Hi! I can speak to a few items:

2. The commute to CP is not bad by city standards. If you'll be working at the university, I would recommend using the UMD DOTS 142 bus or the Camden Marc train line. Traffic can be slow at peak hours, but average commute to the university would be about 30 minutes.

3. I'm not a librarian, but our family loves the Howard County libraries! Excellent facilities, great programming for all ages, and very welcoming. Another neat thing about Maryland is that you can get reciprocal memberships across the state. If you go to another county's branch, you just have them add your HC library card number to a record in their system and you can check out books there, too.

5./6. At that price range, you'll probably be looking at a row home--they're more common here than single family homes. It's also important to know that if you buy within Columbia city limits, you'll have steep HOA fees. I'd recommend looking in Fulton, North Laurel, and Savage.

Best of luck navigating the move, and welcome to the area!

I used to commute from Columbia to College Park. You want to be as close to Rte 29 as possible because I95 and the beltway stink for commuting. When I commuted to College Park, I was near 100 and 29, which was fine, but I wish I had been closer to 29 and 32. The commute up 29 after the 32 merge gets real backed up, so it's nice to be able to get off there. There are lots of great communities along that stretch like Fulton, Kings Contrivance, River Hill, etc.

Also, hi, I'm a librarian too! Howard County has an excellent library system, and we're surrounded by other great library systems (Prince George's, Montgomery, and Baltimore counties), and I've taken advantage of some of their services, though I get most of what I need from Howard. My experience with using Howard's library services is mostly limited to adult resources and little kids classes, so I do not have experience with what you're looking for, but check their classes list. . Also, our Parks and Rec has amazing programming, and I think likely more what you're looking for. Check out a recent seasonal guide for sampling (they have it divided up by age ranges), and they are good about accommodations.

I'll also throw out that the job market for librarians is super competitive in this region, but there's also more job availability given the number of special libraries in/around DC. As a librarian I'm most familiar with special libraries in the region, but I'm an avid user of our public libraries and happy to answer questions.

I have one kid in a Howard County school, but can't speak to IEP treatment, though I've heard from others it can be a mixed bag. The schools here are great, but I grew up in another state and didn't see half the resources available here, so I always feel biased and get a little cranky when people start nit-picking between Howard schools.

Good luck on the upcoming move!

I’ll second King’s contrivance as a sweet spot. We agonized over where to land and I’m thrilled with our spot. The forest land surrounding us is just heaven. But there are other excellent neighborhoods, we also liked hickory ridge, but KC nudged it out for access to everything and walkability.

Columbia in general has a little bit of everyone but intention. IMO avoid the top of the top of the top schools if your kid is worried about finding friends or has some anxiety issues. Strangely, some of the “less good” schools may have more resources for you.

400-500k isn’t a terrible budget and if you’re willing to do a little upgrading on your own you’re in single-family house range, maybe barely.

Look up Columbia on misc. best places to live lists, they’re not inaccurate IME.

Moved to Ellicott City from Denver back in 2014, it’s been a great experience and we love it on the east coast.

Commutes are reasonable to College Park as others have mentioned. Plenty of great options for schools, and in my opinion, even an average Howard County school is superior to the best from Denver metro.

Your price range for housing will get you a decent townhome or an older sfr that will need plenty of updates.

Most importantly, good luck with your move! If you need a recommendation for a real estate broker, let me know. I work in commercial real estate and have a few residential agents I can recommend.

I can speak to your concerns with IEPs at the high school level. My son goes to Oakland Mills high school, and he’s getting a huge amount of support. I’m frankly thrilled, as I have not heard good things about the more academically competitive high schools when it comes to IEPs. His elementary school has changed quite a bit in leadership and personnel since he was there, so I don’t know how they would be for your little one.

I was also pleased with the help he got at Oakland Mills Middle. Some personnel changed between last year and this year, but most is the same. A friend likes the new psychologist quite a bit.

The neighborhoods that feed directly into OMHS are Thunder Hill, Talbott Springs, and Stevens Forest. Your budget will be just fine in those neighborhoods.

Please feel free to DM me if you have any questions.

I can only speak for the commute. I stay in South Columbia (Kings Contrivance) and commute to College Park 3 days a week. It takes around 40 minutes during the busiest time of the day. The commute is not bad at all. If you start early, 7-7.15 am, you are looking at 25 to 30 mins.

Just moved from Columbia to Denver early 2022, went to UMD

The commute isn't great, you want to make sure you're taking 95 and not 295 if you're commuting in rush hour

Theres way more cars/traffic than we have on I25 but people generally don't have a deathwish so it's not too bad

I commuted from Columbia to College Park daily for about two years — commute time depends on time of day and traffic accidents. Anticipate about 45 minutes plus. You’ll likely take 95N to the 495 split which can be notoriously backed up. This was precovid though, so commutes may be different now!

