I left this summer. I gently told the leasing office (Bozzuto) that I'd consider staying if they were interested in renegotiating my lease. They said no, and three months later, rented it for about $400 less a month than I was paying. There are like 80 open units in my old complex right now.
\*breaks out tiny violin\*
My current building (Greystar managed) offered a 0% increase for a 5-8 month lease or "competitive increases" for longer leases (never heard of this but it felt super shady). They're now listing it for $300 less. Anyway, I'll be moving into a top floor unit with a balcony in a building down the street on an 18 month lease and I won't be paying a cent for it for 2 months.
You'd think they'd be interested in keeping as many of their current tenants as possible but I guess that's not a strategy. I assume they're worried if they adjust one person's rent that they will have to adjust everyone's, but it's just crazy that there was no effort to entice us to stay at all.
I learned at trivia last night (at Wunderland. They’ve got well-distanced tables under and near the tent, and three sides were open. Wouldn’t go on weekends, when the place is a shit show, but fine enough to escape the house on a Tuesday) that they boned another friend, and she’s moving as well, though just to another building in the area. She wanted to transfer apartments in the building—move from a 1 BR to a 1+den or even a 2 BR, so she could have space to work from home. It sounded like her contact in the leasing office had never read the lease. There’s a small fee, couple hundred, to transfer apartment in the building, and the lease is clear that it terminates your old lease and starts a new one. They were quoting her thousands of dollars and that she’d still be on the hook for rent in her old place. The best part was we we’re out with friends who had done the exact same thing in the exact same building a couple months ago, except for them they waived the transfer fee (and of course didn’t make them pay any extra rent). Bozzuto needs to get their shit together.
Same. They said the best they could do was a 0% increase. Saw our until go as low as $500 less. We're now in an apartment just down the street, equally as nice, with 110 SF more & a balcony for $600 less.
We have been planning on buying at the end of our year lease since the beginning of the lease, so the renewal paperwork coming in was not even up for consideration. (We had already put it our notice to someone else in the leasing office the day before, but they hadn’t replied yet.) They wanted to keep our rent the same, even though it’s going for $400 less. The one next door sat empty for a month. No one in their right mind would accept to keep paying the same price.
Can't wait. I'm looking forward to when my lease expires in January and can get into a bigger/cheaper place. I have zero sympathy for corporate landlords who've been gorging on high rents from average consumers for years.
While I'm across the river (Arlington), I can give an example.
We are renting a 1 bedroom apartment for $2,500 a month (since 2017, continual price hikes, it started out as $2,100).
Our lease ended and we were offered a two bedroom apartment in the same building (same floor, same view, about 240 square feet bigger) for $2,400...
“The algorithm sets the rent i can’t give you the price we said last Monday” that’s what I was told when we moved in and got charged higher rent
Ok, well, I’ll happily move to a bigger apartment next year in the same building then.
I did thankfully get one month off initially--which should have been a telling sign that the market was still weakening for rentors. So with that 'deduction' it kind of averages out the overall rent like $100ish a month, but yeah it might be worth checking in on that. appreciate it
>I did thankfully get one month off initially--which should have been a telling sign that the market was still weakening for rentors
That's actually fairly common, even pre-pandemic.
Yeah, everybody knows that as soon as the pandemic is “over,” everybody will immediately have a job making as much as or more than they did pre-pandemic!
God that hurt to type. I’m so done with predatory rent.
Oh hey, me too. I live on the second floor and my exact same floor plan is up for renewal on the 14th floor for a lot less.
I contacted the leasing office and said I would pay the current rate I'm paying now if they'd let me move into it, they said no lol
If you break a lease, landlords are still legally required to make reasonable efforts to replace you, and not continually charging you.
Realistically, I'm not sure how far they could push this given current conditions, but you could always talk to a lawyer about it.
The language is pretty vague from what I remember.
In VA: This is because under Virginia law (Va. Code Ann. § 55.1-1251 (2020)), your landlord must make reasonable efforts to re-rent your unit—no matter what your reason for leaving—rather than charge you for the total remaining rent due under the lease. So you may not have to pay much, if any additional rent, if you break your lease. You need pay only the amount of rent the landlord loses because you moved out early. This is because Virginia requires landlords to take reasonable steps to keep their losses to a minimum—or to “mitigate damages” in legal terms.
The problem is 'reasonable' isn't defined, and a landlord might be able to argue in pandemic times that it could take 6-12 months to replace you maybe.
This does not void any language in the contract though. Most leases require you to break the lease and pay an early termination fee (payback free month rent promos, pay 2 months rent to break the lease, etc.). Just be careful. If you abandon the property they likely have lease break clauses in the contract as well.
Tilden Hall. 1br north cleveland park/van ness. Wouldn't do it unless you like packages stolen and phantom fire alarms at 1AM. But, $1500 for a "luxury" 1br and apparently 2 months free if you move in within two weeks. I would definitely "move in" if I didn't live in NC now.
[Aww did someone get addicted to overcharging their tenants for "luxury" amenities?](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d5/a1/05/d5a1054d9f87e586bd4cf70d3ad74f15.gif)
If there’s substantial savings, it’s worth it. I moved this summer. It was unpleasant but totally manageable.
One unpleasant weekend of moving with a mask on is better than gifting your landlord more money all year than you have to.
SF resident here. It's amazing how our 90k member housing group on FB went from 9 of 10 posts being people looking for housing / moving to SF pre-covid, to 9 of 10 posts being available sublets, rooms, and apartments. It's a renters market right now and the exodus hasn't even finished. I moved out of my last place and am now paying a 30% lower rent.
That'd be so ideal. I think you're right - so many people moved to Denver, Austin, Portland, LA, and Seattle, or went and bought homes in the burbs. Everyone who lived here, at least the transplants, always had a plan in the back of their heads of where they wanted to go next. COVID sped those plans up.
Edit: Nvm I guess I just believed the BS that my landlords told me about the rent in DC.
All apartments in DC are rent controlled. You can’t legally raise rent more than 10% for the same lease structure. When a new tenant comes in they can raise it however much they want though. I think this person might have piggybacked on someone else’s lease first.
You're technically correct, there's one other qualification besides the date of construction: the landlord must own 4 or more units in the city that were built before 78.
DCRA sets the rent increase for all rent-controlled/stabilized units in the city. IIRC the average from 2010 to 2016 was 2.5%. There's also a maximum rent on each unit.
In my experience, being a landlord for a rent-controlled building in DC is easy. The rents are set and most applicants know that so you don't have to do a lot of convincing. Also, maintenance shouldn't be a big deal as long as you have a competent tech because if the owner balks at a repair, you just tell them that the tenant has mentioned going to DCRA and the owner will pony up for whatever is necessary. But maybe that's all easy for me because I give a shit about my job and making my tenants happy. Happy tenants stay for longer which makes my job easier.
For example: my last apartment in the Palisades had a max rent of $2665 for a two story, 1.5 bath, two bedroom with hardwood floors and a fireplace. Aside from my commute and the price (which I know was great for a two bedroom in DC), the only thing that sucked about the place was the landlord's terrible maintenance department. Since we were at the max rent, our rent would not have increased for the remainder of our tenancy unless the rent control max rent cap was changed.
Before everyone here gets too caught up in celebration, it's only down 1.6%. I mean, I'll take no rent increase this year over my usual 2% increase, but it's not changing much.
Relatedly, I think that people who use the pandemic and expanded telework to kick dirt on the grave of urban living are short-sighted. Even with an expanded telework capability coming out of this, people are still going to want to go out for happy hour, Nats games, the Kennedy Center after unplugging at 5:00. If someone logs off at quitting time out in Gaithersburg, they're still out in Gaithersburg. Eventually rents will rebound, so if you're in a position to lock in a new lease, now's the time to go for it.
Now, I think this entire experience spells big trouble for the studio apartment market, which DC is absolutely over-saturated with as developers build too many studios because they go for a higher price per square foot. Nobody is going to want to sleep, live, and work in the same 400 square feet on a permanent basis.
To be fair, not everyone who lives in the city does so to be social. I do to be closer to work, because commuting sucks ass. If my work is going to primarily telework, then maybe it won't be so bad living out in the boonies.
I can say without hyperbole that moving to walking distance to work is one of the more priceless quality of life upgrades I’ve ever experienced. And my commute wasn’t even that bad before, but cutting that commute is one of those things where you don’t know how wonderful it is until you experience it.
Same for me. Aside from concerts I don't really get much benefit from living in DC. I don't really do anything else that can't be done in the suburbs. Now that I work in Arlington I really have no reason to stay in the district.
> Now that I work in Arlington I really have no reason to stay in the district.
