1111 20th St. NW

Luxury apartments?

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In theory, more inventory = less demand = lower prices. In theory.

15 percent of the 163 units will be affordable. That’s 24 more affordable housing units downtown than the zero there would have been without this project.

This is a good way of looking at it.

If we continue to push for remote work and refitting old office spaces into apartments, the overall benefit for everyone is much higher than it would have been otherwise.

Willco

That ain’t happening

More housing is good.

Every new building until the end of time will be called “luxury”.

Housing is a supply and demand problem

Glad there’s some affordable unit, however, the addition of more luxury apartments will artificially push up the average rate of rentals and will raise continue to make all units in the city less affordable.

Cue the irrational, hypocritical, and environmentally ignorant dislike of high-rise or dense living for reasons like "it is branded as luxury to be more marketable," "there isn't enough parking," "who would want to live in that shoebox," or " having in-unit laundry and a fitness center is bougie."

> the addition of more luxury apartments will artificially push up the average rate of rentals and will raise continue to make all units in the city less affordable.

Having more units available will mean lower market prices all else equal..

I cannot parse the second half of your sentence, but if you are arguing that having more units will make units less affordable, I (and the relevant literature) disagree that building more units makes units more expensive.

There are 24 more affordable housing units in the city if this conversion occurs, sounds like it'll make a big difference for some people directly and there is strong evidence that adding more units has spillover effects on rents in other buildings. Supply and demand!

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As you could see during COVID when there was a lot less demand, so buildings offered deep discounts.

Do you have a source for this? Because everything I have read states literally the opposite, that increasing housing supply reduces cost increases on existing housing.

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Affordable at 60% of some income level they use is I think for people making 50-80K, so many on here might qualify for all the affordable units in new projects

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Near as I can tell any apartment with an in-unit washer/dryer is “luxury”.

Not inaccurate. Living in a recently built structure has always been a luxury.

Even if they are “luxury” apartments (whatever that means) study after study shows that if you increase the supply of housing (“luxury” or not) housing prices lower.

Building more housing (of any kind) is better than building no housing.

Lapses in your logic aside, would you rather them build apartments that no one wants? It's a new building, but everything is mediocre at best and all fixtures will need to be replaced within 5 years? Maybe apartments that they can make a return on with section 8 housing?

Will you take a lower salary for lower rents?

That’s what happens when cities and nimbys block housing of all kinds. Only the high margin stuff (luxury/higher end) stuff gets built. As more “luxury” housing gets built (which helps prevent high earning people from moving into low income housing for low income people), builders move to provide lower margin housing

> the addition of more luxury apartments will artificially push up the average rate of rentals

literally the opposite of this actually, increasing the housing supply decreases price pressure (however minutely). how would that even work? a new luxury apartment gets built and a rich person says "you know what? I want two expensive apartments that are both in Washington DC"?

I cannot comprehend DC's preference for apartments rather than condos. Ownership over eternal rent seems like a no brainer.

More of this!!!

For the same reason I would rather own than rent, a developer would rather me rent than own. And guess which one has the capital to do a massive new construction or renovation project in DC?

Does introducing new cars make old cars more or less expensive than they were previously?

Supply and demand skepticism literally only exists for housing, and its idiotic

I couldn't find an image in the article of the proposed design, but this appears to be the website for it:

https://www.elleapartments.com/

Hasn't there been ongoing residential development in DC at the same time as housing prices have gone up?

That is where tax coding and zoning play a part.

And the people responsible for zoning and tax code are bought and paid for.

Not nearly enough to keep up with demand. Our density is piss poor (thanks building height restrictions!).

Zoning doesn’t really differentiate between condos and rentals for the purposes large projects like this, both are about equally feasible.

Would be interested in how you think the tax code should be changed on this matter. I see a few options and none of them are very appealing.

Raise tax on rental property owners? Because that just gets passed on down to renters. Lower taxes on personal home owners? Congrats you just cut city revenue by giving a tax break to the wealthiest segments of the population.

Housing prices have gone up everywhere but they've gone up less in DC than other east coast cities.

No photos of the exterior (eyeroll)

Zoning could, no? In as much as an area can be zoned for single family homes, a multi family units, zoning could slice and dice the type of units. So the zoning argument is arbitrary.

A resident of a condo can not deduct the condo fee from their taxes. A landlord can. Reverse it, and favor ownership over rental.

DC used to charge a substantial fee to convert a rental apartment building into condos. Eliminate it.

DC does not provide a homestead exemption for resident condominium parking places. Provide it.

Provide tax preferred savings plan to save for a down payment.

Go to back to a first time home buyer tax credit.

Do you need more? Or are you fixated on raising taxed on rental property (which removing the deduction on condo fees would do)?

I just recall that when I bought in 97 DC gave me a 5 year abatement on real estate taxes. Another mechanism to help with home ownership.

Those could all make condos more affordable, sure. I fail to see how any of that would encourage anyone to build more condos. That’s the factor that’s missing here. Those efforts don’t do anyone any good if there aren’t more condos to buy.

And I guess you could making zoning specific to condos vs apartments, but I don’t think adding more restrictions to zoning is a way to spur continued development of new housing, which is the key to lowering prices for all types.

Thank you. I couldn't figure out where this place is.

That is a demand function, is it not?

If condos are more affordable to residents, then people will want them.

