It’s not rocket science: The more housing there is, the more affordable housing will be. In cities with growing populations, the degree to which the creation of new apartment units track with the increased need for additional rental housing is the difference between soaring prices and a stable market. D.C. has begun to prove this… Read more »
I remember my first gay bar. I was 20, newly single, and frustrated. I knew only a handful of gay people at the University of Maryland, where I was a senior, but one night a guy in my campus a cappella group invited me out to Apex, a club near Dupont Circle. Standing at the… Read more »
Periodically we’ll feature one of our real estate professionals here to let our readers know about some great Realtors, Mortgage Brokers, and Other Real Estate Professionals: I am a Certified Residential Specialist and although the majority of my business is residential real estate, I also sell and lease commercial properties. Past commercial clients have included… Read more »
For a couple of decades, Washington’s gay community has been steadily expanding east of the city’s traditional hub of LGBTQ culture, Dupont Circle. The historic Logan Circle neighborhood abounds with beautiful 19th-century townhouses — many of which have been gorgeously restored in recent years. Logan Circle has morphed from a dodgy and downcast district to… Read more »
In 1968, Deacon Maccubbin quit the U.S. Army. He’d been stationed in Virginia with the National Guard while the movement against the Vietnam War reached a fever pitch. The Norfolk native started to feel guilty donning his uniform, knowing young men were dying in droves for an absurd cause. So Maccubbin burned his military papers…. Read more »
The popular tiny-house movement may get a big boost in the District this fall when significantly looser restrictions regarding “accessory dwelling units” — the technical name for the trendy residences — go into effect. Under provisions in the city’s new zoning code, from Sept. 6, homeowners will have an easier time getting the necessary approval… Read more »
New York? Yawn. San Francisco? It’s been overrun by tech junkies. Chicago? Might as well be Shreveport. The jury is officially in, via my Facebook page, and Washington, D.C., has been declared the best city to be gay. But what makes our nation’s capital the ideal urban fruitopia for the LGBT community? Succinctly, today’s Washington… Read more »
Periodically we’ll feature one of our real estate professionals here to let our readers know about some great Realtors, Mortgage Brokers, and Other Real Estate Professionals: With my successful career of over twenty five years in real estate, I have personally experienced all the ups and downs of the Washington DC real estate market. Since… Read more »
It is always surprising to me how much space a renter gets for $2,000 or less a month. For many parts of Northwest D.C., $2,000 a month rents a junior one bedroom. For most places in the country, this rent is considered delusional whereas it has become a norm in the District. The D.C. housing… Read more »
On Dec. 31, 2014, a colleague purchased a fully redeveloped home in Brookland. The property, a stunning, newly renovated single-family home on Newton Street, N.E., was staged and showed beautifully. After several months on the market and under contract for improvements from a home inspection, my colleague and his husband closed on the property for… Read more »
A gay man has been appointed to lead the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. LGBT Weekly reports: Gov. Jerry Brown has appointed openly gay civil rights attorney Kevin Kish to lead the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, filling a vacancy atop an agency under scrutiny for its own employment record, the… Read more »
We’re counting down the top ten US Gayborhoods, according to Out Traveler. The tenth place finisher is in Philadelphia: 9. Dupont Circle (Washington, D.C.), with 4.62 percent of the vote Washington has been declared the gayest city in the country by everyone and their gay brother. Its center of LGBT life has a bit of… Read more »
A September housing report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is making the rounds this week after The Washington Post published its findings on the Monday holiday. The Post gave it a 100-proof headline: “It’s more expensive to live in D.C. than New York, study says.” According to “Housing: Before, During, and After the… Read more »
As in all forecasts, we can only rely on what we see to be a general trend. The Washington metro area real estate market in 2014 has slowed in comparison to 2013 with less activity. A trend that was thought to be related to the long, cold winter can now be seen to be caused… Read more »
What is happening to the ‘gayborhood?’ Discussions of the evolving nature of the gay “community” and fast disassembling “gayborhood” clusters here and in cities across the country are as commonplace as yet another report detailing how expensive D.C. has somewhat suddenly become. An announcement this week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics identifying Washington as… Read more »
Periodically we’ll feature one of our real estate professionals here to let our readers know about some great Realtors, Mortgage Brokers, and Other Real Estate Professionals. Denny is a residential real estate agent in the metro DC area, specializing in row homes and detatched homes. Metro DC offers great diversity and house options! See Denny’s… Read more »
Last month we looked at active vs. sold listings for D.C. overall. This week, we’ll look at the median price over the past seven months for D.C. neighborhoods based on zip code. Washington, D.C. overall experienced growth in median price from 2013 to 2014, both in July (1.90 percent) and year-to-date (4.20 percent). Keep that… Read more »
Do you really know where you live? When I started selling real estate in D.C. in the 1990s there were a number of neighborhood monikers that had withstood the test of time. Everyone knew Georgetown, for example, with its expensive properties and the restaurants and shops that lined M Street and Wisconsin Avenue. Nearby Foggy… Read more »