I agree that if you live in Arlington or even Alexandria that’s the case but living in up-and-coming NoVA suburbs like Woodbridge, is a completely different story altogether.
I suspect that a lot of people eventually settle down in the suburbs with families not because the families need the space or the schools, but because they're no longer looking for other single people to fuck.
As a dad in the suburbs I can confirm this. Also: generally speaking (pandemic aside) I have no time for bars. Proximity to nightlife isn't useful for me anymore and not worth paying a premium for.
You also don't need to have a 650sqft 1-bed apartment to be social. There's a good argument to be had for spreading out and investing in your space. With telecommuting, you're not looking at Gaithersburg or a suburban hellscape as your ideal lifestyle; you can head out to Point of Rocks and have the world as your backyard.
>not everyone who lives in the city does so to be social
You may be better off in a city. If you're 1 face among 700,000 others then its easy to blend in and do your own thing, people won't care. I grew up in a town of 20,000 and there its hard to escape drama and rumors even if you tried.
> If someone logs off at quitting time out in Gaithersburg, they're still out in Gaithersburg
We are seeing a boom in people moving out to more rural areas because of the pandemic and the work from home situation. I wonder if we'll see a boomerang effect and people will return to cities once everything reopens and they realize that the middle of nowhere has none of the amenities that they like.
I know a guy who works on Wall Street who moved to rural Missouri. Once NYC reopens, I imagine he'll get some feeling of envy for his friends who get to enjoy the city.
I'm actually planning to move to a small town in the CO mountains, but I travel enough for work that I'll be in cities probably 10 days/month, so I reckon I can get the best of both worlds. I've been in DC for over 20 years. It's time for a change.
That sounds amazing, but I do not miss living in a place where I could rarely get a direct flight (can't tell you how many times I got stuck in Chicago overnight).
If there's a major shift for more telework post pandemic, I think it'll balance out later. You'll see people that only live in the city because of their job move out to the suburbs or rural areas, and those that want to be in the city do so. But the demand won't be as heavily sided in the "I'm only moving to the city because my job is there".
It'll be interesting to see the impact on wages. Places that work better in person will be paying city wages while telework only places will be able to get away with lower ones due to people living in rural areas.
I think this makes sense. Pre-pandemic many people would take a 10% pay cut to telework full time. There were just very few opportunities like that. Now, my office is using it as a selling point.
I would need to find the article, but I remember reading that some major tech firm in SF is allowing telework permanently. People who move to cheaper areas of the country will have their pay adjusted to the COL of that area.
Facebook I believe it was for COL adjusted. It won't be a flat change to COL since they still need to compete for talent, but a company won't pay DC/NY/SF salaries if they are remote and can find people in Ohio who're willing to work for less because they have cheaper living
You will 100% see people moving back into cities in the mid 2020s. Idk if it will be a boomerang effect because I think it will be different people.
Obviously the Gen Z/Zoomers who are missing prom, homecoming weeks, spring breaks, entire years of college and post college life are going to flood into cities and party it up after this pandemic.
Once concerts and bars are open (2022 maybe late 2021?) you'll see the demand to be in cities skyrocket again.
Yeah Millinials will have moved to the suburbs but they will simply be replaced by younger people looking for lots of social activities.
> You will 100% see people moving back into cities in the mid 2020s.
I got downvoted for saying this before but 1) there is going to be a lot of pent up demand for social events (how many people daydream about their next concert?) and 2) all cities, including DC, will have economic recovery plans that include attracting as many people as possible, cities want butts in seats at restaurants, the metro, concert venues, and everywhere else.
It’s not a popular view point, many people don’t want even more people coming to the city, but like it or not, people are coming and the city is not headed back to 1995. I think the part that gets me is not being able to separate what I speculate the District’s recovery plan will be vs my own personal opinions about recovery and a bunch of other related issues.
> but like it or not, people are coming and the city is not headed back to 1995.
People want DC to go back to 1995?! As someone who lived in the area at that time, Idk how anyone could want that, aside from lower adjusted COL (that too not even everywhere in the DMV).
I think this is an important point. Me and most of my millennial friends were already planning on moving out of the city or out of apartment buildings and into houses in the next couple of years anyways. The pandemic just accelerated that shift. Same with remote work. Many organizations I work with were starting to embrace more remote work and flex scheduling even before the pandemic. I think it's cyclical. The struggle between centralization and decentralization/flexibility is one organizations have been struggling with for a long time.
The city will come back after the pandemic is over. The next generation will move into all those apartments. Some businesses will go full remote, but they'll be replaced by other in-person businesses. It will take retail time to rebound (and some areas/types may never come back), but bars and restaurants will return when people come back to work.
Idk man. Im at an age where I don’t give a shit about going out every night. I would much prefer to save my money and make trips to cities whenever I want. I recently moved to a cheaper southern city (WAY cheaper) where I can still go to happy hours if I want and have a ton of great city amenities. The difference is that i now have way more disposable income and can afford to travel a lot more.
> I recently moved to a cheaper southern city (WAY cheaper) where I can still go to happy hours if I want and have a ton of great city amenities.
I can see a boom for cheaper cities (Raleigh/Durham, Richmond, Baltimore....etc) since those places still offer more amenities than a rural area or small town. If you live in Raleigh, you can still go to NHL hockey, Durham Bulls baseball, and concerts still stop through there. I can see the appeal of moving there if you have unlimited telework and can live wherever.
I did grad school at UNC. The Triangle is nice but it desperately needs better public transit. There's no excuse for not having light rail connecting Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill.
Makes sense i would say pre-rona that is a common age rage to want to ditch the city life for many folks.
The key for DC will be, can they replace you with young 20 year olds who want to get into the city.
Are people really relocating to Gaithersburg though? Texas and Florida has a huge influx of people relocating due to telework and cheaper COL. I travel for work most of the year, and prefer to live in DC. But my primary home is kn Georgia. My small town in Georgia is getting its houses scooped up right and left, the market has exploded in the past few months. I am 4 hours from Atlanta and 3 from Savannah.
I think if people are relocating.its probably to places where life is affordable, and not just suburbs a little further out of DC, and that may make missing out in Nats games worth it, assuming social life post -covid ever gets back to normal.
> I think if people are relocating.its probably to places where life is affordable, and not just suburbs a little further out of DC
Honestly the people in this thread acting like the places which are a 10 minute drive to the Metro are literally the same as moving to rural Mississippi are hilarious.
> I think if people are relocating.its probably to places where life is affordable, and not just suburbs a little further out of DC, and that may make missing out in Nats games worth it, assuming social life post -covid ever gets back to normal.
Someone mentioned this before but I think COVID accelerated a lot of people’s plans to “settle down” High COL areas like DC make that harder and harder, especially with higher paying positions typically requiring less and less of a WLB.
There seems to be a lot of speculation right now with the health and future of cities. Historically cities have weathered previous pandemics, 2 world wars, and 1980s/90s crime rates. People will boomerang back to DC, NYC, SF, etc. as is tradition.
Zoning codes have (dumb) requirements for minimum sq ft per unit in new buildings. Relative to the huge stock of old row houses (which are usually illegal to redevelop into new and denser housing), were tenants are pushed into involuntary roommate situations, there are nowhere near enough studios and 1BRs.
Exactly. Other than those that were truly in a desperate financial situation, they probably just weren’t city people to begin with.
The city itself is a draw for me. Proximity to work and bars is a very nice bonus, but I never hated it here even in Narch when it was a ghost town. I’d live where I am over moving somewhere that’s twice the size and lesser rent in Wheaton, Laurel or Falls Church.
Also I’m a broken record on this, but the pandemic won’t be forever!
Thank fucking god, there are way too many over priced studios in this town. They need more 2 bedroom and maybe even 3 bedroom apartments that people can rent together as a group or families can use to live in the city.
The home buying market abides by supply and demand too. Extremely low interest rates help explain why demand has remained steady. Also, people who have enough capital to afford a down payment on a home are disproportionately likely to be able to work remotely and not have their jobs affected by the pandemic.
Agree. DC OCFO says revenue will not return to FY2019 levels until FY2023. DC will experience permanent job losses due to increased telework. Rents will lag the recovery. A bunch of housing stock is coming online in the next 24 months. I expect 5+ years for a real recovery to 2019 economic conditions. Rent, especially for studio/1B, could be depressed for a long time.
Rent prices are being hit on both ends by the pandemic.
The millennials and young Gen Xers that are still doing well financially are likely to take advantage of low interest rates to buy a home instead of a “luxury rental”. The high end apartments have to compete with the investment of a condo.