For that matter, if DC implemented any or all of those mechanisms for commercial properties on K Street - including expanding zoning for multi-family, but restricting it to condo or coop residential property, don't think developers would fill the space and make a profit?

Without a grand economic study, I think it would be enough.

It’s not really a demand function, as there is already massive demand in DC for everything. Given a scarcity of housing, where you can fill up anything you build, it’s driven by margins for profit optimization. Profit for developers here means maximizing the price of condos or rents. Making condos more affordable via tax incentives and whatnot doesn’t actually change anything for the developers unless it means they can raise prices to increase profit. So now you’re cutting tax revenue to boost developer profits by roughly the same amount, and cost of condo units has gone up.

And you certainly could require condo or coops to be built, but I’m not convinced that’s what people want. There might be data saying it is, but Im not seeing it. Certainly not enough for the city zoning boards to pick and choose where they implement those requirements.

Best solution is to build build build as much as possible. Supply goes up and meets demand, prices come down (or at least level off) and condo vs apartment economics can reach a more natural equilibrium.

Dc is the only major city in the US to have had median rents rise less than inflation over the last decade. The data is pretty clear about this.

I would be weary to buy a condo in DC. DC allows for development so condos are just a depreciating assets, since there will always be ‘more’. And there are still tons of lots available for development.

If the city was fully built out and there were so surface parking lots period, I’d consider it.

The condos in my neighborhood simply sell for their original price. The rowhomes have all appreciated, since you can covert them to condos.

DC is transient, and there’s a large population of younger folks who want to live in DC for a few years but don’t want/intend to buy until they move out of the area or decamp to the suburbs.

I see this particular building being popular with GW grad students and junior biglaw types who want the convenience in the near term but wouldn’t want to live there in the long term and thus would rather rent than buy. Or maybe it’ll become another Avenue and be full of GW undergrads.

Volatility is real. I purchased mine in '97 for less than it sold originally in '75.

That is true. But I know quite a few people would would like to buy in DC but are priced out. So....

Not sure how GWU manages its housing. But GU has been building steadily to house its undergrads, and some law students, at least. Not sure how many full time GU students are now in the transient rental market.

Most European cities don't have high rises either. DC can achieve density without the need for them. The bigger issue is the massive sections of detached single family homes outside the core.

Yes that is also an issue. Paris, which has few high rises, is MUCH more dense than DC.

Plus if we build 20 new units, and 25 people want to move in, prices will go up still (but if we built 0 units, it would be worse.)

Supply deniers are just bizarre.

Also the thing that limits height is rarely the height act itself but NIMBYs that fight everything.

Luxury literally just means new.

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Why does housing have to be an investment, though? Wouldn't it be better for everyone if we could buy and sell properties for (more or less) what they're actually worth?

Oh agreed. Structures shouldn’t appreciate. But I don’t want to burden everyone with all the vagaries of home ownership.

But they seem to be everywhere. Like you give them an example with iPhones or cars and they come to the right conclusion, but housing breaks their mind.

The car example is especially apt. They get the concept of filtering there (Rich people buy new car, and sell their old. The fancy car from 2011 is the cheap used car of today), but you mention the same concept for housing and you're accused of "trickle down economics".

Luxury at this point just means granite/quartz countertops, in-unit washer/dryer, and halfway to moderately decent community amenities. Doesn’t mean the quality of any of those things is assured though. I now just appreciate apartment buildings that refer to themselves as modern instead of luxury, which is a much more accurate assessment.

Well, I'm here for it if you ever want to get into it!

Plenty of condos in DC appreciate, as with all real estate, it depends where it is located.

>I would be weary

FWIW, the word you're looking for here is wary (feeling or showing caution about possible dangers or problems.)

Weary means tired. 😏

I worked in the Vanguard Building in the early 1990s. It’s hard to conceive of that functional, dingy space being transformed into a luxury apartment building.

You tryna storm the palisades

Affordability is usually used based off median income in the area. It’s higher in DC than the national average but DC is. HCOL city, one do the top 5 in the US, so yeah median income here might be too dollar in many parts of the US, but in DC it feels poor.

WJLA wants to keep it a secret but the address is 1111 20th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036.

News ! ! ! Building that can't get commercial tenants will be given incentives to rent to residential tenants.

Does it occur to you that prices would have gone up even more without additional supply?

What many don't realize I think is that one bedrooms in 20009 (in beautiful old buildings cuz very little new construction) have not gone up in price last 10 years . 325-450K.

Almost half a million dollars for a 1br condo still feels like a rip when you think about how you gotta pay high HOA fees anyways

400K + $300 per month +300 monthly property taxes comes out same or less than rent if you have DP. With rates at 3% maybe not 6.5%.

DC helps with DP if you make 50-80K .

Or come to Atlanta.

SF + LA + Denver + Seattle + Chicago + Boston + NYC + DC + Miami + Atlanta. 10 major cities not incl TX.

Atlanta only cheap real estate out of the 10 cities.

Bought condo good location Atlanta .210K 780sf one bedroom + one bath. Put in 70K and new location for kitchen and bath + added half bath + new location washer dryer + new floors + new molding everywhere + knocked down 2 walls . Ended up 2BR + 1FB + 1HB with 70K so total 280K.

Nice! But not a fan of Atlanta in general.

Yeah I’m in the shitty income where you make too much for aid but have to live well below your means if you want to afford to buy.

Right? Like I'm here for photos of the building, not Bowser.