D.C. condo prices up

Washington Business Journal - by Jeff Clabaugh

Date: Monday, December 13, 2010, 1:39pm EST

The D.C. condo market remains among the healthiest in the country, but, while prices are up, so are the number of listings.

The Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors says the median price of a condo in D.C. in November was $371.000, up 4.15 percent from November 2009. But settlements, or the number of closed sales, were down more than 40 percent from a year earlier.

In the District, condo listings were up 12.9 percent compared to a year earlier, to 1,275 listings.

Single-family home prices in D.C. were up 2.7 percent from a year ago to a median price of $419,000. Single family listings are up 3 percent, while settlements are down 14.9 percent.

The Realtor group also represents real estate agents licensed in Montgomery County, where it says median condo prices are down 2.94 percent from a year ago, while condo listings are up 11.6 percent and settlements are down 43.3 percent.

Single family prices in Montgomery County are up 3.6 percent, with listings up 23.6 percent and settlements down 18.8 percent.

by Will Smith

National Harbor is set to get a large 350-unit apartment building, reports the Washington Business Journal. Construction is scheduled to begin next fall on the as-yet-unnamed project, which will be the first rental option in National Harbor.

Housing in the area currently includes three condo buildings — Fleet Street, One National Harbor, and the high-end Waterfront Street — and an under-construction town house community called Potomac Overlook.

Developers of the new apartment project are no doubt encouraged by the very tight rental market in the DC area, but we do wonder about its prospects. The condos in National Harbor have been slow to sell, and many of the buyers were probably enticed by a decidedly long-term vision of the fledgling area, where the lack of retail, population, and transit is a current complaint. Renters, with a more immediate desire for such amenities, may not be as willing to live without them.

That said, by the time the project delivers, National Harbor will be considerably more mature than it is now. The WBJ recaps a few other developments in the pipeline, including a tentative groundbreaking of the Children’s Museum in 2011 and a return of Cirque du Soleil in 2012.

Current National Harbor residents are sure to be pleased by the addition of 350 apartments. With about 500 full-time residents right now, that amount of new rental units could come close to doubling the area’s population.

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