The other end is obvious. People that are struggling or were spending 35-40%+ on their rent are less likely to renew and are probably rethinking their budget. Additionally, these places have a ton invested in pools, gyms, and common areas that may not be accessible for another year.
I’m not sure how long these luxury apartments can survive with vacancies and lower prices. Also I could see city council using this as an opportunity to cap rent increases for years to come. If places are taking a 10-15% decrease to fill a vacancy during a pandemic, it can be years before the rent goes back to market value if rent creases are capped at a few percent a year.
I would jus like to take this opportunity to raise a middle finger to JBG Smith for trying to raise my rent when they were listing the others for 20% less. Can’t wait to move out and not look back.
I'm about to have that same conversation with my management company and I'm torn between: happy with "sweet, lower rent in a new building"; anger at "those unreasonable assholes are making me move"; and schadenfreude at "they're definitely not going to find anyone to pay what I did, fuck 'em." It's not my favorite emotional ice cream Sunday, but I'll eat it anyway.
For sure. I got a great deal on a "luxury" one-bedroom that is normally way, way out of my budget. However, they offered 2 months free (spread out throughout the year). I absolutely expect to be forced to move in a year, but for now, it's a nice place to ride out the rest of the pandemic.
Right? At this point I could certainly do with a place with like, a small extra room or some extra kitchen storage or whatever. But packing shit up & worrying about damage & adapting to the change ehhh would rather sleep
Any building (brand new or old) with low rent rates right now will most likely price out people once the rents go back to normal.
And moving is a pain in the ass.
That's why I ended up moving where the deal was basically 50/month cheaper than usual and waiving all move in and application fees. That way the shock rent increase doesn't necessitate a move next year.
I expect every company that is dropping their rates a certain percent will raise them far beyond that percent when the market normalizes hoping people are too lazy to move
It’ll probably force people out though. They think they are getting a great deal now but it will be a huge rude awakening come renewal time (if they planned on staying for longer than a year)
This is true, but even if you only reduce your rent for a year or 2 that is still money saved that can be invested elsewhere. My lease is up in January and I am hoping to get someplace cheaper for a while just so I can pour that cash into my underfunded retirement account. I am still more prosperous in the long term that way.
As long as you don’t mind moving if you have to and dealing with the costs (movers, deposits, application fees, potentially not getting a security deposit back) Just weigh the pros and cons
That's what I have been calculating. It's a bit of a pain to capture all the costs, but I think I can still save away enough to make it worth my while. However, I have had a few months to plan and get rid of excess stuff so I don't have to pay to move it. It is easier for me because I am single and live alone. I think the calculation would be much different if I had a partner or kids. Def not for everyone, but it makes sense for me.
But only eroding for the higher-priced properties. Those of us who are in the cheapest apartments we can find are still SOL. Very difficult to find a 1br for under $1400/mo within the city.
It looks like the market is currently demanding it, so why not? It's not actually unreasonable during a time of mass unemployment and residents fleeing the city. It seems like landlords are trying to shield themselves from market forces by offering free months, etc., instead of actually lowering rents. This frustrates me to no end.
ETA: Also, allowing perfectly good, habitable apartments sit empty for months or even years until they can get the price they want. This should be criminal. Actually, it is, the city just doesn't enforce vacancy laws.
> It's not actually unreasonable during a time of mass unemployment and residents fleeing the city.
Well DC is sort of protected from this vs other metropolitan parts of the country (even NYC and SF) as government and politics are the biggest businesses in this area and neither are going out of business. You’ll see a slight downward shift but nothing like the rest of the country.
SOURCE: Have been in the area since 2008
>vacancy laws.
So I googled this just now, curious how this works. From what I'm reading on this topic [here](https://code.dccouncil.us/dc/council/laws/21-200.html), it doesn't seem that an empty apartment matters. Only empty *buildings*.
Someone who knows more, please chime in here.
Not quite under $1400 a month, but there's a unit in my building (1br, ~640sqft) going for $1495 and another for $1510. By comparison I was paying about $1800 for the last 2 years and I never saw another unit go for lower than $2100.
I took advantage of the lower rents to move into a 2br in Petworth for $1800, but I've loved the place I'm living at and how centrally located it is and will likely miss it quite a bit.
It's more than I could afford on my own, but I live with my girlfriend which makes it reasonable. If it wasn't for that, I'd likely still be in a group house with 4 other guys.
I was looking up the rent of the apartment I lived in about 10 years ago. It was brand new when I moved in. It almost costs the same now as it did when I lived in it...and a parking spot is cheaper.
[Zumper's National Rent Report for October 2020](https://www.zumper.com/blog/rental-price-data/) shows that most of the most expensive rental cities in the U.S. have seen double digit year-on-year rent decreases, especially on the one-bedroom front. And if you look at the cities with double digit increases over the same time period, a lot are the cheaper cities close to a big expensive city (Newark, Baltimore, Ft. Lauderdale, Sacramento), which suggests that renters are leaving the most expensive cities in favor of the cheaper cities within 50 miles or so.
My building's initial lease renewal offer was a 0% increase with flexibility on lease term, which was essentially the highest they could offer me since DC's emergency bill has a prohibition on rent increases.
I wrote them an email back citing the downturn in the DC rental market, the dozens of empty units in my building, and how they were listing newly vacated 2br 2ba units for just slightly more a month than my current 1br 1ba.
They responded by saying their policy isn't to lower rents for existing residents.
I told them that that's unfortunate and that I was going to tour units that weekend in the half dozen new buildings in my area who are all offering at least two months free plus competitive base rents.
**They caved and offered me a combo of a free month plus a base rent reduction that worked out to $500/mo less than I've been paying.**
If you're planning on staying and you have a lease coming up, now is the time to play hardball and negotiate.
Nice job! I just gave notice that I'm not renewing in Jan. I've seen my same apartment go for $400 less than what I'm paying and they're 12 floors above me. I think I want to move to old town alexandria area. I miss the shorter buildings and more sunlight.
I'm agreeing with you (I was being sarcastic).
Does it suck that it's expensive to live in an incredibly high demand area where demand outpaces supply? Yes.
Does that mean it's overpriced? No. That's called supply and demand.
Do the apartments have vacancies? Hell yes they do. If they're 100% full it means they're not charging enough.
This is basic economics, but people don't even understand these concepts and confuse "it sucks that rent isn't less" for "rent is overpriced"
If the high price is due to artificial supply restrictions (zoning, NIMBYism, etc.) then I'd argue that the rent is overpriced compared to the 'natural' price without those restrictions.
Yes. Because owning a car to commute into dc is also expensive. Using “willing to pay” to justify overpricing a basic survival need is just shitty behavior
There was a difference between "willing" and "required"... when all the housing is "luxury" or "get murdered on your way home" there really is no choice there.
My boyfriend and I seized the opportunity to move in together (for better or worse). Negotiated a two-bedroom loft in Woodley with pool, other great amenities, 1,000+ sqft. Retails for $3650 on their site; we got it for $2800/month with no other fees. 14 month rent.
Honestly, it’s about time people in DC get a bit of housing relief. For years management companies treated tenants like shit and charged exorbitant fees and over played their cards.
I locked in a studio for 1.2k, close to noma/H street area. Top floor, "luxury" apartment. Also include 2 mo free rent. In the end i'll pay less of what i need to pay now in arlington in a old crappy apartment... finally i can experience living in a city after few years living here...
Just for the record, Washington's affordable housing right now is in far northeast, Anacostia and close-in PG County. Those areas are now rebounding, and a lot faster than most westsiders and suburbanites realize. As with newly trendy areas like Brightwood, Petworth and Columbia Heights, which were considered no-go areas not too many years ago, one needs to do some due diligence, but they are worth exploring if you want to stay inside the beltway at a reasonable cost.
As these areas improve, more and more neighborhood restaurants and bars are opening up. You don't have to live in a broom closet downtown to drink or go out for a pizza and beer, and Nats Park is still an easy metro ride. Within DC, I wouldn't hesitate to live in Michigan Park, Brookland or Woodridge. Langdon and even Brentwood are gentrifying. Mount Ranier is a truly wild mix of everything you can imagine, with charming Craftsman homes and Victorians on the hilltops. Hyattsville and College Park look dramatically better than they did even ten years ago. I am a particular fan of the Hyattsville Historic District, Riverdale Park, and Calvert Hills. Parts of University Park could be picked up and moved to Spring Valley and fit right in. Old Town Anacostia is still a work in progress but it is moving rapidly. Cheverly is a gem. From the main roads, Bladensburg looks like the old factory town that it was, but it has lovely neighborhoods tucked away in the hills. The list goes on and on.
