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There's a the age old question everyone thinks about when they decide to move to a city in Maryland:
Should I buy a place or rent? Well, we aren't here today to solve that problem for you exactly. We are just assuming you'll do the right thing and a buy a place. And while we are happy to tell you the best place to live in Maryland, this analysis is going to tackle the question of the best place to buy a house as an investor. That is we are going to try and determine the up and coming cities in the Old Line State.
To do that we are going to look at places in Maryland that are growing faster than average, but where home prices are below average. In every day terms, the "deals". The best deal in Maryland at the moment? That would be Cheste according to our analysis.
Here's a look at the top ten places to buy a home in maryland for 2020:
- Cheste (Homes For Sale)
- Poolesville (Photos | Homes For Sale)
- Fruitland (Photos | Homes For Sale)
- Chesapeake Beach (Photos | Homes For Sale)
- District Heights (Photos | Homes For Sale)
- Walkersville (Photos | Homes For Sale)
- Glenarden (Homes For Sale)
- Brunswick (Photos | Homes For Sale)
- Hampstead (Photos | Homes For Sale)
- Cheverly (Photos | Homes For Sale)
What's the best place to buy a home in Maryland for 2020? According to our analysis, would the the ideal place to buy a home looking into the future.
The methodology that wen't into this can be a bit complicated, so we'll break it down for you in as much detail as we can below. If you're not worried about finding a deal on good places to live, check out the most expensive places to live in maryland and, for those of you on a budget, the cheapest places to live in maryland.
For more Maryland reading, check out:
- These Are The 10 Best Counties To Live In Maryland
- 10 Best Places To Raise A Family In Maryland
- These Are The 10 Best Places To Retire In Maryland
The 10 Best Cities To Buy A House In Maryland For 2020
/10
Population: 5,113
Median Home Price: $236,100
Population Change: -0.4%
Home Price Change: 7.8%
More on Cheste: Homes For Sale | Data
/10
Population: 5,170
Median Home Price: $445,400
Population Change: 0.1%
Home Price Change: 12.0%
More on Poolesville: Photos | Homes For Sale | Data
In 1760, brothers John Poole, Sr. and Joseph Poole, Sr. purchased 160 acres acres in the area that is now Poolesville. Thirty-three years later, John Poole, Jr. used a 15 acres tract that he inherited from his father to build a log store and subdivided the tract, selling portions to a number of other merchants. The settlement grew from there and was incorporated in 1867.
/10
Population: 5,204
Median Home Price: $167,200
Population Change: 0.6%
Home Price Change: 6.2%
More on Fruitland: Photos | Homes For Sale | Data
/10
Population: 5,922
Median Home Price: $328,600
Population Change: -0.1%
Home Price Change: 4.8%
More on Chesapeake Beach: Photos | Homes For Sale | Data
Chesapeake Beach was established as a resort community at the end of the Chesapeake Beach Railway, a short line railroad from Washington, DC. It was the site of many slot machines in the early twentieth century as part of the "Little Nevada" area of southern Maryland. Between steamer ships from Baltimore and trains from Washington, the weekend population of Chesapeake Beach reached into the 10,000s during the 1920s, until economic depression, and a bad hotel fire, brought an end to the railroad. The construction of the Bay Bridge to the Eastern Shore of Maryland in the 1950s enabled many of the visitors who used to spend their summers in Chesapeake Beach to now spend their time in Ocean City, Maryland instead. A museum at the old railroad station still exists today in Chesapeake Beach with many historic photos and an old passenger car from the railroad. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. In the new millennium a boardwalk and pier, and a new condominium development have risen in Chesapeake Beach. There is also a recreational water park with water slides, a newly opened resort spa hotel, and a seafood restaurant right on the bay. The Herrington Harbour marina resort, which was voted by Marina Dock Age magazine as the best marina in the United States, is a few miles north.
/10
Population: 5,975
Median Home Price: $238,000
Population Change: -0.2%
Home Price Change: 7.1%
More on District Heights: Photos | Homes For Sale | Data
District Heights was originally farm land owned by Major Leander P. Williams, purchased as four patented Lord Baltimore tracts known as: "Good Luck," "Magruder's Plains Enlarged," "the Levels," and "Offutt's Adventure." Under grants issued to Lord Baltimore by King Charles I of Great Britain, the tracts belonged to Colonel Ninian Beall, Benjamin Berry, and Alexander Magruder. District Heights evolved from one of the four patents. In 1925 land purchased and formed into District Heights Company by Joseph Tepper, David L. Blanken, Henry Oxenberg, Gilbert Leventhal, Simon Gordon, and Simon Gerber. The land was farmed by Walter and Al Dustin, whose farmhouse stood at 7116 Foster Street. By 1925 streets laid out first three blocks of Halleck Street and Aztec. By 1936, the city had approximately 25 homes built, two businesses, a grocery store and filling station, a pump house and water tower to furnish the water and pressure for the City, a sewage system and a free Model T bus service to 17th and Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E.
/10
Population: 6,095
Median Home Price: $284,800
Population Change: 0.8%
Home Price Change: -0.9%
More on Walkersville: Photos | Homes For Sale | Data
Crum Road Bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The Woodsboro and Frederick Turnpike Company Tollhouse was listed in 1979 and Harris Farm in 1994.
/10
Population: 6,170
Median Home Price: $267,000
Population Change: 0.7%
Home Price Change: 0.9%
More on Glenarden: Homes For Sale | Data
The city was developed in 1919 when W. R. Smith purchased a group of properties about 10 miles east Washington, D.C., and established a residential community of 15 people. Three decades later, under the banner of the Civic Association, the African-American, middle-class suburban community that had developed from Smith-s venture petitioned the State Legislature for incorporation as the Town of Glenarden. The charter was granted on March 30, 1939, making Glenarden the third predominately black incorporated town in the State of Maryland. W. H. Swann was elected as its first mayor.
