The DC Neighborhoods with the Best Home Price Appreciation in 2016

• December 1st 2016

by UrbanTurf Staff

In 2016, home prices rose in a number of DC neighborhoods. As the year comes to a close, UrbanTurf dug into the neighborhoods where median sales prices rose the most between the first eleven months of 2015 and the same period this year. We omitted neighborhoods with very low sales volume.

Here are the top 6:

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6. Shepherd Park

Shepherd Park is a DC neighborhood just to the east of 16th Street and north of Brightwood that has become popular with young families over the last fifteen years. Between 2015 and 2016, the median home sales price rose 17 percent from $705,000 to $825,000 with the large majority of the homes that sold being detached, four-bedroom houses. Despite the jump in prices, 40 percent of homes sold in the neighborhood this year did so within ten days of being listed.

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5. Hillcrest

This suburban feeling neighborhood east of the Anacostia River has seen prices jump 19 percent on median this year on increased sales volume of 33 percent over 2015. Home sales almost entirely consisted of single-family homes with a smattering of condos and co-ops thrown in. While prices jumped notably year-over-year, the neighborhood is not losing its reputation as an affordable place to buy as its median sales price of $334,000 remains well below the city average.

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4. Anacostia

Anacostia was on this list last year and its appearance in 2016 probably should not come as a surprise to those who have been tracking the high level of interest in the area in recent years. Median prices rose 20 percent between 2015 and 2016 and prices increased from $205,000 to $315,000 in the east of the river neighborhood in just two years. Rising prices have not affected homes selling at or near list price, though: the average sales price to original list price ratio this year is 100 percent in the neighborhood.

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3. Observatory Circle

Centered around the Naval Observatory off Massachusetts Avenue NW, the legal subdivision of Observatory Circle consists of some of the highest priced homes in the city and a high volume of lower-priced condos and co-ops. The latter property segment accounted for over 90 percent of the units sold in the neighborhood this year, where median prices rose 21 percent compared to 2015.

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2. Colonial Village

Just before Thanksgiving, we wrote about Colonial Village, the 80-house neighborhood at the northern tip of the DC diamond. Despite its low-key reputation, median home prices have skyrocketed in the neighborhood in 2016, jumping from $828,000 to $1,067,500 or 29 percent in just a year’s time. Listing prices have followed suit, rising 33 percent to $1.162 million.

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1. Marshall Heights

Marshall Heights is a Ward 7 neighborhood along East Capitol Street where the housing stock consists of homes that have been there for decades alongside new houses built in the last five years. The latter property segment is likely the reason that home prices have jumped a whopping 60 percent between 2015 and 2016, from $155,000 to $250,000. One third of the homes purchased this year were all-cash transactions, which means that developers are still targeting the area, but the remaining two-thirds are likely new homes that can fetch a premium for the neighborhood, but not break the bank for a buyer.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/the_dc_neighborhoods_with_the_best_price_appreciation_in_20161/11937.