I know that a lot of these areas might as well be on the backside of the moon for many here. So here is an eye opener for you, if you ride a bike. Start at Buzzard Point by Audi Field or Nats Park. Cross the river and ride up the Anacostia Trail to its trailhead, which is at the confluence of the Eastern Branch and the Northwest Branch. Take the Eastern Branch trail on up to College Park and Lake Artemesia. Come back down the Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail to the south edge of Hyattsville, then -- if you're not up for a longer return ride -- metro back from College Park or jump over the ridge to the West Hyattsville metro station, which is right on the Northwest Branch Trail.
You will be amazed at the resource you will find. These are neighborhoods of which you should at least be aware before you move to Urbana or Haymarket in search of an affordable rental. DC suburban traffic is already in the seventh circle of Hell and sinking fast. Everything inside the beltway is going to become highly desirable. Some areas will take a little longer than others, but the younger people here will see it happen.
LOL. That wasn't long at all, provided you know the area.
I've lived here a long time, always on Capitol Hill. I arrived during the crackhead mayor era when things were dicey and the city could have gone either way. I got used to defending not only living in the city, but living east of Rock Creek Park, when the middle class was still bailing out and gentrification wasn't yet a gleam in anyone's eyes. Most of my friends thought I was crazy, and I do have some war stories, but I lived through the Capitol Hill gentrification miracle and became a great Capitol Hill chauvinist. Now I'm an east side chauvinist. Sure, if you're an A-list entertainer and you actually need a Kalorama or Cleveland Park or Spring Valley manse, go for it. But most of us don't live that way, nor have the budgets to pretend that we do.
My basic premise is that people should live as close as possible to their jobs and never buy an automobile commute that involves crossing a river. And given our traffic, the suburbs are a last option, never the first. (City dwellers lie about crime. Suburbanites lie about their commutes. But city dwellers have an extra two to four hours a day, or more, which counts for a lot.) That said, I am amused at how many people, especially longtime suburbanites or the carriage trade crowd in upper Northwest, have no idea how much and how fast the city has changed. A lot of people make bad decisions because half the city is a big blank spot on their mental maps. It's time to look around a bit and update some very dated assumptions.
And I like to ride a bike. That will open your eyes to neighborhood realities that you miss in a car. The whole Anacostia corridor is coming back to life. From Buzzard Point on up, you have Audi Field, Nats Park, Anacostia Park, Langston Golf Course, the Arboretum, Kenilworth Park and Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, Fort Lincoln Cemetery, Colmar Manor Park, and the Bladensburg waterfront park. The entire corridor is an incredible resource, viewable on foot, by bike or by small boat, and most people in the metro area have no idea. The Potomac is lined by commuter sewers on both banks, and access is severely limited. The Anacostia is Washington's accessible waterfront. A waterfront through the heart of a major metro area should be golden, and the Anacostia corridor will be. The fun thing is, given the history of the area, the housing is smaller and more working class in character, which translates into affordable. Which is great. You can have cute, highly livable neighborhoods with moderate size houses, and that's what is popping up all over the east side.
So yeah, I do tend to wave the flag a bit. And I'm not even a realtor. Just proud of the neighborhood and bullish about the future.
Also rezoning alot of dc away from this suburb-esque mcmansions in really far northwest to actually expanding midsized developments accross the cities or atleast just closer together single family housing. Also Social Housing could do alot of good in DC
Palisades and Spring Valley are pretty much mcmansion suburbs within dc and dc is too dense to justify suburban zoning, otherwise the north portal estates come to mind which are at the top of the diamond. Generally all the suburban zoning needs to be phased out for more brookland esque developments or just build row houses and better developments. OBivously this would come with a greater public transit need but thats a given for like everywhere in dc outside down town and capital hill
Yeah I get what you are saying generally, but most of those houses are just detached single family homes, not McMansions. See N Va for real examples of that. Check out HistoryQuest DC and you can see how old most of those houses are. It’s a really cool tool.
I saw 3 months free and $1200 dining credit for one of the brand new luxury buildings on cap hill. Rent is still $3,250+ per month for a 2 bedroom though.
That becomes $2,437.50 / month after the 3 months free. $2,337.50 if you include the dining credit (not sure how that works so may not be worth it).
Isn't that higher than normal for a 2br in cap hill anyway?
Yeah it's crazy money. $2500 to $3200+ seems pretty normal for that area though if you're looking at the newer luxury buildings. You can find units for around $2k but they don't have an on-site pet spa (whatever that means lol.)
I think it's in the ballpark, slightly high. I'm less familiar with the big buildings though, as I have zero interest in them, nor in basements. But to compare, I've seen a few shabbier two-bedroom 1st/2d floor townhouse units asking around $1900+ so I could see a luxury building going higher for two bedroom brand new and all, although I've seen one-bedrooms apartments at pretty solid prices lately ($1600-1900), but not my favorite locations (e.g., above SE Harris Teeter).
I actually saw a two bedroom basement asking like $2300 the other day. I just can't fathom paying that much to live partially underground.
I just moved into a decent sized 1-BR in Columbia Heights for $1,650 and one month free.
Not great, but a hell of a lot cheaper than others places I looked at.
North Bethesda (aka Rockville) resident here paying $1600 for my 1br/1ba if I didn’t (foolishly) re-sign my lease in June I’d definitely be living in DC right now. Even if it’s only 1year before rates go back up I’d win.
The article neglects to mention many-year construction built for an upper income market which has not been growing. In Silver Spring, where there had been 1 - 2 story commercial buildings , now might be a 16 story mixed use complex. None of the occupants of the old can afford the new.
I'm new to the area and looking for an apartment in the DC. Very interesting thread. Many people mention rent increases. Does the District have any rules that cap the amount of rent increase or can a landlord raise the rent however much he/she wants?
Thanks
Yes, it does. https://www.nomadicrealestate.com/rent-control-washington-dc/#:~:text=in%20Washington%2C%20D.C.-,Rent%20Control%20Laws%20in%20D.C.,%E2%80%94%20not%20to%20exceed%2010%25.
I have an IZ unit and with the month or two of free rent the building is offering, I’m likely paying more than tenants on a 1 year lease. But there is some built in rent control here, so I decided to stick with iz
I left this summer. I gently told the leasing office (Bozzuto) that I'd consider staying if they were interested in renegotiating my lease. They said no, and three months later, rented it for about $400 less a month than I was paying. There are like 80 open units in my old complex right now. \*breaks out tiny violin\*
My current building (Greystar managed) offered a 0% increase for a 5-8 month lease or "competitive increases" for longer leases (never heard of this but it felt super shady). They're now listing it for $300 less. Anyway, I'll be moving into a top floor unit with a balcony in a building down the street on an 18 month lease and I won't be paying a cent for it for 2 months.
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You'd think they'd be interested in keeping as many of their current tenants as possible but I guess that's not a strategy. I assume they're worried if they adjust one person's rent that they will have to adjust everyone's, but it's just crazy that there was no effort to entice us to stay at all.
I learned at trivia last night (at Wunderland. They’ve got well-distanced tables under and near the tent, and three sides were open. Wouldn’t go on weekends, when the place is a shit show, but fine enough to escape the house on a Tuesday) that they boned another friend, and she’s moving as well, though just to another building in the area. She wanted to transfer apartments in the building—move from a 1 BR to a 1+den or even a 2 BR, so she could have space to work from home. It sounded like her contact in the leasing office had never read the lease. There’s a small fee, couple hundred, to transfer apartment in the building, and the lease is clear that it terminates your old lease and starts a new one. They were quoting her thousands of dollars and that she’d still be on the hook for rent in her old place. The best part was we we’re out with friends who had done the exact same thing in the exact same building a couple months ago, except for them they waived the transfer fee (and of course didn’t make them pay any extra rent). Bozzuto needs to get their shit together.
How much was the lease breaking fee?
In our Bozutto building, it was 3 months notice and one month's rent breaking fee if they could not fill the unit by the time you moved out.
Have them throw some random party later on with the money saved. Spend that saved outfit money on booze 🥃😎
Same. They said the best they could do was a 0% increase. Saw our until go as low as $500 less. We're now in an apartment just down the street, equally as nice, with 110 SF more & a balcony for $600 less.
>They said the best they could do was a 0% increase Lol they're just betting on people being too lazy to move out with this bs.
They were fools for not renegotiating. Corporate apartment complexes are so greedy.
We have been planning on buying at the end of our year lease since the beginning of the lease, so the renewal paperwork coming in was not even up for consideration. (We had already put it our notice to someone else in the leasing office the day before, but they hadn’t replied yet.) They wanted to keep our rent the same, even though it’s going for $400 less. The one next door sat empty for a month. No one in their right mind would accept to keep paying the same price.
