maybe housing in dc isn't as expensive as everyone thinks

[Anonymous]

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Increasing density is anti-family. People with kids don't want to live in friggin' condos. Condos are for people who don't have children.

No, you don't want to live in a condo with kids. That doesn't mean no one does. Condos in neighborhoods with good public schools could be for people with children who don't have the money to buy a house there.

Oh, I see. So no single people in their 20s want to live in Tenleytown? But parents are totally cool with condos? Right. Get back to us when you have kids.

As the PP says: some parents are fine with living in condos. Some parents are even fine living in rental apartments! Not everyone has the same preferences as you.

-a parent who knows plenty of people who live in condos/apartments with kids

Similarly, some people are totally fine with having three-hour commutes to work. They like all that time on the road because it gives them a chance to catch up on their podcasts. But those people -- like these people with children who supposedly like living in condos -- are the weird outliers.

I have children and I have never *ever* met any parent who didnt wish they had more space.

[Anonymous]

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This is utter nonsense.

If you bought a house 15 years ago in Brookland or Petworth or Eckington or along H Street or any number of other historically black neighborhoods, the value of your home would have grown several times as fast as if you had bought in Tenleytown.

PG County prices are low because white people (like those pushing to change zoning laws) are afraid of being in predominantly black neighborhoods and won't move there (that is, until someone else gentrifies it for them -- by which time they'll then complain PG county is too expensive).

I bought in Petworth more than a decade ago, lived there for nine years, sold my house and bought in Ward 3, and now that I'm here, I, also, think home prices in Tenleytown are too expensive and the city should do something to make it way easier for people with less money than I have to move here. No one is pushing to change zoning in places like Petworth, which is already zoned for more density than Tenleytown is; your apparent belief that self-interest by single young white men is the only reason anyone wants to upzone Tenleytown is wrong. Why would a single person in their 20s want to live in Tenleytown? The idea is to make it more affordable for families.

Increasing density is anti-family. People with kids don't want to live in friggin' condos. Condos are for people who don't have children.

No, you don't want to live in a condo with kids. That doesn't mean no one does. Condos in neighborhoods with good public schools could be for people with children who don't have the money to buy a house there.

Oh, I see. So no single people in their 20s want to live in Tenleytown? But parents are totally cool with condos? Right. Get back to us when you have kids.

Not PP, but I have kids and live in Tenleytown. Would never have dreamed of moving here before I had kids. We have several friends who live in condos with kids, and at any rate, it hardly seems inconceivable that there is a market for condos in-bounds for good public schools that cost less than single-family homes do. Just because you and I would make a different choice doesn’t mean we should make it impossible for people who would be happy living in a condo — or trading off space for a guaranteed school path they can afford — to live here.

This. I don’t understand people who say you can’t have kids in a condo, then buy an overpriced monstrosity house with 5 bedrooms and a giant yard that their kids have no interest in ever using. The smaller the home, the better. That way kids can bond with their families instead of having their iPhones raise them in a giant house where you never talk.

I love this. This is such a ridiculous, contrived and completely unrealistic scenario that it can only exist either in your head, or in some terrible movie you watched.

[Anonymous]

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This is utter nonsense.

If you bought a house 15 years ago in Brookland or Petworth or Eckington or along H Street or any number of other historically black neighborhoods, the value of your home would have grown several times as fast as if you had bought in Tenleytown.

PG County prices are low because white people (like those pushing to change zoning laws) are afraid of being in predominantly black neighborhoods and won't move there (that is, until someone else gentrifies it for them -- by which time they'll then complain PG county is too expensive).

I bought in Petworth more than a decade ago, lived there for nine years, sold my house and bought in Ward 3, and now that I'm here, I, also, think home prices in Tenleytown are too expensive and the city should do something to make it way easier for people with less money than I have to move here. No one is pushing to change zoning in places like Petworth, which is already zoned for more density than Tenleytown is; your apparent belief that self-interest by single young white men is the only reason anyone wants to upzone Tenleytown is wrong. Why would a single person in their 20s want to live in Tenleytown? The idea is to make it more affordable for families.

Increasing density is anti-family. People with kids don't want to live in friggin' condos. Condos are for people who don't have children.

No, you don't want to live in a condo with kids. That doesn't mean no one does. Condos in neighborhoods with good public schools could be for people with children who don't have the money to buy a house there.

Oh, I see. So no single people in their 20s want to live in Tenleytown? But parents are totally cool with condos? Right. Get back to us when you have kids.

