D.C. Housing Prices: Nearly One-Fifth of Homes Selling at $1M or More

As if D.C.'s real estate market weren't daunting enough, it turns out that nearly a fifth of D.C. homes sold in this year were valued at a cool million bucks or more, reports DistrictMeasured.com.

In 2001, just three percent of single-family homes sold in D.C. were valued at $1 million or higher. This year, it was 19 percent.

We'll just let that sink in for a moment.

Georgetown, Kalorama and Cleveland Park top the list of neighborhoods with the highest share of pricey homes, followed by Kent, Berkley and Spring Valley, all in Northwest D.C. 

Georgetown is definitely leading the pack, with its percentage of the most expensive homes skyrocketing over the past two years in particular.

The neighborhood is home to almost a third of houses sold that were valued at $2 million or more when sold in 2014 or 2015, according to DistrictMeasured.com, which is run by D.C.'s Office of Revenue Analysis. The data comes from the D.C. Recorder of Deeds and the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue.

The numbers shows a nearly steady increase of home prices in the District over the past 15 years.

You probably aren't surprised to read that, but you might be surprised to know just how steadily prices have gone up -- even during the recession.

Since 2001, the number of homes in the $1 million-to-$1.5 million price range has increased or held steady every single year, except for 2014, when it dropped less than one percent. And yes, that means the increases continued even through the recession and the burst of the housing bubble.

The number of even higher-priced homes has also been increasing fairly steadily, although there were some small dips during the recession. Just one percent of D.C. homes sold in 2001 were valued at $2 million or more; this year, that number more than quadrupled.

DistrictMeasured.com notes that a million-dollar home may not mean what it used to: "With sales of $1 million becoming more and more 'commonplace,' it may be time to set the bar higher in terms of what constitutes luxury. This redefinition would also better align the D.C. market with other expensive housing markets in the nation where $1 million no longer carries the same cachet and exclusivity that it did ten years ago."

Contact Us