way over to Ledo’s Pizza, which is well known and has been around a long time. Or there’s always Heavens Bakery if your sweet tooth is leading the way. The Bakery is located at Penn Mar Shopping Center, which has the full complement of retail and grocery outlets you’ve come to know and love. The ones you can’t find there, you’ll likely find not so far away at Ritchie Station Marketplace, which is well-stocked with shopping store favorites.
Getting around these parts is relatively uncomplicated with road systems and transportation all about. “It is very close to the Beltway and Maryland Route 4. It’s also served by the Green Line Metro,” Stone says.
One thing suburbs do well is fostering a sense of community and engagement. Here, much of that takes place at the North Forestville Community Center, which sponsors a variety of events that bring together the people who live here and who may have come from elsewhere, places like Washington, D.C., to make Forestville their new home.
Interested in learning more about homes in this area? Reach out to
, an experienced agent in this area.Stephanie Cooper
RLAH @properties
(202) 883-6205
78 Total Sales
1
$355,000 Price
Vanessa Wylie
Samson Properties
(443) 329-5814
29 Total Sales
1
$260,000 Price
Russell Carter
Keller Williams Capital Properties
(202) 856-9138
180 Total Sales
6
$139K - $420K Price Range
Brandon Scott
Keller Williams Capital Properties
(202) 953-2491
62 Total Sales
1
$309,000 Price
Karen Richardson
Coldwell Banker Realty
(240) 345-3793
59 Total Sales
1
$325,000 Price
Januari Coates
Exit Leading Edge Realty
(866) 624-7066
29 Total Sales
1
$322,000 Price
Less than a mile east from the D.C.-Maryland line, Walker Mill, MD, is the kind of place where life looks towards the future while also escaping the drawbacks of living amidst progress. There’s no loud cacophony of DC gridlock or frequent road closures in Walker Mill. At worst, you might hear a distant jackhammer laying the foundations for your child’s new after-school activity. Walker Mill has many of the housing styles that are staples of DC suburbs. Winding streets maneuver through a hilly topography, leaving in their wake rows of cherry blossom trees that cast shade over personalized mailboxes sitting beside sloped driveways. At the tops of each slope sit homes with modest yards bordered by hydrangeas and holly bushes. The area’s homes, many of which sprang up in the early 1970s, signals when midcentury architecture was taking American suburbs by storm. A ranch-style home isn’t hard to find here. Instead, the challenge lies in deciding which option best reflects your tastes. The area is teeming with gabled roofs atop one-story and raised ranches built above single-door garages, as well as second-story overhangs and split levels. Shoppers seeking a recent build are also in luck, as Walker Mill has seen several condominiums and town house complexes pop up over the years. The range in home prices remains relatively tight for Walker Mill, with old homes and renovations alike often sitting around a median of $325,000. Meanwhile, the median for town homes is a bit lower, around $317,000. Public school students in Walker Mill start at John H. Bayne Elementary. From there, students age up to Walker Mill Middle School and Central High School. The latter offers AP classes and a French language immersion program, in which some students get to go abroad. After school, students can spend the afternoon at Walker Mill Regional Park. This park’s central attraction is its wonderland-themed playground, allowing children's imaginations to run wild as they grapple faux fallen trees and carvings of cartoonish woodland animals. Over the years, the park has undergone several improvements thanks to a massive redevelopment plan that introduced several new amenities, including a skatepark. The plan includes tons more improvements that will take place over the coming years, such as a ropes course, bike lanes and a fountain fixture for children to play in. “There’s a lot of amenities that are there right now and a lot more coming soon,” says lead strategic park planner Claire Worshtil. “We are even trying to create some museum space to invite people to see and learn the history of the area.” One thing to be aware of in Walker Mill is that "It’s a bit of a shopping desert,” says realtor Sur-Raun Calloway of Coldwell Banker Realty. The Walker Mill Square Shopping Center is really the only hub for services, retail, and dining in town. Though not exactly a cultural hub, the shopping center is home to Taste Budds, a Caribbean restaurant serving jerk chicken and coco bread. But as Calloway points out, the good news is that residents can quickly close distances with the Metro stop in town. Thanks to the completion of an extension of the Silver Line, Walker Mill residents can make a direct route to Dulles International Airport without having to spend hours in DC traffic. And only one stop away in the opposite direction is a quickly growing downtown area. Since the Silver Line’s expansion, Downtown Largo has become the site of a development project that is bringing in a mixed-use shopping center with acres of greenspaces, retail and entertainment just beyond the Capital Beltway. When you get there, you’ll find plenty of options for entertainment, employment and healthcare already waiting for you, as well as plots of land that will soon be home to even more options. Walker Mill is ideally situated for those seeking the benefits of living near a city without the over–stimulation of city streets. The neighborhood makes up for what it lacks in retail in a peaceful residential area with proximity to parks and retail spaces on the cusp of immense growth.
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