Not PP, but I have kids and live in Tenleytown. Would never have dreamed of moving here before I had kids. We have several friends who live in condos with kids, and at any rate, it hardly seems inconceivable that there is a market for condos in-bounds for good public schools that cost less than single-family homes do. Just because you and I would make a different choice doesn’t mean we should make it impossible for people who would be happy living in a condo — or trading off space for a guaranteed school path they can afford — to live here.

This. I don’t understand people who say you can’t have kids in a condo, then buy an overpriced monstrosity house with 5 bedrooms and a giant yard that their kids have no interest in ever using. The smaller the home, the better. That way kids can bond with their families instead of having their iPhones raise them in a giant house where you never talk.

I love this. This is such a ridiculous, contrived and completely unrealistic scenario that it can only exist either in your head, or in some terrible movie you watched.

DP, she is right. It’s the truth.

-signed a parent who’s done this

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think until real estate agents stop thinking that AA neighborhoods are automatically low income, nothing will change. There are places with predom AA communities like Largo and Laurel which have a high AA middle class population, in really nice homes, but because they are AA communities, their values are much lower. Until that stigma changes, it will lead to further eradication of the black middle class in the region.

Real estate agents? Give me a break. Real estate agents don't care where their clients buy. They just want to make sales, and collect their commissions.

Gentrification and increasing density is what pushes black people out of DC. Look at Petworth or any number of other neighborhoods.

WRONG. You clearly missed the story about real estate agents in Long island and their racist ways. They steered white people to certain homes and black people to undesirable areas. This happens more often that you think. Real estate agents can act as gatekeepers of racism where housing is concerned.

You have clearly never bought a house before.

This is a true story so you are wrong.

https://youtu.be/5Uslr0mhpMU

[Anonymous]

Price and affordability are not synonymous. A $500k home is the same price everyone that uses the US dollar, but it affords a mansion for the moneyed in flyover country yet is only baseline for a starter condo in DC.

What DC (and all of the USA, really) lacks is a culture of family living in apartments. Spend some time in eastern Europe (Prague, Budapest, Kyiv, etc), and you will see so many 3-4 bedroom apartments that allow families to remain in the city. When having kids in the city is considered the normal course of life and not some fringe idea, the city adjusts to family life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Increasing density is anti-family. People with kids don't want to live in friggin' condos. Condos are for people who don't have children.

No, you don't want to live in a condo with kids. That doesn't mean no one does. Condos in neighborhoods with good public schools could be for people with children who don't have the money to buy a house there.

Oh, I see. So no single people in their 20s want to live in Tenleytown? But parents are totally cool with condos? Right. Get back to us when you have kids.

As the PP says: some parents are fine with living in condos. Some parents are even fine living in rental apartments! Not everyone has the same preferences as you.

-a parent who knows plenty of people who live in condos/apartments with kids

Similarly, some people are totally fine with having three-hour commutes to work. They like all that time on the road because it gives them a chance to catch up on their podcasts. But those people -- like these people with children who supposedly like living in condos -- are the weird outliers.

I have children and I have never *ever* met any parent who didnt wish they had more space.

Thy might want more space, but maybe they also want to be a 20-minute Metro ride from work instead of a 60-minute drive, and maybe they can’t afford to pay $1 million for a house close in. So they decide they’d rather have a condo than a house farther away. Real estate is always about making trade offs like that unless you have unlimited money. But right now, in large sections of upper NW, there’s no option for anything except a single-family house for people to consider. Wouldn’t it be better if there was also some cheaper, smaller housing stock?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Price and affordability are not synonymous. A $500k home is the same price everyone that uses the US dollar, but it affords a mansion for the moneyed in flyover country yet is only baseline for a starter condo in DC.

What DC (and all of the USA, really) lacks is a culture of family living in apartments. Spend some time in eastern Europe (Prague, Budapest, Kyiv, etc), and you will see so many 3-4 bedroom apartments that allow families to remain in the city. When having kids in the city is considered the normal course of life and not some fringe idea, the city adjusts to family life.

Not enough money to be made for the land for that. Hence why the new housing is either those expensive “luxury condos”, townhomes, or those giant McMansion-lite homes.

I personally would be fine with a modest 2-story colonial around 2500-3000 sq ft but they don’t make those much around here anymore. Land is too expensive and the builder won’t make much of a profit.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Half the city though is not livable because of high crime and terrible schools. It's easy to state things aren't expensive when you are looking across all values when half the properties included are in very high crime areas. No one wants to raise their family in an area where you have to risk life and death just to save on a mortgage.

Racist much?

Worthless without telling us where YOU live and your HHI.

It’s easy for the Bethesda and Upper Ward 3 crowd to call folks racist.

