Here is a great article from the Atlantic talking about how the rcession will change America. It mentions DC specifically.
How the Crash Will Reshape America
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/meltdown-geography

Do they have breakouts by quarter? Although total year averages are nice, I’d like to see how the numbers were trending from Jan. to Dec. 2008 was a long year, and I would want to see Q4 numbers specifically before I made any predictions about 2009.

As I am looking to buy, I am more than slightly biased in wanted prices to go down, but at the same time realistic that DC has held up better than most areas.

That said, as 2008 progressed, the state of the economy changed and it is harder to get loans now compared to a year ago. There was also an article in the examiner about ALT-A loans due to reset this year (see link).

Based on January 09 MRIS data, there is a 15.66 month inventory of condos listed and 11.94 month’s supply for homes. A 6 month supply is ideal, and more condos are coming online. Base on January numbers, to me it looked like the prices for smaller homes (which are what I’m looking at) are dropping. Down over 30% YoY.

But that number does not take into account the location in the district, and I can only surmise that the desirable areas have maintained stability. I don’t expect prices to drop a lot in DC, but I do agree that they aren’t going back up, at least at the rate we saw earlier this decade.

Another interesting number to watch is mortgage purchase application. The Mortgage Bankers Association tracks these: http://www.mortgagebankers.org/NewsandMedia/PressCenter/67707.htm

I have clients getting fixed rates of less that 5%.

The Forbes article: http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/21/investment-obama-realestate-forbeslife-cx_mw_0121realestate.html

hipchickindc – Is there any way to see detailed listings for properties that have recently sold? I checked Redfin but the listing is just a summary. Thanks!

http://www.princeofpetworth.com/2009/02/january-homecondo-sales/

I would like to just point out, that if someone where to buy my house

http://www.homevisit.com/tour/vtour.asp?id=36186

it would make me happy

Been in mjbrox’s home and can say firsthand that it is indeed gorgeous!

Hipchick, I realize there’s a lot of information added in the comments, but we’d appreciate it if you could link to your sources in the main blog. It lets us view it in Google Reader, and is a best practice for blogging.

Sorry, John, I’m not quite sure what you mean. (FWIW, I don’t post directly to the blog as it goes through our esteemed Editor-in-Chief, The Prince).

mjbrox- great house. although you do have to admit it may be a little over improved for the neighborhood. also, i have to take a bit of an exception with this tidbit “Walk to Petworth Metro: about 1/2 mile.” That is a very liberal use of “about.”

Take5, in Jan 2009, 2 homes in 20011 sold for over $500k (compared to 45 on the market). In Dec 2008 it was 5/58. Mjbrox’s house is nice, but those are some tough odds.

and what about the borderline unethical calling a mile “about 1/2 mile?”

RD, I totally agree with that point too. These days with the Internets and these fancy Google Maps widgets, it’s easy for buyers to look up that information themselves, and when they find it contradicts the listing, they’re gonna ask themselves “with what other things are they being ‘liberal’ with the truth”

Sorry to pile on, mjbrox, but you did kinda open yourself up to it

“I think yours would have to be one of the best houses in your zip code. And despite its square feet and renovation, I doubt yours is that when it’s almost 1 mile from the Metrol”

That is a bit of a large leap, but I understand what you are saying.

Odentex, I always thought about putting tile down.

MJ, I’m gonna jump on the challenge you issued to RD with this house:

http://franklymls.com/DC6842346

4/3, renovated, 13th and Taylor, $499k.

sorry, here’s the link.

http://franklymls.com/DC6828023

322 Webster is a weird renovation. Some nice stuff, but no central air. The outside doesn’t look like they touched it-

2009 is the calm before the second storm. 2008 was the spike of subprime resets. The wave of Alt-A and option adjustable rate resets won’t spike until 2011 and is bigger than the wave of sub-prime mortgages.

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2007/10/imf-mortgage-reset-chart.html

Don’t be a knife catcher. DC zoning cases have gone from 40 a month to 7. The monthly HPRB meeting has gone from 2 days worth of cases to a 1/2 day of cases.

Instead of pulling up the berber and putting down tile, perhaps you could try pergo or some type of laminate. Put if you do go with tile pick a warm inviting color. I agree with the other posters berber is cheap and does not feel soft or plush.

Hipchick: I understand you’re a professional, but wall-to-wall berber is ALWAYS a bad sign. Not only is it ugly and cheap looking, causing one to wonder what else has been scrimped on in the reno, but you also know that it is often used to cover a multitude of sins, some of them mortal. In a buyer’s market, assuming the cost makes sense, the berber carpet should go.

