Washington D.C. Real Estate: Supply And Demand

Washington D.C. is a cultural and historical mecca. Having dozens of great neighborhoods a Metro ride away and a bustling political and business climate keeps the D.C. real estate market competitive. It’s no wonder people flock there to live and work. As appraisers, our team is constantly in and out of so many Washington D.C. neighborhoods and homes; this familiarity that has led to a great understanding of the trends and home sales averages of the Washington D.C. real estate market.

When a client wanted our take on Washington’s priciest neighborhoods to buy a home, we used this list to answer some questions. Bear in mind that this is based on values garnered from looking at the property on a per residential square-foot basis:

1. Georgetown, $748

2. Kalorama, $680

3. West End, $679

4. Dupont Circle, $594

5. Logan Circle, $563

6. Mount Vernon Square, $559

7. Penn Quarter, $546

8. U Street Corridor, $531

9. Adams Morgan, $530

10. Spring Valley, $514

Here’s where an experience appraiser with real knowledge of the neighborhoods comes in. To an untrained eye, it may look like the Georgetown neighborhood features the priciest homes. This is not the full picture. The average size of a home in Spring Valley is usually much larger than a home in Georgetown. Thus, the price tag in Spring Valley for a home could be higher than in Georgetown, even though Spring Valley seems like the most reasonably priced on the list.

Further, there appears to be a lull in available homes for sale. An MRIS report states that there are fewer active listings on record than ever before. Thus, there are fewer homes in the Washington region available for all of the house hunters, and this gives sellers an advantage.

So, if your desire is to sell or buy in Washington D.C., make sure you work closely with a team that has local appraisers all over capital city. Trust us when we say that when real estate’s spring market kicks off, tons of new sellers are going to enter the market and take advantage of the low supply and high demand for homes!

Categorised in: Appraisal Tutorials & Info, Blog

This post was written by Joseph Castaneda