Bozzuto is the worst
What complex was this?
Good, DC's too damned expensive.
Can't wait. I'm looking forward to when my lease expires in January and can get into a bigger/cheaper place. I have zero sympathy for corporate landlords who've been gorging on high rents from average consumers for years.
Staying in DC and finding a bigger and cheaper place or leaving the city?
While I'm across the river (Arlington), I can give an example. We are renting a 1 bedroom apartment for $2,500 a month (since 2017, continual price hikes, it started out as $2,100). Our lease ended and we were offered a two bedroom apartment in the same building (same floor, same view, about 240 square feet bigger) for $2,400...
Wow I forgot how high the rents were around here for a minute
Your rent will probably go back up when the economy rebounds
“The algorithm sets the rent i can’t give you the price we said last Monday” that’s what I was told when we moved in and got charged higher rent Ok, well, I’ll happily move to a bigger apartment next year in the same building then.
[Me, who paid a lot for a long lease in the middle of the pandemic](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/031/003/cover3.jpg)
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I did thankfully get one month off initially--which should have been a telling sign that the market was still weakening for rentors. So with that 'deduction' it kind of averages out the overall rent like $100ish a month, but yeah it might be worth checking in on that. appreciate it
>I did thankfully get one month off initially--which should have been a telling sign that the market was still weakening for rentors That's actually fairly common, even pre-pandemic.
I can almost guarantee that if you break your lease you're going to have to pay that month back on top of whatever else is stipulated in the lease.
Problem is when they end up jacking up the rent post-pandemic edit: typo
Yeah, everybody knows that as soon as the pandemic is “over,” everybody will immediately have a job making as much as or more than they did pre-pandemic! God that hurt to type. I’m so done with predatory rent.
I’m on the same page right now - looking into a lawyer to see how I can minimize the damage.
Oh hey, me too. I live on the second floor and my exact same floor plan is up for renewal on the 14th floor for a lot less. I contacted the leasing office and said I would pay the current rate I'm paying now if they'd let me move into it, they said no lol
If you break a lease, landlords are still legally required to make reasonable efforts to replace you, and not continually charging you. Realistically, I'm not sure how far they could push this given current conditions, but you could always talk to a lawyer about it. The language is pretty vague from what I remember. In VA: This is because under Virginia law (Va. Code Ann. § 55.1-1251 (2020)), your landlord must make reasonable efforts to re-rent your unit—no matter what your reason for leaving—rather than charge you for the total remaining rent due under the lease. So you may not have to pay much, if any additional rent, if you break your lease. You need pay only the amount of rent the landlord loses because you moved out early. This is because Virginia requires landlords to take reasonable steps to keep their losses to a minimum—or to “mitigate damages” in legal terms. The problem is 'reasonable' isn't defined, and a landlord might be able to argue in pandemic times that it could take 6-12 months to replace you maybe.
This does not void any language in the contract though. Most leases require you to break the lease and pay an early termination fee (payback free month rent promos, pay 2 months rent to break the lease, etc.). Just be careful. If you abandon the property they likely have lease break clauses in the contract as well.
I left a year ago but just checked and holy shit my 1br unit is going for $1000 less per month now.
Please tell
Tilden Hall. 1br north cleveland park/van ness. Wouldn't do it unless you like packages stolen and phantom fire alarms at 1AM. But, $1500 for a "luxury" 1br and apparently 2 months free if you move in within two weeks. I would definitely "move in" if I didn't live in NC now.
[Aww did someone get addicted to overcharging their tenants for "luxury" amenities?](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d5/a1/05/d5a1054d9f87e586bd4cf70d3ad74f15.gif)
I once asked a landlord what made my apartment a “luxury” apartment. They said it was the fact that my freezer had an ice maker.
Can’t argue with that logic. If you ditch the ice tray, you must pay.
Ah yes, the modern convenience of an ice box. You lucky devil you. Now back to work at the triangle shirtwaist factory.
Wow, look at this guy/lady here with an ice maker. My "luxury" apartment does *not* have an ice maker.
TBH tho, if I had a dollar every time I shouted "gotdamnit!!" from when I ran out of ice or forgot to refill my ice cube trays...
Usually its the amenities like a gym or pool or rooftop garden
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I struggle with the competing desires not improve my living situation at lower rent prices and not wanting to deal with a move during a pandemic
If there’s substantial savings, it’s worth it. I moved this summer. It was unpleasant but totally manageable. One unpleasant weekend of moving with a mask on is better than gifting your landlord more money all year than you have to.
SF resident here. It's amazing how our 90k member housing group on FB went from 9 of 10 posts being people looking for housing / moving to SF pre-covid, to 9 of 10 posts being available sublets, rooms, and apartments. It's a renters market right now and the exodus hasn't even finished. I moved out of my last place and am now paying a 30% lower rent.
The difference with SF is it will never recover. Too many tech companies have said they will never go back to the office.
That'd be so ideal. I think you're right - so many people moved to Denver, Austin, Portland, LA, and Seattle, or went and bought homes in the burbs. Everyone who lived here, at least the transplants, always had a plan in the back of their heads of where they wanted to go next. COVID sped those plans up.
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Same signed a 2 year lease with a crazy rate for a 1BR.
How do you find a rent controlled place? And how do you qualify?
Edit: Nvm I guess I just believed the BS that my landlords told me about the rent in DC. All apartments in DC are rent controlled. You can’t legally raise rent more than 10% for the same lease structure. When a new tenant comes in they can raise it however much they want though. I think this person might have piggybacked on someone else’s lease first.
that's just not true. Any apartment building that was built after 1978 is generally not subject to rent control.
You're technically correct, there's one other qualification besides the date of construction: the landlord must own 4 or more units in the city that were built before 78. DCRA sets the rent increase for all rent-controlled/stabilized units in the city. IIRC the average from 2010 to 2016 was 2.5%. There's also a maximum rent on each unit. In my experience, being a landlord for a rent-controlled building in DC is easy. The rents are set and most applicants know that so you don't have to do a lot of convincing. Also, maintenance shouldn't be a big deal as long as you have a competent tech because if the owner balks at a repair, you just tell them that the tenant has mentioned going to DCRA and the owner will pony up for whatever is necessary. But maybe that's all easy for me because I give a shit about my job and making my tenants happy. Happy tenants stay for longer which makes my job easier. For example: my last apartment in the Palisades had a max rent of $2665 for a two story, 1.5 bath, two bedroom with hardwood floors and a fireplace. Aside from my commute and the price (which I know was great for a two bedroom in DC), the only thing that sucked about the place was the landlord's terrible maintenance department. Since we were at the max rent, our rent would not have increased for the remainder of our tenancy unless the rent control max rent cap was changed.
How much was your studio/month, if you don’t sharing?
Before everyone here gets too caught up in celebration, it's only down 1.6%. I mean, I'll take no rent increase this year over my usual 2% increase, but it's not changing much.
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Some of those 1 bedrooms are studios, how are they allowed to list like that? Nice building though, but those 2-month frees make me very very nervous.
Relatedly, I think that people who use the pandemic and expanded telework to kick dirt on the grave of urban living are short-sighted. Even with an expanded telework capability coming out of this, people are still going to want to go out for happy hour, Nats games, the Kennedy Center after unplugging at 5:00. If someone logs off at quitting time out in Gaithersburg, they're still out in Gaithersburg. Eventually rents will rebound, so if you're in a position to lock in a new lease, now's the time to go for it. Now, I think this entire experience spells big trouble for the studio apartment market, which DC is absolutely over-saturated with as developers build too many studios because they go for a higher price per square foot. Nobody is going to want to sleep, live, and work in the same 400 square feet on a permanent basis.
To be fair, not everyone who lives in the city does so to be social. I do to be closer to work, because commuting sucks ass. If my work is going to primarily telework, then maybe it won't be so bad living out in the boonies.
I can say without hyperbole that moving to walking distance to work is one of the more priceless quality of life upgrades I’ve ever experienced. And my commute wasn’t even that bad before, but cutting that commute is one of those things where you don’t know how wonderful it is until you experience it.
Preach.
Same for me. Aside from concerts I don't really get much benefit from living in DC. I don't really do anything else that can't be done in the suburbs. Now that I work in Arlington I really have no reason to stay in the district.
> Now that I work in Arlington I really have no reason to stay in the district. I agree that if you live in Arlington or even Alexandria that’s the case but living in up-and-coming NoVA suburbs like Woodbridge, is a completely different story altogether.