Who is MJ hoping to sell to with this vibrantly colored open plan? Not the sort of McFamily that would squeal with glee to see wall-to-wall carpet, a “home theater”, and a rumpus room stuffed into a 4000′ sq ft drafty-stuccoed-chicken-coop in Fairfax.

Berber screams “the contractor spent too much on beer for the crew and blow for himself” or “here, you feckless consuming dumbass, inhale these synthetic carpet fumes whilst you watch endless episodes of ‘American Idol’ with your ignorant and ugly spawn.”

Berber is like so many other “features”: cheapo birch-veneered cabinets hung un-plumb and un-true with spindly hinges made from tinfoil, haphazardly blown “texture” on the damp drywall, the same $19 two-bulb “bronze” pot-metal dome light fixture (with frosted glass!) in *every* *fricken* *room* (buy 10, get two free!), lightly sprayed on beige latex, plastic chair rail and “crown” molding only Leona Helmsley could love, and, most unforgivable of all, the faux-three panel interior door made from “realistically grained” fiberglass, recycled Dr. Pepper bottle caps, and Jimmy Hoffa’s polyester suit – always “mounted”, of course, with the cheapest handles available, and always “mounted” so that it (a) will not latch; (b) will not clear the door jamb; or (c) so that it will swing wide at inopportune times revealing that daddy likes mommy’s undies just a bit too much.

Anyone who has spent more than a day touring renovated houses knows what I mean. These sorts of things have a definite “stink” to them that, even if you’re a rube from fly-over country who can’t change a lightbulb and pees his or her pants when a man or woman wearing a tool belt arrives to impart mysterious working class wisdom (usually costing $1200, the defacto rube “squeal point”) — even if you are the Yaliest, Havard-glee-cluby, summering-in-Newport, silver-spoon-fed dope you can still feel it in your bones that things just ain’t right.

If things are slow on the sales front MJ needs to consider ripping it up.

All I’m sayin’.

(Sorry MJ).

HipChick: You (we) laugh, but at some point in the not too distant future there will be thousands of Salvadorans busily stretching oceans of gag-inducing orange heinousness over Pergo floors and wheeling away boulder-sized stainless fridges (covered with fingerprints) to be replaced by pea-green and yellow kitchen accouterments to keep pesto, prosecco, and pizza at the appropriate temperature.

Personally I miss wall-to-wall, when your drunk and fall down on the floor a lot it’s much more comfortable (and absorbent).

Eh, to each is own as far as berber carpet goes. Some people like carpet and some people hate it. When I bought my house in Petworth, I ripped out the basement carpet and installed Pergo floors, so I could have the look of hardwood, which you usually cannot installed in a basement due to moisture problems. My friends who paid $1 million for a rowhouse in Cleveland Park ripped out the Pergo floors in their basement to install berber carpet.

Re: home prices in Petworth, you don’t see that many renovated houses in Petworth, so Anon4′s comment “in Jan 2009, 2 homes in 20011 sold for over $500k (compared to 45 on the market). In Dec 2008 it was 5/58. Mjbrox’s house is nice, but those are some tough odds.”—well Mjbrox’s house is also nicer than 90% of the homes on the market.

I think in terms of selling the house for the right price, having it on the market all winter isn’t so great. Plus with the Yes Organic Market and Park Place almost but not yet completed, you’re just missing out on some of the potential stronger selling points. If I look into my crystal ball…I’d bet the house sells for 510K in April.

Odentex,

Your distaste for berber is very complex and I find it interesting.
But honestly, basement flooring is tough.
- Berber looks cheap (according to you)
- Tile is cold
- Wood is a bad idea in basements
- And pergo is…….well that is all I will say about that
- Bare concrete looks incomplete
For what it is worth, I am not taking offense to any of the posts. In fact I love the feedback.
Like every house in Petworth, my house is very unique and It will take the right person to fall in love with it.

anon4, believe me, I’ve been scouring the market for clients. There is nothing like the Brox house in Crestwood or 16th St Hts in the low $500′s. I wish there were. I’d have sold two more houses last week.

hipchick, I’d be surprised if there were. My point was just that high-end sales are very slow compared to the high-end inventory available in 20011 which is a zipcode that also includes more desirable locations.

I just think if you’re a buyer with $500k+ to spend you have a lot of negotiating power (and/or the ability to simply wait) with the ratio of recent sales to houses on the market. There are certainly a lot of worse deals out there and I wasn’t able to find an unequivocally better one — i.e. a house that’s better on at least 1 of price, quality, and location without being worse on any of those — but I think there are houses that strike a better balance of those trade-offfs.

Oden, 14th & 16th St have better bus options for those who can’t or prefer not to walk very far. They’re also quieter and closer to Rock Creek Park.