District of Columbia Housing Monitor: Winter 2007

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

Abstract

The District of Columbia Housing Monitor provides a quarterly look at the Washington, D.C., housing market, tracking home prices, real estate listings, new construction, and affordable housing. This issue's special section, "Who Owns the Neighborhood?" examines ownership of residential and nonresidential property in the city's wards and neighborhoods by different types of private and public owners.

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Introduction

The quarterly District of Columbia Housing Monitor uses the most recent available data to illuminate housing market and affordable housing trends in the city. In addition, each report includes a special focus section that analyzes, in greater depth, developments that are shaping the Washington, D.C., housing landscape. In this issue, the special section examines the ownership of residential and nonresidential property in the city’s wards and neighborhoods. Who owns neighborhood property has important consequences for the type of development that is likely to be pursued in a community. Neighborhoods with larger shares of property under local control—owner-occupied housing, for example—may be more likely to see development that reflects the interests of the people who live there.

The information presented in this report is supplemented by data provided on the NeighborhoodInfo DC Web site (www.NeighborhoodInfoDC.org/housing).

Key findings from this report:

• Housing demand is down from one year earlier, while sales prices have increased modestly. Sales of single-family homes totaled 1,128 in the second quarter of 2006, down 25 percent from one year earlier. Condominium sales totaled 1,076 in the second quarter, also down 25 percent from the second quarter of 2005. During this period, median real prices increased by 3.1 percent for single-family homes and 7.2 percent for condominiums.
• Real estate listing data reinforce evidence of a housing market slowdown. The average number of single-family housing units listed for sale per month increased to 1,569 for the third quarter of 2006, more than twice the average level in 2005. The average number of listings per month for condominium and cooperative units rose to 1,827 in the third quarter of 2006, 2.5 times the average for 2005. The increasing time that both single-family and multifamily ownership units spent on the market provides further evidence of a market slowdown.
• Single-family home prices continued to accelerate in Ward 2, with the median price surpassing $1 million. Wards 7 and 8 also experienced very rapid price growth over the year. The median price of a single-family home in Ward 2 rose to $1,038,000 in the second quarter of 2006, a real increase of 18.5 percent over the year. Between the second quarters of 2005 and 2006, real single-family home prices grew a robust 28.1 percent in Ward 7 and 27.1 percent in Ward 8, highest among all eight wards.
• Most residential property in the District of Columbia is owned by individual owner-occupants (homeowners), particularly owners of single-family homes. Owner-occupants own 7,058 acres of residential property, about 67 percent of the total residential land area in the city. Single-family homes represent the largest share of owneroccupied housing, comprising 6,488 acres, 61 percent of the residential land area.
• The largest shares of owner-occupied residential land are found in Wards 3, 4, and 5, with two neighborhood clusters in Ward 4 having more than 90 percent owner-occupied land. Of the 2,258 acres of residential property in Ward 4, 83 percent is owned by persons who live in their own homes. Two clusters in Ward 4, cluster 10 (Hawthorne/ Barnaby Woods) and cluster 16 (Colonial Village/Shepherd Park), have the highest shares of owner-occupied residential property, at 91 and 92 percent, respectively.
• Government ownership of residential land is highest in Wards 6, 7, and 8, while ownership by nontaxable organizations is highest in Wards 2 and 7. The federal government, the District of Columbia, and quasi-government organizations together own 8.6 percent of the residential land area in Ward 8, the highest share among all wards. Nontaxable land held by corporations and organizations (most likely nonprofits) accounts for 4.6 percent of residential land in Ward 7 and 4.3 percent in Ward 2.
• The federal government controls a majority of the nonresidential land in the District of Columbia. The federal government owns 59 percent of the District’s nonresidential land—10,322 acres. The District owns 1,610 acres of nonresidential land, only 9.1 percent of the total.
• The federal government and the District of Columbia own more than half of all nonresidential land in Wards 3, 6, 7, and 8. Nontaxable organizations own more than one-fifth of the nonresidential land in Ward 5. The largest share of publicly owned land is in Ward 8, where 67 percent of nonresidential land area (excluding national parks and other areas not in neighborhood clusters) belongs to a governmental entity. In Ward 5, 22 percent of nonresidential land is owned by nontaxable entities.

The complete report is available in PDF format.

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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