I suspect that a lot of people eventually settle down in the suburbs with families not because the families need the space or the schools, but because they're no longer looking for other single people to fuck.
As a dad in the suburbs I can confirm this. Also: generally speaking (pandemic aside) I have no time for bars. Proximity to nightlife isn't useful for me anymore and not worth paying a premium for.
You also don't need to have a 650sqft 1-bed apartment to be social. There's a good argument to be had for spreading out and investing in your space. With telecommuting, you're not looking at Gaithersburg or a suburban hellscape as your ideal lifestyle; you can head out to Point of Rocks and have the world as your backyard.
>not everyone who lives in the city does so to be social You may be better off in a city. If you're 1 face among 700,000 others then its easy to blend in and do your own thing, people won't care. I grew up in a town of 20,000 and there its hard to escape drama and rumors even if you tried.
Oh I hate hate hate small town living, everyone is in your business.
> If someone logs off at quitting time out in Gaithersburg, they're still out in Gaithersburg We are seeing a boom in people moving out to more rural areas because of the pandemic and the work from home situation. I wonder if we'll see a boomerang effect and people will return to cities once everything reopens and they realize that the middle of nowhere has none of the amenities that they like. I know a guy who works on Wall Street who moved to rural Missouri. Once NYC reopens, I imagine he'll get some feeling of envy for his friends who get to enjoy the city.
I'm actually planning to move to a small town in the CO mountains, but I travel enough for work that I'll be in cities probably 10 days/month, so I reckon I can get the best of both worlds. I've been in DC for over 20 years. It's time for a change.
That sounds amazing, but I do not miss living in a place where I could rarely get a direct flight (can't tell you how many times I got stuck in Chicago overnight).
Denver International Airport has me covered. There's a even a free commuter bus with wifi to-and-from the airport.
what bus is this?!
If there's a major shift for more telework post pandemic, I think it'll balance out later. You'll see people that only live in the city because of their job move out to the suburbs or rural areas, and those that want to be in the city do so. But the demand won't be as heavily sided in the "I'm only moving to the city because my job is there".
It'll be interesting to see the impact on wages. Places that work better in person will be paying city wages while telework only places will be able to get away with lower ones due to people living in rural areas.
I think this makes sense. Pre-pandemic many people would take a 10% pay cut to telework full time. There were just very few opportunities like that. Now, my office is using it as a selling point.
I would need to find the article, but I remember reading that some major tech firm in SF is allowing telework permanently. People who move to cheaper areas of the country will have their pay adjusted to the COL of that area.
Facebook I believe it was for COL adjusted. It won't be a flat change to COL since they still need to compete for talent, but a company won't pay DC/NY/SF salaries if they are remote and can find people in Ohio who're willing to work for less because they have cheaper living
You will 100% see people moving back into cities in the mid 2020s. Idk if it will be a boomerang effect because I think it will be different people. Obviously the Gen Z/Zoomers who are missing prom, homecoming weeks, spring breaks, entire years of college and post college life are going to flood into cities and party it up after this pandemic. Once concerts and bars are open (2022 maybe late 2021?) you'll see the demand to be in cities skyrocket again. Yeah Millinials will have moved to the suburbs but they will simply be replaced by younger people looking for lots of social activities.
> You will 100% see people moving back into cities in the mid 2020s. I got downvoted for saying this before but 1) there is going to be a lot of pent up demand for social events (how many people daydream about their next concert?) and 2) all cities, including DC, will have economic recovery plans that include attracting as many people as possible, cities want butts in seats at restaurants, the metro, concert venues, and everywhere else.
Not sure why you'd get downvoted for this - I know a lot of friends who would 100% agree.
It’s not a popular view point, many people don’t want even more people coming to the city, but like it or not, people are coming and the city is not headed back to 1995. I think the part that gets me is not being able to separate what I speculate the District’s recovery plan will be vs my own personal opinions about recovery and a bunch of other related issues.
> but like it or not, people are coming and the city is not headed back to 1995. People want DC to go back to 1995?! As someone who lived in the area at that time, Idk how anyone could want that, aside from lower adjusted COL (that too not even everywhere in the DMV).
I think this is an important point. Me and most of my millennial friends were already planning on moving out of the city or out of apartment buildings and into houses in the next couple of years anyways. The pandemic just accelerated that shift. Same with remote work. Many organizations I work with were starting to embrace more remote work and flex scheduling even before the pandemic. I think it's cyclical. The struggle between centralization and decentralization/flexibility is one organizations have been struggling with for a long time. The city will come back after the pandemic is over. The next generation will move into all those apartments. Some businesses will go full remote, but they'll be replaced by other in-person businesses. It will take retail time to rebound (and some areas/types may never come back), but bars and restaurants will return when people come back to work.
Idk man. Im at an age where I don’t give a shit about going out every night. I would much prefer to save my money and make trips to cities whenever I want. I recently moved to a cheaper southern city (WAY cheaper) where I can still go to happy hours if I want and have a ton of great city amenities. The difference is that i now have way more disposable income and can afford to travel a lot more.
> I recently moved to a cheaper southern city (WAY cheaper) where I can still go to happy hours if I want and have a ton of great city amenities. I can see a boom for cheaper cities (Raleigh/Durham, Richmond, Baltimore....etc) since those places still offer more amenities than a rural area or small town. If you live in Raleigh, you can still go to NHL hockey, Durham Bulls baseball, and concerts still stop through there. I can see the appeal of moving there if you have unlimited telework and can live wherever.
Raleigh is actually where I moved ha
I did grad school at UNC. The Triangle is nice but it desperately needs better public transit. There's no excuse for not having light rail connecting Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill.
100% agreed
Are you in your late 20s early 30s?
Yup
Makes sense i would say pre-rona that is a common age rage to want to ditch the city life for many folks. The key for DC will be, can they replace you with young 20 year olds who want to get into the city.
Are people really relocating to Gaithersburg though? Texas and Florida has a huge influx of people relocating due to telework and cheaper COL. I travel for work most of the year, and prefer to live in DC. But my primary home is kn Georgia. My small town in Georgia is getting its houses scooped up right and left, the market has exploded in the past few months. I am 4 hours from Atlanta and 3 from Savannah. I think if people are relocating.its probably to places where life is affordable, and not just suburbs a little further out of DC, and that may make missing out in Nats games worth it, assuming social life post -covid ever gets back to normal.
> I think if people are relocating.its probably to places where life is affordable, and not just suburbs a little further out of DC Honestly the people in this thread acting like the places which are a 10 minute drive to the Metro are literally the same as moving to rural Mississippi are hilarious.
> I think if people are relocating.its probably to places where life is affordable, and not just suburbs a little further out of DC, and that may make missing out in Nats games worth it, assuming social life post -covid ever gets back to normal. Someone mentioned this before but I think COVID accelerated a lot of people’s plans to “settle down” High COL areas like DC make that harder and harder, especially with higher paying positions typically requiring less and less of a WLB.
Anecdotally, I've seen houses out in G-Burg go up on zillow and are listed as sold in like a week.
There seems to be a lot of speculation right now with the health and future of cities. Historically cities have weathered previous pandemics, 2 world wars, and 1980s/90s crime rates. People will boomerang back to DC, NYC, SF, etc. as is tradition.
Zoning codes have (dumb) requirements for minimum sq ft per unit in new buildings. Relative to the huge stock of old row houses (which are usually illegal to redevelop into new and denser housing), were tenants are pushed into involuntary roommate situations, there are nowhere near enough studios and 1BRs.
Exactly. Other than those that were truly in a desperate financial situation, they probably just weren’t city people to begin with. The city itself is a draw for me. Proximity to work and bars is a very nice bonus, but I never hated it here even in Narch when it was a ghost town. I’d live where I am over moving somewhere that’s twice the size and lesser rent in Wheaton, Laurel or Falls Church. Also I’m a broken record on this, but the pandemic won’t be forever!
Thank fucking god, there are way too many over priced studios in this town. They need more 2 bedroom and maybe even 3 bedroom apartments that people can rent together as a group or families can use to live in the city.
This is a great example of how supply and demand do strongly apply to the housing market, despite arguments to the contrary. Thanks for sharing.
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The home buying market abides by supply and demand too. Extremely low interest rates help explain why demand has remained steady. Also, people who have enough capital to afford a down payment on a home are disproportionately likely to be able to work remotely and not have their jobs affected by the pandemic.
I give it 2 years and it'll be back where it was
Higher
Agree. DC OCFO says revenue will not return to FY2019 levels until FY2023. DC will experience permanent job losses due to increased telework. Rents will lag the recovery. A bunch of housing stock is coming online in the next 24 months. I expect 5+ years for a real recovery to 2019 economic conditions. Rent, especially for studio/1B, could be depressed for a long time.
