DCentric

Flickr: Elvert Barnes

Home prices are on the rise in D.C., and many folks are looking to buy. Housing Complex digs into the high demand for condos, while pointing out there are still very affordable options in parts of Wards 7 and 8, the District’s poorest neighborhoods:

So why aren’t all those people angling for condos willing to take advantage of lower housing prices east of the river, like they did in previously marginal Northwest neighborhoods?

There are a few clear differences between the neighborhoods that capture the people who move here for jobs in the booming Washington economy, and the ones that don’t. Areas with historic housing stock, like LeDroit Park and Shaw, are the first ones to go. They also must have access to transit, and preferably be within walking distance to a commercial strip like H Street NE. White yuppies, of course, aren’t the only ones turning down neighborhoods east of the river: Native Washingtonians who sell their now-valuable properties in gentrifying areas usually trade their D.C. addresses in for more land in Prince George’s County, unwilling to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a house they remember costing what you might now pay for a car.