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The people migrating to the little town of Sykesville nowadays aren't like the sort who've lived there for years. They call town hall to report dead squirrels in the road. They demand that dandelions be removed from the parks. They expect more.
But then, they've paid more, too. Average home prices shot up 75 percent between 1999 and last year in this rural-turning-suburban Carroll County community.
Fortunately for town manager Matthew Candland, he bought his Sykesville house a decade ago, before the shift. "What's funny is, I couldn't afford to move here now," he said.
People who can afford it - and are moving there with increasing frequency - work in and around Washington. They earn fatter paychecks than their Baltimore-area counterparts. There are many more of them, too, thanks to fast job growth.
Some are heading farther into the Baltimore region than ever before in an attempt to escape rapidly rising prices around the nation's capital. Others, by bidding up prices in the Washington region, have set off a domino effect, which has rippled into Howard County, which has rippled into Baltimore, and so on.
Together, they have helped to fuel an unprecedented acceleration in local housing values during the past five years.
Welcome to the Washington suburbs, Baltimore.
An analysis of five years of home sales and other data by The Sun found clear signs that proximity to D.C. is driving the boom in Baltimore and its five surrounding counties, over and above what extraordinarily low mortgage interest rates have achieved nationwide.
This region's fastest appreciation came in Howard, Anne Arundel and Carroll counties, which border the traditional edge of Washington's reach. Prices there jumped 75 percent combined during the past five years - compared with 41 percent nationally. Together, the average price in those counties rose to about $340,000 last year.
Three-quarters of the Baltimore-area ZIP codes with the biggest price increases since 1999 sit in those three counties. That includes some communities once considered far beyond the boundaries of Washington, such as Sykesville, 50 miles distant. Closer to Washington, the southern Howard County community of Fulton enjoyed price increases of more than 160 percent, the highest in the region.
But the entire area is feeling the ripple effects of that wave, from Baltimore to Harford County. The increased demand for a limited supply of houses is pressing local residents to pay higher prices or pushing them into areas as far away as Pennsylvania, where homes are more affordable.
"Counties that really never perceived themselves as in the orbit of the Washington metropolis are clearly now within it," said Bruce Katz, director of the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program. "We need to redraw the map of how far north the Washington metro reaches."
Roads, trains and buses tell part of the tale: The number of Baltimore-area residents working in the Washington region increased by 21,000 in the 1990s, the most recent census data show.
Moving vans tell another, more recent chapter. More than 80,000 people moved into the Baltimore region from the District of Columbia and its Maryland suburbs - Montgomery, Prince George's and Frederick counties - between 1999 and 2003, according to Internal Revenue Service statistics. The actual migration over the past five years may be significantly higher than that; the IRS statistics do not include 2004, the biggest year of the housing boom, or any movement from Northern Virginia over the four-year period.
The number of people who made the move in 2003 was 12 percent greater than in 1999, the IRS statistics show.
The Washington effect helps explain why the 1,300-space parking lot at the commuter rail station in Odenton, in northwestern Anne Arundel, overflows every morning with people who overwhelmingly head south to work, according to the Maryland Transit Administration.
And why first-time home buyers are giving up on Howard and trying Baltimore County. The less you earn, the more trapped you may be.
"It's likely to price Baltimore residents working in Baltimore out of the housing market," said Stephen S. Fuller, professor of public policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "There aren't as many high-paying jobs in the Baltimore region as there are in the Washington region, so all the way along, people are pushing people further north."
The D.C. effect is changing the culture of some communities, as Sykesville knows well, adding credence to the idea of Baltimore and Washington becoming one common market. The boom has made homeowners feel rich on paper, though many are paying higher property taxes as a result. And it has made others richer in reality.
The people migrating to the little town of Sykesville nowadays aren't like the sort who've lived there for years. They call town hall to report dead squirrels in the road. They demand that dandelions be removed from the parks. They expect more.
But then, they've paid more, too. Average home prices shot up 75 percent between 1999 and last year in this rural-turning-suburban Carroll County community.
Fortunately for town manager Matthew Candland, he bought his Sykesville house a decade ago, before the shift. "What's funny is, I couldn't afford to move here now," he said.
People who can afford it - and are moving there with increasing frequency - work in and around Washington. They earn fatter paychecks than their Baltimore-area counterparts. There are many more of them, too, thanks to fast job growth.
Some are heading farther into the Baltimore region than ever before in an attempt to escape rapidly rising prices around the nation's capital. Others, by bidding up prices in the Washington region, have set off a domino effect, which has rippled into Howard County, which has rippled into Baltimore, and so on.
Together, they have helped to fuel an unprecedented acceleration in local housing values during the past five years.
Welcome to the Washington suburbs, Baltimore.
An analysis of five years of home sales and other data by The Sun found clear signs that proximity to D.C. is driving the boom in Baltimore and its five surrounding counties, over and above what extraordinarily low mortgage interest rates have achieved nationwide.
This region's fastest appreciation came in Howard, Anne Arundel and Carroll counties, which border the traditional edge of Washington's reach. Prices there jumped 75 percent combined during the past five years - compared with 41 percent nationally. Together, the average price in those counties rose to about $340,000 last year.
Three-quarters of the Baltimore-area ZIP codes with the biggest price increases since 1999 sit in those three counties. That includes some communities once considered far beyond the boundaries of Washington, such as Sykesville, 50 miles distant. Closer to Washington, the southern Howard County community of Fulton enjoyed price increases of more than 160 percent, the highest in the region.
But the entire area is feeling the ripple effects of that wave, from Baltimore to Harford County. The increased demand for a limited supply of houses is pressing local residents to pay higher prices or pushing them into areas as far away as Pennsylvania, where homes are more affordable.
"Counties that really never perceived themselves as in the orbit of the Washington metropolis are clearly now within it," said Bruce Katz, director of the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program. "We need to redraw the map of how far north the Washington metro reaches."
Roads, trains and buses tell part of the tale: The number of Baltimore-area residents working in the Washington region increased by 21,000 in the 1990s, the most recent census data show.
Moving vans tell another, more recent chapter. More than 80,000 people moved into the Baltimore region from the District of Columbia and its Maryland suburbs - Montgomery, Prince George's and Frederick counties - between 1999 and 2003, according to Internal Revenue Service statistics. The actual migration over the past five years may be significantly higher than that; the IRS statistics do not include 2004, the biggest year of the housing boom, or any movement from Northern Virginia over the four-year period.
The number of people who made the move in 2003 was 12 percent greater than in 1999, the IRS statistics show.
The Washington effect helps explain why the 1,300-space parking lot at the commuter rail station in Odenton, in northwestern Anne Arundel, overflows every morning with people who overwhelmingly head south to work, according to the Maryland Transit Administration.
And why first-time home buyers are giving up on Howard and trying Baltimore County. The less you earn, the more trapped you may be.
"It's likely to price Baltimore residents working in Baltimore out of the housing market," said Stephen S. Fuller, professor of public policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "There aren't as many high-paying jobs in the Baltimore region as there are in the Washington region, so all the way along, people are pushing people further north."
The D.C. effect is changing the culture of some communities, as Sykesville knows well, adding credence to the idea of Baltimore and Washington becoming one common market. The boom has made homeowners feel rich on paper, though many are paying higher property taxes as a result. And it has made others richer in reality.
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