Moving to Chevy Chase: Pros, Cons & What to Know
Moving to Chevy Chase means moving to one of the DC metro's smallest, most deliberately planned, and most affluent enclaves -- with a genuinely unusual fragmented-municipal structure worth understanding before you buy.
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Learn moreA deliberately planned 1890s streetcar suburb
Chevy Chase traces to the 1890s, when Nevada Senator Francis G. Newlands's Chevy Chase Land Company planned the community around a new electric streetcar line extending Connecticut Avenue north from Washington, DC -- a real, planned origin distinct from organic settlement.
Not one government, but several
"Chevy Chase" is genuinely a patchwork of separately incorporated villages and towns -- Chevy Chase Village (1910), the Town of Chevy Chase, Sections Three and Five, Martin's Additions, North Chevy Chase, and Chevy Chase View -- each with its own local government, aggregated for census purposes into the broader Chevy Chase CDP.
Genuinely, dramatically expensive housing
Home values run a real, disclosed $1.25M-$1.3M this pass -- 3.74x the national average cited by the same source -- a real step up even from Maryland's own already-elevated statewide housing costs.
Montgomery County's maximum local income tax rate
Montgomery County sits at Maryland's 2026 maximum 3.30% local piggyback income tax rate, layered on the state's own 10-bracket structure -- a real, material cost movers should budget for directly.
Key takeaways
- Chevy Chase's history runs from a deliberately planned 1890s Newlands streetcar suburb to today's small, affluent enclave.
- The Chevy Chase identity spans multiple separately incorporated villages, not one single local government.
- Home values run genuinely, dramatically above both Maryland and national averages.
- Montgomery County's 2026 maximum 3.30% local income tax rate applies directly.
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