The Price is Right: How Much Homes Actually Cost in DC

• May 13th 2021

by Nena Perry-Brown

Earlier this week, there was a collective moment of bewilderment related to the answers that two New York City mayoral candidates gave when asked to guess the median home price in Brooklyn. Both gave answers of around $100,000, far lower than the actual median. 

While there are barely any $100,000 homes in New York City, much less Brooklyn, one (who is not an aspiring elected official) can be forgiven for a wrong answer to some extent depending on which segment of the market they are most familiar with.

To illustrate how much home prices can vary from the median, UrbanTurf decided to take a look around DC to see how prices change based on home type, size, and location. The median home price in Washington, DC in 2021 is $639,900, but that number changes a lot as you move around the city.

For example, while neighborhoods like Riggs Park and Columbia Heights have median prices within $22,000 of the citywide median, if you head over to Georgetown and Spring Valley, the median price exceeds $1.6 million. Conversely, the median home price in the Deanwood neighborhood is more than $200,000 below the city median. 

Broken out by property type, the variations can be even more drastic. Condos in DC have sold for an average of $564,310 this year. In West End, that price would be a deal, however, as condos are averaging $853,130. Head over to Brookland and Hill East, and condos are selling below the city average — $444,118 and $534,607 respectively. 

Moving up to a larger home size, the price differences vary greatly. 

For attached homes with four or more bedrooms, the average price in Columbia Heights is just above $1 million while the average in Georgetown is $2,692,212; the respective averages in Deanwood and Brookland are $496,750 and $763,757. 

The citywide average for detached homes with at least four bedrooms is $1,555,121, a category where the low inventory makes the pickings slim. The average price in Spring Valley for a home of this size is $2.26 million; in Deanwood and Brookland, the average is $536,207 and $874,923. The average prices for this size of property in the latter two neighborhoods exemplify what may be the most reliable price predictor right now: more yard space comes with a premium.

As for $100,000 homes, those are pretty hard to come by in DC: there are currently three for sale in the city right now. 

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/the-price-is-right-how-much-homes-actually-cost-in-dc/18255.