Watertower, I live in Arlington...as Cliffy said, it's a *little* expensive here. In north Arlington, a shack is around $400,000.
Very nice area, but there's virtually no now construction going on around here...all the land is already developed. Is some cases, people buy the house and land, knock down the 60 year old house, and then build a new one! You pretty much have to wait for people to die to find a house in this neck of the woods.
Property values are really insane in this area, all the way out to Loudoun county, and as far south as Prince William...Woodbridge and below. By then, commutes can get pretty hellish...there are really only 2 ways into Arlington...up 95, or from the west on 66 (assuming you move out that far), and 66 is only 2 friggin' lanes wide inside the Beltway...so it backs up day and night.
South Arlington is a little better, but there's just no way around the fact that as the closest part of Va to DC, property values are just plain nuts.
I inherited this house about 3 years ago...I could rent it for between $2500 and $3000 a month...and it's just 3 bedrooms! It was built back in the 50s; there are a couple of additions on it, but if you moved this house to Lancaster, Pa, for example, I doubt it's worth more than $150k.
As far as guns go, there's much better news, as others have stated. Arlington is one of the jurisdictions with a waiting period for handguns, but you can drive down to Prince William Co...only 30 minutes...and it's cash and carry.
Getting CLEO sign offs on class III is supposed to be nigh impossible, but I haven't tried. CCW permits are easy as pie, once you fulfill the residency requirement. I got mine about a month ago, no hassle, other than 3 and 4 copies of certain items. The state allows 45 days to issue/deny the permit, and most of the places around here take all the time allotted.
The NRA range is only about 20 minutes down the road; they do IPSC matches there once a week, I believe.
The Arlington/Fairfax Izaak Walton league has a 100 yard outdoor range in Centreville, about 30 minutes away. I shoot there all the time...it's ok, some nice old guys hang out there, but there's no rapid fire, and no full auto! Can't shoot a .50, either. Good news is it's open pretty much 365 day a year, unless it's just too friggin' cold to be outdoors lol.
Black rifles and high caps are fine...bring as many as you've got!
Local guns shows within easy driving distance on a regular basis, although they've had more junk and less guns lately.
All in all, pretty gun friendly...we even have open carry in VA, although I'm sure if you rode down the street with an AK strapped to your back, you'd have some problems hehehe.
A good site to see what's going on here gun wise is the
www.vcdl.org. That's the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a strong gun rights organization which is responsible for much of the recent pro gun legislation.
Well, hope to have you as a neighbor soon...hope I didn't scare you too much with the talk of high real estate prices, but you need to be prepared for some real sticker shock!
Good luck! Oh, yeah...don't even THINK about living in the District...they have NO second amendment there. Maryland's a little better, but then no self respecting person would want to live there, would they, guys? (a friendly poke at our neighbors lol).