10 Best Neighborhoods in Arlington VA | Niche.com Lies
Niche.com just ranked the best neighborhoods in Arlington, Virginia. I’m going to go through their top 10 and give you my opinion on what they have on their list. Then we are going to learn whether you can trust Niche.com because we will assess how they did. I promise you are going to love some of these neighborhoods – especially #7!
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10. North Rosslyn
Here’s the first of our Niche.com manufactured neighborhoods. Rosslyn is already a small neighborhood, but Niche.com specifically pulled out North Rosslyn. This is allegedly north of Wilson Blvd, up to I-66, with North Quinn Street being the western border and of course, the Potomac River on the east. This is a bustling area for being so small.
What’s pretty interesting though is that you have hotels, restaurants, corporations like Nestle and Deloitte, a Safeway grocery store, H-B Woodlawn High School, Target, apartments, condos and a few townhomes in this neighborhood. The condos are mostly high rises and high-end buildings. The Atrium, Turnberry Tower, the aptly named Waterview – these buildings all have amazing views thanks to Rosslyn having the highest buildings in the immediate area. You will pay over $1M for the view, but you can most definitely get a condo here starting at $400,000. It will be a small one bedroom, but you can do it.
The condo fees in the high rises are steep, so just be wary of what you’re buying into – this is luxury, top amenities, awesome service-oriented staff on site.
If you go to Colonial Terrace and Colonial Court, it will be hard to believe you are two blocks away from the city-feel of Rosslyn. Metro also makes this a very convenient area in which to live.
Why would Niche.com split up what is already a small neighborhood, Rosslyn, into “North Rosslyn.” No one knows, and locally, you never hear anyone call it North Rosslyn.
9. North Highland
Another Niche.com manufactured neighborhood is North Highland. North Highland has actual boundaries according to Niche and Google. It’s between 66 and south of the GW Parkway. Funny enough, it’s north of North Rosslyn. And like North Rosslyn, no one really says they want to live in North Highland.
This neighborhood has apartments, condos, townhomes and single-family homes. The Dawson Terrace Community Center is here as well as the Dawson Terrace Park, playground and access to trails. At the eastern edge of the neighborhood, you can follow the path under I-66 and pick up the Custis Trail. While the overall location is great, being between two busy highways is not so great.
Condos are in the $400,000 – $1M range. On the lower end these are one or two bedrooms. At prices in the $800,000 to $1M range, you will get a townhouse condo. Over $1M, they are fee simple, meaning, you own the land beneath the home.
8. Waycroft-Woodlawn
Waycroft-Woodlawn is another small neighborhood, but at least this time it’s a real neighborhood. They have a civic association to prove it! This is a neighborhood of 580 single family homes built in the mid 1900’s. Waycroft-Woodlawn is where Washington Hospital Center is located.
You have easy access here to I-66 and the shopping and dining options in Ballston. Right in the middle of the neighborhood is Woodlawn Park, where there’s a playground, basketball court, walking paths and open green space.
Homes here run $1M – $2M and rarely turn over. In the past year, 10 homes sold here. In the year prior, 19. Out of 580 homes, those aren’t good odds. But, I agree with Niche.com that this neighborhood deserves a spot on the list!
7. Arlington
Niche.com’s 7th most popular neighborhood in Arlington is called, drumroll please – Arlington. What?!? What a slap in the face. That’s like when they revealed that Eric Cartman’s father was really his mother.
I didn’t even make it half way through the list before we got to the part where I say: This is why I hate Niche.com. It’s just a lot of AI garbage. This is why you must have real people providing you with information – like me!
6. Bluemont
Bluemont includes a few different neighborhoods or subdivisions – Brockwood, Lacey Forest, Brandon Village. The boundaries of Bluemont are larger than what we have seen in the neighborhoods mentioned so far. I-66 bisects Bluemont with N Carlin Springs on the south side boundary, Glebe Road on the east and the contiguous parks on the west.
Bluemont is mostly single-family homes and some townhomes / attached homes. You can find some homes that need work in the $800,000 range, but most homes that are move-in-ready are over $1M up to $2M.
Bluemont Park is 51 acres of sports fields, playground, paved trail – which is the W&OD Trail, the 45-mile trail that runs from Shirlington in South Arlington out to Purcellville, Virginia. You can take the trail in Bluemont Park up to Bon Air Park where there are more playgrounds and a Rose Garden.
Bluemont Junction Trail runs a loop through the south side of the neighborhood.
5. Dominion Hills
Just west of Bluemont, on the other side of Bon Air Park is Dominion Hills. Wilson Blvd is the southern border, and I-66 is the northern border. Dominion Hills also has their own civic association, and they are active. They maintain the Dominion Hills Park.
You can get homes here under $1M but they are few and far between. The prices go from $1M – $2M. There are mostly single-family homes here with some townhomes as well. There are 40 new single-family homes being built at the Grove at Dominion Hills, priced at $1.9M to $2.25M. This is something to pay attention to because very few homes sell in Dominion Hills.