Until DC fully gentrifies (aka get rid of the low income poc East of the anacostia), DC will never meet its full potential. There’s so many good houses and neighborhoods with potential. Time for Mayor Bowser to raise the property taxes on ward 7 and 8.

I can’t wait until that issue is resolved. I’d like to buy at least two homes there.

Oh wow. You want full on "no black zones" to fully encompass DC. I'll give this to you though, at least you're point blank honest about your 1956 segregationist views.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:prices are high but so are incomes. practically everyone here makes a lot more money than they would doing the same job in most other places in this country. the only way to tell whether housing is expensive is to compare the cost of housing to how much people earn.

harvard has done that, and it suggests that while housing prices here are high, they're not as high as they are in denver or arizona or oregon (let alone places like new york city and san francisco and boston)

https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/home-price-income-ratios

+1

People make a lot of money in DC, which means housing is not as expensive as it may seem

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:prices are high but so are incomes. practically everyone here makes a lot more money than they would doing the same job in most other places in this country. the only way to tell whether housing is expensive is to compare the cost of housing to how much people earn.

harvard has done that, and it suggests that while housing prices here are high, they're not as high as they are in denver or arizona or oregon (let alone places like new york city and san francisco and boston)

https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/home-price-income-ratios

+1

People make a lot of money in DC, which means housing is not as expensive as it may seem

*Some* people make a lot of money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:prices are high but so are incomes. practically everyone here makes a lot more money than they would doing the same job in most other places in this country. the only way to tell whether housing is expensive is to compare the cost of housing to how much people earn.

harvard has done that, and it suggests that while housing prices here are high, they're not as high as they are in denver or arizona or oregon (let alone places like new york city and san francisco and boston)

https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/home-price-income-ratios

+1

People make a lot of money in DC, which means housing is not as expensive as it may seem

*Some* people make a lot of money.

Cops and teachers and secretaries make at least twice as much here as they do where I grew up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:prices are high but so are incomes. practically everyone here makes a lot more money than they would doing the same job in most other places in this country. the only way to tell whether housing is expensive is to compare the cost of housing to how much people earn.

harvard has done that, and it suggests that while housing prices here are high, they're not as high as they are in denver or arizona or oregon (let alone places like new york city and san francisco and boston)

https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/home-price-income-ratios

+1

People make a lot of money in DC, which means housing is not as expensive as it may seem

*Some* people make a lot of money.

Cops and teachers and secretaries make at least twice as much here as they do where I grew up.

What about the people who serve you your $14 salad? Or the daycare teacher who watches your kids?

There are poor people here, and they’re not going to just get a roommate until they get a new job — I’m sure they already have one, and DC is no more ‘affordable’ for them after having done so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:prices are high but so are incomes. practically everyone here makes a lot more money than they would doing the same job in most other places in this country. the only way to tell whether housing is expensive is to compare the cost of housing to how much people earn.

harvard has done that, and it suggests that while housing prices here are high, they're not as high as they are in denver or arizona or oregon (let alone places like new york city and san francisco and boston)

https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/home-price-income-ratios

+1

People make a lot of money in DC, which means housing is not as expensive as it may seem

*Some* people make a lot of money.

Cops and teachers and secretaries make at least twice as much here as they do where I grew up.

What about the people who serve you your $14 salad? Or the daycare teacher who watches your kids?

There are poor people here, and they’re not going to just get a roommate until they get a new job — I’m sure they already have one, and DC is no more ‘affordable’ for them after having done so.

DP.. as stated repeatedly and in the article, level of income goes hand in hand with housing costs. That $14 job, while low paid in DC, would be $7.50 in a low cost area. So, a home that is $500K here, could be $250K in the low cost area... still out of reach for folks paid minimum wage no matter which way you cut it.

My job in Silicon Valley would be paid $200K, with the housing costs to go with it. Here, the same job makes about $120K, with the housing costs about half of what it is in SV area (and lower taxes, of course, and better school funding).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:prices are high but so are incomes. practically everyone here makes a lot more money than they would doing the same job in most other places in this country. the only way to tell whether housing is expensive is to compare the cost of housing to how much people earn.

harvard has done that, and it suggests that while housing prices here are high, they're not as high as they are in denver or arizona or oregon (let alone places like new york city and san francisco and boston)

https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/home-price-income-ratios

+1

People make a lot of money in DC, which means housing is not as expensive as it may seem

*Some* people make a lot of money.

Cops and teachers and secretaries make at least twice as much here as they do where I grew up.

The DC government pays a lot. Interns make $40,000. Administrative assistants approach $100,000.

https://dchr.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dchr/publication/attachments/public_body_employee_information_191231.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who would have thought housing in DC is cheaper than in Phoenix?

No one. Because it isn't.