/10
Population: 6,193
Median Home Price: $229,300
Population Change: 1.0%
Home Price Change: 3.9%
More on Brunswick: Photos | Homes For Sale | Data
The area now known as Brunswick was originally home to the Susquehanna Indians. In 1728 the first settlement was built, and the region became known as Eel Town, because the natives would fish for eel in the Potomac River. A grant to the land was then given to John Hawkins by George II of Great Britain on August 10, 1753. The grant had the name "Hawkins Merry-Peep-o-Day".
/10
Population: 6,340
Median Home Price: $246,300
Population Change: 0.1%
Home Price Change: 2.9%
More on Hampstead: Photos | Homes For Sale | Data
Between 1736 and 1738, Robert Owings was assigned to "cut a new road as Christopher Gist had marked it" south from Conewago to a point about halfway to Fort Garrison in Baltimore County. The village of Spring Garden became a stage-line stop on the new road and later became the town of Hampstead, named after Hampstead, in England. The first settlers to the area were English immigrants who made their way west from the Port of Philadelphia. They were followed by Scots and Germans. Hampstead was used by farmers from surrounding areas as a center to obtain goods brought from Baltimore and to send produce to markets in Baltimore and Pennsylvania. The level and fertile land, coupled with the availability of lime, gave farmers important advantages for successful farming. In 1879, the Harrisburg Division of the Western Maryland Railroad reached Hampstead. The accessibility of the railroad attracted new residents and made dairy farming profitable.
/10
Population: 6,452
Median Home Price: $332,000
Population Change: -0.0%
Home Price Change: 5.7%
More on Cheverly: Photos | Homes For Sale | Data
Cheverly was begun as a planned suburb in the early 1900s. The Cheverly area was first platted in 1904 for a 93-acre community called Cheverly Gardens. The land was subsequently purchased in 1918 by Robert Marshall, president of the Washington Suburban Realty Company. The Cheverly subdivision platted by Marshall was developed around the 1839 Magruder family homestead known as Mount Hope. Marshall became the first resident of Cheverly by taking up residence in the restored homestead in 1919. In 1923, the first road, now known as Cheverly Avenue, was completed and paved to connect the Pennsylvania Railroad line to Landover Road. 34 developer-built houses were constructed between 1921 and 1925. Most of the early houses were mail-order homes from Sears & Roebuck and the McClure Homes Company. Marshall lost control of the Washington Suburban Realty Company in 1927. Harry Wardman assumed the position until the company-s bankruptcy in 1929 due to the stock market crash.
How do you determine the best places to buy a home in maryland for 2020?
We were in real estate for almost five years and have been working on this site for another three. Suffice is to say, we've put a lot of thought into what goes into finding a good place to buy a home.
So all that thinking has come to this moment where we get to spell out how we'd approach finding an up-and-coming place to live in Maryland. Put differently, the analysis will try to find places in Maryland with undervalued homes relative to pent up demand.
To do that we looked at the most recent American Community Survey Census data for 2014-2018 and compared it to the previous vintage (2012-2016). Specifically, we used the following criteria:
- Y-o-Y Change In Population (People want to live here)
- Y-o-Y Change In Median Home Prices (People are willing to pay for it)
- Home Prices Relative To The State Average (It's still kinda cheap)
We want places that are growing, have seen home prices increase in recent years, and are still "cheap" for Maryland with the following caveats:
- Home prices had to be within 20% of the state average (Much lower than that and you get to some of the more dangerous places)
- Home prices increased in the last year, and
- Above 5,000 people (Bigger cities have more data points)
So of the 0 cities and towns in Maryland, only 41 places made it through our initial filters to even be considered.
We then ranked each place from 1 to 41 for the criteria mentioned above with 1 being the best for that criteria. We averaged the rankings to create a "best place to buy" index with the place having the lowest index being the best. You can download the data here.
Turns out that Cheste is the best potential gem in the not-so-rough in the Old Line State.
Read on for more on these places.
There You Have It - The Best Places To Purchase A House In maryland for 2020
There's our analysis of the best places to buy a house in Maryland. And, to be clear, we aren't necessarily saying these places are the best places to live, just that it looks like they might be in a couple of years based on the data.
In fact, every place in the following table meets our criteria, so even though it may not look super long, remember we started off with all 0 places in the state.
So if we'd could rent or buy in these cities, we'd definitely buy.
For more maryland reading, check out:
Detailed List Of The Best Places To Buy A Home In Maryland
City | Rank |
---|---|
Cheste | 1 |
Poolesville | 2 |
Fruitland | 3 |
Chesapeake Beach | 4 |
District Heights | 5 |
Walkersville | 6 |
Glenarden | 7 |
Brunswick | 8 |
Hampstead | 9 |
Cheverly | 10 |
Thurmont | 11 |
Taneytown | 12 |
Ocean City | 13 |
Riverdale Park | 14 |
Mount Rainier | 15 |
Frostburg | 16 |
La Plata | 17 |
Mount Airy | 18 |
Bladensburg | 19 |
Bel Air | 20 |
Cambridge | 21 |
New Carrollton | 22 |
Havre De Grace | 23 |
Elkton | 24 |
Aberdeen | 25 |
Easton | 26 |
Takoma Park | 27 |
Hyattsville | 28 |
Westminster | 29 |
Cumberland | 30 |
Greenbelt | 31 |
Laurel | 32 |
College Park | 33 |
Salisbury | 34 |
Annapolis | 35 |
Hagerstown | 36 |
Bowie | 37 |
Rockville | 38 |
Gaithersburg | 39 |
Frederick | 40 |
Baltimore | 41 |