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.

Flickr: David Boyle in DC

Rent control can help keep those prices down.

Rent in D.C. is expensive, and it’s not getting any cheaper. The city does have rent control regulations to help buffer the spike in rates, and a new report by the Urban Institute outlines which wards are most likely to have rent-controlled units.

Lydia DePillis of Housing Complex posted this map, from the report [PDF]. It shows properties  that aren’t necessarily under rent control, but do meet the requirements: buildings built before 1978, with five or more units and don’t qualify for exemptions.

The wards with the highest number of properties on the list are the city’s poorest wards, 7 and 8. But look at the number of units themselves, and a different picture emerges: Ward 1 has the most individual units, followed by Ward 3, the wealthiest ward in the city.

As DePillis points out, the report doesn’t:

… tell us anything about the quality of those rent-controlled apartment buildings: How full they are, whether their owners are adhering to regulations, and how many petitions they’ve filed to raise rents beyond otherwise allowable levels. It also doesn’t give us any idea how fast the stock of stabilized units is declining.

Here is the ward breakdown of rental units that meet rent control requirements:

Continue reading →

Scott Olson/Getty Images

Home prices are falling in cities like Chicago, but not in D.C.

D.C. is the only city on the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index in which housing prices rose over the past year and in the first quarter. UPI reports that high employment and “legacy issues” that help avoid problems such as speculation and oversupply are to thank.

But D.C. has also been attracting highly-skilled workers from across the country, UPI reports:

One of Washington’s secrets is that it is a great relocation market, and the relo market is coming to life as employers offer relocation benefits to entice talented workers to the region. “Employers are paying benefits including closing costs,” said [housing expert John Heithaus of Metropolitan Regional Information System] .

While some workers are being recruited to relocate to D.C., there are sizable communities of Washingtonians without work altogether; the Ward 7 unemployment rate, for instance, was about 20 percent in April. So although the District may appear to be a beacon of economic recovery to those across the country, that’s certainly not the experience for all city residents.

Flickr: Andrew Bossi

D.C. homes are just getting more expensive.

Buying a home may be getting cheaper elsewhere, but not in D.C. The District is the only city on the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which measures the value of real estate for 20 major cities, in which housing prices increased in March and over the past year.

According to the data released Tuesday, home prices rose by 4.3 percent between March 2010 and March 2011 in D.C. Compare that to New York City, where they dropped by 3.4 percent [PDF].

Increased home values can be good for longtime residents, so long as they own their homes and can afford increased property tax bills. But increased real estate values also means there’s increased incentive for landlords to convert more affordable rental units into pricier apartments and condos. And that can lead to low-income renters being priced out. Renters constitute 55 percent of the city’s population, and rents citywide are expected to increase by about 5.4 percent this year.