For the past 18 months or so everyone has wanted to know what it is like to live in DC. My response is always about how great it is to be close to the places where so much history was made, and how the culture and opportunities are so good for THE KIDS. What I don’t talk about much is how expensive it is to live here.

Today the Post covered that ground pretty well. The article lays out how much a single parent with two small kids needs to gross to be able to make ends meet. It’s tough to live in a county, like we do, where it takes 68K a year just to get by. That’s getting by at a bare bones level, no fancy cars and pretty meager apartment.

Housing prices in Fairfax County, VA have gone up over 20% each of the last four years. This is the first time in the past three years that the sales of existing homes has declined for two months in a row. New homes are still moving at a strong pace so don’t expect local prices to begin to drop off any time soon.