North of $700: The Highest Prices Per Square Foot in DC

• July 20th 2018

by UrbanTurf Staff

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The neighborhoods in DC with the highest real estate prices per square foot in 2018 are the areas that one might expect.

Leading the way with a median price per square foot of $842 is Georgetown. Coming in second at $759 a square foot is West End, and rounding out the top five are Burleith ($737), Logan Circle ($717) and the U Street Corridor ($705). Prices per square foot dropped over the last year in Georgetown, West End and Logan Circle, while rising 4 percent in the U Street Corridor and almost 20 percent in Burleith. 

As UrbanTurf has previously noted, price per square foot is one of those tricky measures in real estate. In DC, a home’s square footage consists of the above-grade finished living area. According to the DC Property Tax Division, that is “comprised of the finished areas of the main floor (kitchen, living room, dining room, etc.) and any finished areas above the main floor.” However, there is no exact science when it comes to measuring square footage, something that UrbanTurf commenter skidrowedc pointed out a couple years ago.

“Price per square foot has value as a general statistical indicator, tracking movements at neighborhood and regional scales. But overemphasis on price per square foot, combined with no legal standard for how to calculate square footage, creates an incentive to cheat the footage upward. Moreover, at the scale of an individual condo or house, it’s as much about how well the square footage is laid out than the actual quantity of square feet.”

The advertised and legal subdivision data for this article was provided by Bright MLS. 

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/north-of-700-the-highest-prices-per-square-foot-in-dc/14240.