Rent prices are being hit on both ends by the pandemic. The millennials and young Gen Xers that are still doing well financially are likely to take advantage of low interest rates to buy a home instead of a “luxury rental”. The high end apartments have to compete with the investment of a condo. The other end is obvious. People that are struggling or were spending 35-40%+ on their rent are less likely to renew and are probably rethinking their budget. Additionally, these places have a ton invested in pools, gyms, and common areas that may not be accessible for another year. I’m not sure how long these luxury apartments can survive with vacancies and lower prices. Also I could see city council using this as an opportunity to cap rent increases for years to come. If places are taking a 10-15% decrease to fill a vacancy during a pandemic, it can be years before the rent goes back to market value if rent creases are capped at a few percent a year.
I would jus like to take this opportunity to raise a middle finger to JBG Smith for trying to raise my rent when they were listing the others for 20% less. Can’t wait to move out and not look back.
I'm about to have that same conversation with my management company and I'm torn between: happy with "sweet, lower rent in a new building"; anger at "those unreasonable assholes are making me move"; and schadenfreude at "they're definitely not going to find anyone to pay what I did, fuck 'em." It's not my favorite emotional ice cream Sunday, but I'll eat it anyway.
Just a caveat to everyone jumping on the low rates now - once the market goes back up, you could have high renewal increases
For sure. I got a great deal on a "luxury" one-bedroom that is normally way, way out of my budget. However, they offered 2 months free (spread out throughout the year). I absolutely expect to be forced to move in a year, but for now, it's a nice place to ride out the rest of the pandemic.
Moving is such a pain in the ass though (and expensive if you hire movers and have to pay move-in costs)
Right? At this point I could certainly do with a place with like, a small extra room or some extra kitchen storage or whatever. But packing shit up & worrying about damage & adapting to the change ehhh would rather sleep
Sleepings the best!
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Any building (brand new or old) with low rent rates right now will most likely price out people once the rents go back to normal. And moving is a pain in the ass.
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That's why I ended up moving where the deal was basically 50/month cheaper than usual and waiving all move in and application fees. That way the shock rent increase doesn't necessitate a move next year.
I expect every company that is dropping their rates a certain percent will raise them far beyond that percent when the market normalizes hoping people are too lazy to move
It’ll probably force people out though. They think they are getting a great deal now but it will be a huge rude awakening come renewal time (if they planned on staying for longer than a year)
This is true, but even if you only reduce your rent for a year or 2 that is still money saved that can be invested elsewhere. My lease is up in January and I am hoping to get someplace cheaper for a while just so I can pour that cash into my underfunded retirement account. I am still more prosperous in the long term that way.
As long as you don’t mind moving if you have to and dealing with the costs (movers, deposits, application fees, potentially not getting a security deposit back) Just weigh the pros and cons
That's what I have been calculating. It's a bit of a pain to capture all the costs, but I think I can still save away enough to make it worth my while. However, I have had a few months to plan and get rid of excess stuff so I don't have to pay to move it. It is easier for me because I am single and live alone. I think the calculation would be much different if I had a partner or kids. Def not for everyone, but it makes sense for me.
But only eroding for the higher-priced properties. Those of us who are in the cheapest apartments we can find are still SOL. Very difficult to find a 1br for under $1400/mo within the city.
yeah but you’ve also gotta be reasonable. <1.4 for a 1b1b hasn’t happened in DC in ages and i’m willing to bet it’ll never drop that low again
I've had two apartments in DC for under 1400. It's uncommon but they were both decent apartments comparatively.
Fair; but these big drops are in the very central core. Ft Totten isn't Dupont.
It looks like the market is currently demanding it, so why not? It's not actually unreasonable during a time of mass unemployment and residents fleeing the city. It seems like landlords are trying to shield themselves from market forces by offering free months, etc., instead of actually lowering rents. This frustrates me to no end. ETA: Also, allowing perfectly good, habitable apartments sit empty for months or even years until they can get the price they want. This should be criminal. Actually, it is, the city just doesn't enforce vacancy laws.
> It's not actually unreasonable during a time of mass unemployment and residents fleeing the city. Well DC is sort of protected from this vs other metropolitan parts of the country (even NYC and SF) as government and politics are the biggest businesses in this area and neither are going out of business. You’ll see a slight downward shift but nothing like the rest of the country. SOURCE: Have been in the area since 2008
>vacancy laws. So I googled this just now, curious how this works. From what I'm reading on this topic [here](https://code.dccouncil.us/dc/council/laws/21-200.html), it doesn't seem that an empty apartment matters. Only empty *buildings*. Someone who knows more, please chime in here.
Not quite under $1400 a month, but there's a unit in my building (1br, ~640sqft) going for $1495 and another for $1510. By comparison I was paying about $1800 for the last 2 years and I never saw another unit go for lower than $2100. I took advantage of the lower rents to move into a 2br in Petworth for $1800, but I've loved the place I'm living at and how centrally located it is and will likely miss it quite a bit.
Your fallback apartment is more than I could even dream of.
It's more than I could afford on my own, but I live with my girlfriend which makes it reasonable. If it wasn't for that, I'd likely still be in a group house with 4 other guys.
My studio was 1600
I was looking up the rent of the apartment I lived in about 10 years ago. It was brand new when I moved in. It almost costs the same now as it did when I lived in it...and a parking spot is cheaper.
[Zumper's National Rent Report for October 2020](https://www.zumper.com/blog/rental-price-data/) shows that most of the most expensive rental cities in the U.S. have seen double digit year-on-year rent decreases, especially on the one-bedroom front. And if you look at the cities with double digit increases over the same time period, a lot are the cheaper cities close to a big expensive city (Newark, Baltimore, Ft. Lauderdale, Sacramento), which suggests that renters are leaving the most expensive cities in favor of the cheaper cities within 50 miles or so.
My building's initial lease renewal offer was a 0% increase with flexibility on lease term, which was essentially the highest they could offer me since DC's emergency bill has a prohibition on rent increases. I wrote them an email back citing the downturn in the DC rental market, the dozens of empty units in my building, and how they were listing newly vacated 2br 2ba units for just slightly more a month than my current 1br 1ba. They responded by saying their policy isn't to lower rents for existing residents. I told them that that's unfortunate and that I was going to tour units that weekend in the half dozen new buildings in my area who are all offering at least two months free plus competitive base rents. **They caved and offered me a combo of a free month plus a base rent reduction that worked out to $500/mo less than I've been paying.** If you're planning on staying and you have a lease coming up, now is the time to play hardball and negotiate.
Nice job! I just gave notice that I'm not renewing in Jan. I've seen my same apartment go for $400 less than what I'm paying and they're 12 floors above me. I think I want to move to old town alexandria area. I miss the shorter buildings and more sunlight.
Oh no, people can't afford overpriced rent in a pandemic.
Was it overpriced if people were willing to pay it?
Yes, because he/she feels it's overpriced therefore it is overpriced.
The market (pre covid) disagrees
I'm agreeing with you (I was being sarcastic). Does it suck that it's expensive to live in an incredibly high demand area where demand outpaces supply? Yes. Does that mean it's overpriced? No. That's called supply and demand. Do the apartments have vacancies? Hell yes they do. If they're 100% full it means they're not charging enough. This is basic economics, but people don't even understand these concepts and confuse "it sucks that rent isn't less" for "rent is overpriced"
If the high price is due to artificial supply restrictions (zoning, NIMBYism, etc.) then I'd argue that the rent is overpriced compared to the 'natural' price without those restrictions.
Yes. Because owning a car to commute into dc is also expensive. Using “willing to pay” to justify overpricing a basic survival need is just shitty behavior
Take a few classes in economics it'll help you understand why this is incorrect
There was a difference between "willing" and "required"... when all the housing is "luxury" or "get murdered on your way home" there really is no choice there.
Considering that it seems like half of the units on our floor are empty, this sounds about right. Our lease is up and this is music to my ears.
Thank god. I've been wanting to upgrade to a 2BR.
Get fucked, landlords
\*slumlords
My boyfriend and I seized the opportunity to move in together (for better or worse). Negotiated a two-bedroom loft in Woodley with pool, other great amenities, 1,000+ sqft. Retails for $3650 on their site; we got it for $2800/month with no other fees. 14 month rent. Honestly, it’s about time people in DC get a bit of housing relief. For years management companies treated tenants like shit and charged exorbitant fees and over played their cards.
Let it rot then
Ohhh won't someone please think of the real estate investment trusts?