In addition to Bon Air Park with their rose garden, there’s a skate park at Powhatan Springs Park. There’s also Upton Hills Regional Park which is part of NoVa parks, not Arlington’s parks. Upton Hills has a water park called Ocean Dunes. There’s also a membership-based pool called Dominion Hills.
Dominion Hills is right on the Arlington County border with Falls Church. And if you peek over that border, you’ll find one of the DC Metro Area’s best Targets…inside the beltway at least!
I also agree with Niche.com that this neighborhood deserves a spot on the list.
4. Ballston / VA Square
Ballston and Virginia Square are on top of each other, so they often get lumped together. Virginia Square is synonymous with George Mason University, where they have a campus. This is more urban, dense living and as such there are a lot of condos in Ballston and Virginia Square.
The condos here start in the $300,000’s and go to just under $1M. There are a small amount of single family homes which will cost $1M to close to $2M.
This is a busy neighborhood. I’m in Ballston at least once a week if not more because I take a workout class here. Ballston has a feel like Rosslyn – lots of businesses, restaurants and retail. Any restaurant you could want is here, as is the metro with stops in Ballston and Virginia Square.
Ballston went through a major redevelopment in the past few years and it’s a great area. The clients I have helped purchase in Ballston are usually younger professionals who want the ease of condo living, who may travel a lot for work or who don’t want a yard. It’s an exciting neighborhood and definitely deserving of a spot on the list. But I would never put it on the same list as the more residential neighborhoods here like Bluemont or Dominion Hills.
3. Clarendon/Courthouse
Clarendon and Courthouse are next to each other and mostly blend together in the way that Ballston and Virginia Square do. Clarendon is the busy bustling neighborhood in the way Ballston is, and Courthouse is the quieter adjacent neighborhood like Virginia Square.
These two neighborhoods are mostly condos along the major strips of Wilson and Clarendon Boulevards. But once you get off the strip by a couple blocks, you will find townhomes and some single-family homes. The prices start in the mid $400’s for one bedroom condos and can surpass $1M. The townhomes have really shot up in price – they are over $1M. Single family detached homes are $1M – $2M.
Clarendon is home to a few restaurants that consistently rank high among the locals. Hanabi Ramen, El Pollo Rico and Sabores. I’ll also toss in Colony Grill as well. They just have pizza but it’s the best pizza ever.
Clarendon and Courthouse are the epitome of walkability. You can do everything on foot here – grocery runs, restaurants, shopping and still catch the metro at one of the stops in each neighborhood. This is an area people love to live and hate to leave, which is why you will see a lot of baby strollers here. It’s a neighborhood though where singles, families and empty nesters easily cohabitate and equally enjoy it.
2. Radnor / Fort Meyer Heights
Radnor / Fort Meyer Heights is not a neighborhood you hear people mention a lot as many people would likely assume it is Courthouse or Rosslyn. But it is its own area with its own civic association. In 2018, the Washington Post described it as the area between Rosslyn and Courthouse metro stops with a mix of apartments, condos, co-ops and townhomes and just nine single family homes.
You will see very low prices here in the address range of 1000 – 1100 Arlington Blvd. This is the River Place co-operative. River Place has this notorious reputation for the ground lease that is expiring in 2050. No one knows what will happen at that time but as the years go on and we get closer and closer, you see a bit more hesitation in purchases here. Ultimately though the prices in the $100,000’s speak to people and you will see a lot listed and a lot that sell. Ultimately, buying here for a few years would work out to be much cheaper than renting, even if no money were to be made at the time of sale.
Taking River Place out of the mix, condos in this area are start in the $400,000’s and reach $2M depending on space and view.
There are couple restaurants here of note. One is Quarterdeck which is a super popular seafood restaurant. And the other is a Taco Truck. You can find Tacos El Chilango in the 1700 block of 14th St N.
Is this a good neighborhood? Yes, it is. But would I rank it at #2 and higher than Clarendon and Courthouse? Absolutely not.
1. Colonial Village
How dare you Niche.com, really? Colonial Village is a 162 unit affordably priced housing development. There are co-ops here and condos. The co-ops can be priced as low as $35,000 but they come with strings – no investors, no pets. The condos are in the mid $200,000’s. These are both starter homes and homes for people on fixed incomes.
Conclusion
You can do your own research but Niche.com is not a valid source of information. They started out as a school review site, now they have all this other incorrect information on there.
Here’s the major problem with Niche.com and this list. Put aside for a moment the obvious issues where they either made up a neighborhood or forgot to edit to remove “Arlington” and pick something specific. It’s the neighborhoods they. Missed that call this whole shebang into question. How they didn’t mention Westover, Barcroft or Lyon Park – mind-blowing to me.
Arlington is home to an incredibly wide range of age of residents who call it home. No one can create a one-size-fits-all list for everyone. At my stage in life right now – middle age, kids, pets, condo living doesn’t appeal to me, nor does urban living in places like Ballston. Do better Niche.com. Or don’t do it at all.