2. Driving is 45 mins-1hr to College Park. You have the Marc Station at Dorsey which can be a option but takes awhile also.
3. Columbia has tons of activities for every age group we get booklets every quarter with all the classes and activities going on.
4. Libraries are good, much better than Fl. They have lots of activities, ebooks, video games and even a 3D printer.
5. 400-500K should be okay, housing pricing has not really started to fall in the area but there is so much more on the market now then last year.
6. Columbia is really changing. It used to be all original owners who are 60-90 yrs old now. These people over the last 5 years have been dying, moving in with family or retirement homes. The house now are being filled with people in there 30s-40 year olds. In the last 5 years all the houses on my street have sold but two. It is really amazing. That being said there is a lot of children on my street now, several babies and a handful of older kids.

It's important to know that the area works on a county basis, not city basis. County government, county school district, county libraries, etc. Hoco encompasses more than just Columbia, so it might help to broaden your search into other parts of the county. Savage, jessup, elkridge, Fulton, North Laurel, Ellicott City...in some of these places you could purchase a single family home in your range. Columbia may have more walkability with the trail system and may be more central, but that comes with a high price of Columbia Association or other homeowner fees. All schools have strong special education programs and systems, but I'm sure any differences you would notice would be because of the special educator, the special Ed team leader, or possibly administration. Also, in a huge district like Howard county, redistricting is a thing that comes up every few years, so don't get married to one particular feeder school, because your school path may change (there's been a ton of NIMBY complaints over the years regarding some of the redistricting decisions, we'll say). So, broaden your horizons to other parts of the county would be my recommendation (speaking as someone who moved here a few years ago from out of state). The library system is incredible, with several branches throughout the county. The Elkridge branch even has a DIY center with classes, tool check outs, 3d printing (I believe), and more. The library also offers a TON of classes and events for kids and teens. If you walk in, the chalkboard will be FULL of things going on that week...I saw an anime club recently. There's also a ton of activities through the county in the summertime based on interest and ages. I would honestly think they have a film class or something like that, because we get a magazine every year of their offerings. Check out https://www.howardcountymd.gov/recreation-parks/programs to see what parks and rec have.

1. Don’t know.

2. You have three choices going south, I95, MD29 or US1. You are looking at somewhere between 30-45 mins.

3. Don’t know

4. Yes! There is a awesome library system here and in MD in general.

5. Inventory is tighter than usual but you’ll find something in that price range.

6. Columbia is arranged in villages that somewhat correspond to the schools zones. Columbia works hard to diversify its populations which includes socioeconomic levels. People break their necks so their kids can go to Atholton HS while avoiding Long Reach HS. It’s a personal thing. The whole system is pretty damn good.

OMHS has one of the regional programs for Special Education.

Sometimes I see UM shuttles in the Broken Land Park and Ride. I wonder if those might work for the commute to College Park?

Some great thoughts re: where to look. I recently met the woman at Atholton Elementary School who works with pre-school students, most of whom have learning disabilities, and she LOVES her job and school for whatever that is worth.

College park is going to have some heavy traffic. Use google maps on a computer and set the "arrive by" time to get a fairly accurate estimate. Know some days will go up, so a 25-45 minute estimated commute in that direction can hit extra traffic and be 1 hour. If you can depart after 9am it will drastically reduce driving time. Earlier departures don't help as much, but if you can avoid rush hour it will help.

There are a ton of camps and programs offered by Columbia Association and Howard County. There is also the opportunity to take classes at the community college - both for credit and for fun.

Library system is well funded and I think phenomenal. The East and Main branch are modern and rather nice. We don't have those soaring classical libraries (Columbia was built in the 70s) but it's also not the dumpy brick building smelling like mildew either.

400-500k is a tough budget. You're solidly in the range for town houses in some of the smaller older developments (the new ones are insanely priced). Houses up now start in the 500s and go up. However, if you're stretching your budget, remember your income taxes are probably going to be higher than Colorado, and a lot of the houses incur an additional fee for being assessed Columbia Association - a few grand a year, set based on your house's value. This does not include a CA membership, which is annoying that's an additional fee if you want to use the pools and gyms. I don't mind paying it since it goes towards maintaining about 95 miles of bike trails, a ton of tot lots and playgrounds, and a bunch of tennis courts.

Tips for the area are tough. I spent three years renting in Ellicott City before buying in Columbia - and we still spent a solid year house hunting. Sorry - it's going to be overwhelming... but your price point and commute sort of limits what's available - so just keep watching for newly available places.

I live in Ellicott City (next to Columbia, also in Howard County), and my youngest son has a learning disability. He received extraordinary care in elementary, middle, and now high school. He went to Hollifield Elementary, Pataspco Middle, and Mount Hebron High. Houses in this area start around $550k.

The one thing that I haven't really seen in theses comments regarding schools is you should find a home as close to the school of your choice as possible. The reason being is that HoCo is notorious for ridiculous school redistricting, e.g. you could have neighbors on a single street going to two different schools (one close and one far). Furthermore, even if you have one child going to one school, the sibling may be forced to attend a different school further away years later. Best of luck.

Hi! I sent you a chat message. Just following up as sometimes the notification is not turned on. :)