The year 2007, when Google first began driving those ridiculous camera-topped cars around U.S. cities, doesn’t feel so long ago. But seven years is a lifetime on the streets of a rapidly changing city like Washington. So much in the District has changed so quickly that it’s almost hard to remember what once-empty or neglected… Read more »
Spring is finally here but the biggest buzz isn’t about what’s outside but what’s going on inside. Real estate in the District is changing in a major way from size and design to renovations. Here’s a roundup of some of the latest trends a savvy buyer should know about when hunting for a new home… Read more »
This May, Habitat for Humanity of Washington, D.C. (DC Habitat) will hold its first ever Rainbow Build event. The goal of Rainbow Build is to raise awareness for the cause of affordable housing, particularly as it relates to LGBTQ and other social justice issues, and to team up with a diverse array of LGBTQ organizations,… Read more »
In many respects, D.C. is still part of the South. But this city has a whopping 17 gay elected officials, perhaps a result of its unique status as a federal district, free from the grip of a state government. Gay-friendly neighborhoods include P Street and 17th Street in the Dupont Circle area, and Logan Circle… Read more »
Periodically we’ll feature one of our real estate professionals here to let our readers know about some great Realtors, Mortgage Brokers, and Other Real Estate Professionals. Hub has been a full-time Washington, DC real estate professional since 1999. See Hub’s Expanded Listing on Gay Realty Network Here Gay Friendly Realtors and Real Estate Professionals in… Read more »
In this article, I’ll review some statistics for D.C. real estate for 2013, and will have something to say to both sellers and buyers in light of those statistics. First, let’s consider the following graph of active listings vs. sold listings for the last 5 years. The monthly inventory of available homes (active listings) has… Read more »
As those of us who live and work here know, Washington, D.C. is an amalgam of old and new. If you don’t believe me, just watch the glass-studded, urban community known as CityCenterDC rise amid buildings such as the National Portrait Gallery, constructed between 1836 and 1868, and the Carnegie Library at Mount Vernon Square,… Read more »
My earliest sense of what it meant to be gay in the nation’s capital came more than a decade ago when I was a summer intern. I was a few blocks from Union Station when a congressman walked by and gave the reporters I was standing with a big, floppy wave hello. “You know what… Read more »
Thinking about moving to DC? The Washington Blade has you covered: The Washington Blade’s annual Best of Gay DC Issue keeps growing. This year, there are 71 categories – the most ever – and nearly 20,000 of you voted to select the winners, a new record. Check out the winners below. At Gay Realty Watch,… Read more »
Ted Smith vividly recalls building matchstick houses as a child – and decorating them. After his parents finished supervising the building of their home in Pittsburgh, the family would visit real estate open houses on weekends. Smith loved walking through homes and looking at properties, an inexpensive form of entertainment in a simpler era. He… Read more »
As an openly gay man elected to the D.C. Council I am proud of the diversity of Ward One. Enhancing and preserving that diversity is important to me. With 1,000 new residents moving into the District each month — many into Ward One — our diversity is changing every day. Ward One is diverse in… Read more »
The D.C. market is hot and buyers are looking for proximity to entertainment and smaller, more energy-efficient spaces. (Photo public domain) Whether we’ve worn Coco Chanel’s little black dress or an impeccably tailored Ralph Lauren tuxedo, it’s clear that black evening attire has long been associated with elegance, both understated and timeless. In 1983, however,… Read more »
It looks like the overheated Washington DC real estate market may finally be slowing down little. The Washington Blade reports: First, the D.C. real estate market is about to enter its fall season of active listings — the second big market of the year after spring, which will increase the inventory of available homes for… Read more »
Last week we asked Borderstan readers, “Where’s the Gay Neighborhood in DC”, and for the third consecutive year Logan Circle was the winner. Once again, it was not even close, with 38% saying Logan Circle, followed by Dupont Circle with 13% and 9% for U Street and 9% for Shaw. Actually, the choice of “Everywhere… Read more »
There are several pieces of good news on the horizon for homebuyers. First, the D.C. real estate market is about to enter its fall season of active listings, which will increase the inventory of available homes for purchase. The D.C. market has two seasons of market activity: spring and fall. Imagine a line graph in… Read more »
The announcement late last week was startling mostly for its time-capsule-like nature. The damage, after all, is a couple of decades long and old. The Dupont Circle Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) is poised to ask the D.C. Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Board to again renew the now 23-year-old “East Dupont” liquor license moratorium on the… Read more »
For more than a century, the height of buildings in Washington D.C. has been capped by federal law. The original rationale was fire safety — ladders back in 1900 only reached so high — but the height limit has since made its way into the city’s aesthetic mythology. It preserves “light and air” on the… Read more »
Wow, what a market we have been through the first half of 2013. Interest rates that were almost beyond belief fueled a buying spree that has not been seen for seven years in our area. A close look at the numbers will show that some locations and some price points fared better than others. The… Read more »
In a recent survey conducted by neighborhood blog Borderstan, Logan Circle was once again declared the top gay neighborhood in D.C. Borderstan polled its readers to find out where the District’s gayest neighborhood actually lies, and for the fourth consecutive year Logan Circle took the crown. By a landslide, in fact, raking in 42 percent… Read more »