DC real estate is on fire, everywhere!

When I lived in Atlanta, the majority of my friends lived in a city that was not Atlanta. Marietta, Norcross, Douglasville, East Point, Roswell, Stone Mountain, Kennesaw, Smyrna, Austell, Jonesboro, Lithonia, Lithia Springs and so forth. When I moved to Washington, DC, I assumed everyone who lived in the District simply lived in the District. Rarely in Atlanta did I ask someone where they lived and they responded with the name of their neighborhood. In DC people take pride in their neighborhoods as if the neighborhood is a little city in itself. Capitol Hill, Brookland, Columbia Heights, Georgetown, Cleveland Park, Anacostia, Mount Pleasant, Adams Morgan and on and on.

Each neighborhood has its own history, its own personality, even its own celebratory festival day. Capitol Hill celebrates Barracks Row Fest on September 16 this year. I used to live in Capitol Hill, but now I live in Trinidad just off Benning Road.

About a month ago, the Washington Post had an article about the rising cost of living in these neighborhoods. Though Trinidad isn't quite a dream location in DC, it witnessed the second highest spike in buying a home. The 20002 ZIP code area prices increased 46% from last year. ZIP code 20010 saw a 63% increase, consisting of the Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods. Cleveland Park and Woodley Park areas only saw a 15% increase, but the median for buying a home there was $1.15 million, more than Glover Park and Georgetown's median of $900,000. Anacostia and Deanwood's medians rose to $200,000 and $180,000 respectively, but those reflect increases of 31% and 44% respectively.

In the next month or two I'll be taking the real estate exam to get a real estate license. Now that I don't plan on leaving Washington, DC, ever, I'm going to pay more attention to these patterns and dive into the world of ever-rising DC real estate.

Being that I'm still renting, I'm hoping these increases slow down just a bit so I can afford to live in DC, but I'm not counting on it. There are a handful of projects going on that will only continue to inflate these prices. H Street, the Waterfront and the ensuing stadium, the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative, Columbia Heights' DC USA project, Massachusetts Avenue and a bunch of other projects I probably don't even know about are going to keep those increases, well, increasing. Let's just hope I get in while it's good before it slows down and I still can't afford to live in DC.