The Yellow Line Rent Watch Begins

• November 16th 2018

by Nena Perry-Brown

As Amazon moves into Arlington, tens of thousands of employees will begin trickling in, and many may take advantage of Metro to commute to National Landing. This means that there are plenty of neighborhoods, including in DC, where Amazon employees could live, particularly along the Yellow Line which runs directly to Crystal City. 

For example, the trip on the Yellow Line from Petworth to Crystal City is just about twenty minutes. From Shaw to Crystal City, the ride takes 15 minutes, and trips get quicker the closer one lives to Virginia. (Of course, these times don't take into account the delays that have plagued Metro for years.) 

Below is a snapshot of what monthly rents look like on the Yellow Line.

Based on the Metro line rent map RentHop published this June, the stations closest to the National Landing site have comparable rents: rents for apartments close to Crystal City and the airport Metro stops rose by 5.5 percent year-over-year, sitting at $2,003 and $1,994 a month, respectively. 

With an expected average salary of $150,000, some Amazon employees may choose to live along the Yellow Line in DC proper where rents are notably higher than in Virginia. The median rent near the U Street stop is $2,100 a month, an 8.7 percent year-over-year drop. As one gets closer to downtown along the Yellow Line, rents rise. Near the Shaw Metro, the median rent is $2,325 a month while the Gallery Place median rent is $2,425 a month.

For ancillary employees and those who will be earning much less than $150,000 a year, the most affordable Metro station on the Yellow Line is by far Fort Totten, which is also the farthest from National Landing. Median rents fell by 6.2 percent year-over-year to hit $1,525, and additional expected development in the pipeline could keep rents in check in the coming years. At the end of the line in Virginia, median rents in Huntington have held steady at $1,650 a month.

It will be interesting to see whether rents speculatively rise along the Yellow Line in the wake of the Amazon announcement, and UrbanTurf will be watching.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/the-yellow-line-rent-watch-begins/14707.