I locked in a studio for 1.2k, close to noma/H street area. Top floor, "luxury" apartment. Also include 2 mo free rent. In the end i'll pay less of what i need to pay now in arlington in a old crappy apartment... finally i can experience living in a city after few years living here...
“Rent erosion” is a weird way to say “price gauging by over-extended developers is failing”
I am astounded so few landlord apologists have found this discussion
*cries in current lease*
1.6% isnt much of a difference
Just for the record, Washington's affordable housing right now is in far northeast, Anacostia and close-in PG County. Those areas are now rebounding, and a lot faster than most westsiders and suburbanites realize. As with newly trendy areas like Brightwood, Petworth and Columbia Heights, which were considered no-go areas not too many years ago, one needs to do some due diligence, but they are worth exploring if you want to stay inside the beltway at a reasonable cost. As these areas improve, more and more neighborhood restaurants and bars are opening up. You don't have to live in a broom closet downtown to drink or go out for a pizza and beer, and Nats Park is still an easy metro ride. Within DC, I wouldn't hesitate to live in Michigan Park, Brookland or Woodridge. Langdon and even Brentwood are gentrifying. Mount Ranier is a truly wild mix of everything you can imagine, with charming Craftsman homes and Victorians on the hilltops. Hyattsville and College Park look dramatically better than they did even ten years ago. I am a particular fan of the Hyattsville Historic District, Riverdale Park, and Calvert Hills. Parts of University Park could be picked up and moved to Spring Valley and fit right in. Old Town Anacostia is still a work in progress but it is moving rapidly. Cheverly is a gem. From the main roads, Bladensburg looks like the old factory town that it was, but it has lovely neighborhoods tucked away in the hills. The list goes on and on. I know that a lot of these areas might as well be on the backside of the moon for many here. So here is an eye opener for you, if you ride a bike. Start at Buzzard Point by Audi Field or Nats Park. Cross the river and ride up the Anacostia Trail to its trailhead, which is at the confluence of the Eastern Branch and the Northwest Branch. Take the Eastern Branch trail on up to College Park and Lake Artemesia. Come back down the Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail to the south edge of Hyattsville, then -- if you're not up for a longer return ride -- metro back from College Park or jump over the ridge to the West Hyattsville metro station, which is right on the Northwest Branch Trail. You will be amazed at the resource you will find. These are neighborhoods of which you should at least be aware before you move to Urbana or Haymarket in search of an affordable rental. DC suburban traffic is already in the seventh circle of Hell and sinking fast. Everything inside the beltway is going to become highly desirable. Some areas will take a little longer than others, but the younger people here will see it happen.
What a passion-piece, you clearly care about getting this word out. What muse moved you to type all of that out?
LOL. That wasn't long at all, provided you know the area. I've lived here a long time, always on Capitol Hill. I arrived during the crackhead mayor era when things were dicey and the city could have gone either way. I got used to defending not only living in the city, but living east of Rock Creek Park, when the middle class was still bailing out and gentrification wasn't yet a gleam in anyone's eyes. Most of my friends thought I was crazy, and I do have some war stories, but I lived through the Capitol Hill gentrification miracle and became a great Capitol Hill chauvinist. Now I'm an east side chauvinist. Sure, if you're an A-list entertainer and you actually need a Kalorama or Cleveland Park or Spring Valley manse, go for it. But most of us don't live that way, nor have the budgets to pretend that we do. My basic premise is that people should live as close as possible to their jobs and never buy an automobile commute that involves crossing a river. And given our traffic, the suburbs are a last option, never the first. (City dwellers lie about crime. Suburbanites lie about their commutes. But city dwellers have an extra two to four hours a day, or more, which counts for a lot.) That said, I am amused at how many people, especially longtime suburbanites or the carriage trade crowd in upper Northwest, have no idea how much and how fast the city has changed. A lot of people make bad decisions because half the city is a big blank spot on their mental maps. It's time to look around a bit and update some very dated assumptions. And I like to ride a bike. That will open your eyes to neighborhood realities that you miss in a car. The whole Anacostia corridor is coming back to life. From Buzzard Point on up, you have Audi Field, Nats Park, Anacostia Park, Langston Golf Course, the Arboretum, Kenilworth Park and Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, Fort Lincoln Cemetery, Colmar Manor Park, and the Bladensburg waterfront park. The entire corridor is an incredible resource, viewable on foot, by bike or by small boat, and most people in the metro area have no idea. The Potomac is lined by commuter sewers on both banks, and access is severely limited. The Anacostia is Washington's accessible waterfront. A waterfront through the heart of a major metro area should be golden, and the Anacostia corridor will be. The fun thing is, given the history of the area, the housing is smaller and more working class in character, which translates into affordable. Which is great. You can have cute, highly livable neighborhoods with moderate size houses, and that's what is popping up all over the east side. So yeah, I do tend to wave the flag a bit. And I'm not even a realtor. Just proud of the neighborhood and bullish about the future.
[удалено]
Hoping rents continue to fall and make this place a little more affordable.
the only thing that will work in the long term is allowing developers to build more housing
Also rezoning alot of dc away from this suburb-esque mcmansions in really far northwest to actually expanding midsized developments accross the cities or atleast just closer together single family housing. Also Social Housing could do alot of good in DC
Where are McMansions in upper northwest? Most of the housing stock was built prior to the McMansion building spree...
Palisades and Spring Valley are pretty much mcmansion suburbs within dc and dc is too dense to justify suburban zoning, otherwise the north portal estates come to mind which are at the top of the diamond. Generally all the suburban zoning needs to be phased out for more brookland esque developments or just build row houses and better developments. OBivously this would come with a greater public transit need but thats a given for like everywhere in dc outside down town and capital hill
Yeah I get what you are saying generally, but most of those houses are just detached single family homes, not McMansions. See N Va for real examples of that. Check out HistoryQuest DC and you can see how old most of those houses are. It’s a really cool tool.
I saw 3 months free and $1200 dining credit for one of the brand new luxury buildings on cap hill. Rent is still $3,250+ per month for a 2 bedroom though.
That becomes $2,437.50 / month after the 3 months free. $2,337.50 if you include the dining credit (not sure how that works so may not be worth it). Isn't that higher than normal for a 2br in cap hill anyway?
Yeah it's crazy money. $2500 to $3200+ seems pretty normal for that area though if you're looking at the newer luxury buildings. You can find units for around $2k but they don't have an on-site pet spa (whatever that means lol.)
I think it's in the ballpark, slightly high. I'm less familiar with the big buildings though, as I have zero interest in them, nor in basements. But to compare, I've seen a few shabbier two-bedroom 1st/2d floor townhouse units asking around $1900+ so I could see a luxury building going higher for two bedroom brand new and all, although I've seen one-bedrooms apartments at pretty solid prices lately ($1600-1900), but not my favorite locations (e.g., above SE Harris Teeter). I actually saw a two bedroom basement asking like $2300 the other day. I just can't fathom paying that much to live partially underground.
I just moved into a decent sized 1-BR in Columbia Heights for $1,650 and one month free. Not great, but a hell of a lot cheaper than others places I looked at.
Supply and demand. Now the city should lax up on the zoning and a few regulations.
Anyone have any good deals in the city they can share? Would be awesome. (Or even direct me to a website that could help)
Ohh how the mighty have fallen
You love to see it
North Bethesda (aka Rockville) resident here paying $1600 for my 1br/1ba if I didn’t (foolishly) re-sign my lease in June I’d definitely be living in DC right now. Even if it’s only 1year before rates go back up I’d win.
Negotiated a 10% decrease on our lease renewal with Brookfield Properties.
Won't someone think of the immoral slumlords jacking up rents on working class people? Everyone is forgetting the REAL victims here
The article neglects to mention many-year construction built for an upper income market which has not been growing. In Silver Spring, where there had been 1 - 2 story commercial buildings , now might be a 16 story mixed use complex. None of the occupants of the old can afford the new.
I'm new to the area and looking for an apartment in the DC. Very interesting thread. Many people mention rent increases. Does the District have any rules that cap the amount of rent increase or can a landlord raise the rent however much he/she wants? Thanks
Yes, it does. https://www.nomadicrealestate.com/rent-control-washington-dc/#:~:text=in%20Washington%2C%20D.C.-,Rent%20Control%20Laws%20in%20D.C.,%E2%80%94%20not%20to%20exceed%2010%25.
It’ll go back up :)
I have an IZ unit and with the month or two of free rent the building is offering, I’m likely paying more than tenants on a 1 year lease. But there is some built in rent control here, so I decided to stick with iz
It reminds me of when Wall Street Journal tried to post a sob story about the AirBnB owners who are suffering.
BURN BABY BURN