Living in Capitol Hill...Why?

[Anonymous]

Maybe things have changed. We were looking in 2008/2009. Back then we were only considering places walkable to Eastern Market. Safety was "block by block" as our agent explained. I didn't like that concept.

First of all, real estate agents usually avoid opining about crime. They can't predict other people's tolerances for crime, nor can they guarantee safety. Discussion of crime if also often used as a coded way to talk about race and socio-economic status, so most agents will not give you these answers because it runs afoul of fair housing laws. Either you've misinterpreted/misrepresented what your agent told you, or you had an unethical agent. If the latter, I'm going to discount him as a reliable narrator of crime on the Hill.

The unifom crime statistics are a much better place to get crime information than your real estate agent. Still, I caution against reading too much into a current year's numbers. Property crime is not violent crime. In fact, car break-ins where something of value was visible within the vehicle make up a great deal of property crime on the Hill. You may be interested to know that Georgetown has high property crime. Again, the details are important, as shoplifting contributes greatly to this statistic. Numbers of crimes do not determine any one person's risk of being victimized quite as well as looking at crime per 1000 residents because differing residential densities change probabilities. Also, in the cases of many violent crimes, the victim and the perpetrator knew each other. It's pretty rare for a professional person not involved in organized crime to get murdered. That's part of why we remember it so well when it happens.

As an experiment, I pulled up the last twleve months of crime numbers from within 1500 ft. of the Wisconsin and M St.s NW intersection \http://crimemap.dc.gov/Report.aspxin order to compare then to the stats from 1500 feet around Eastern Market http://crimemap.dc.gov/Report.aspx.Using these places for comparison, the crime in these neighborhoods doesn't seem to be dramatically different. At the end of the day, even the numbers are only so helpful in determining what places are high crime. Everyone's perception of risk is different as is risk tolerance.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:To OP's point, Ward 6 has the most public housing in the city. A significant portion is in SW, but there is considerable traditional public housing as well as low-income and section 8 housing all over the Hill. And for crying out loud, the city homeless shelter is right there! Don't try and tell me the Hill and surrounding environs is lilly white and just like Ward 3.

Agree. It really depends on what part of the area you live in. A lot of folks wouldn't say the homeless shelter is in Capitol Hill per se but is actually in Hill East - so there's that. But I live on the Southeast edge of the historic district - so I figure I can say that's Capitol Hill and our neighborhood is still about 50/50 now.

But it's not clear how long that will last. I love my neighborhood -before it gentrified and still do now that it is gentrifying, but to be honest, I'm not thrilled with the way it's moving toward another expensive enclave. But by the time it reaches that point I'll be ready to retire and move on.

Things have gotten so expensive I feel like all of Capitol Hill will have pricing similar to the most trendy Brooklyn neighborhoods, $2 million to $4 million for a row house. It wouldn’t surprise me if homes doubled or tripled in value over the next decade on Capitol Hill. It’s unfortunate because with the way DC is set up, it might end up resembling Mayfair or Belgravia in London. Very very expensive, super rich, and completely abandoned. Most buyers will be absentee homeowners. The neighborhood will look beautiful, but end up being largely uninhabited, with homes used as a place holder for foreign money.

This terrifies me! I've heard Vancouver is the same. What I don't understand is - if the neighborhoods empty out and nobody actually wants to live there, why do the houses retain their value?

The homes retain their value because they are used essentially as place holders for foreign money, and the demand for these place holders is high. Usually Chinese or Russians that don’t trust their national currencies and don’t trust their country’s monetary policy are the buyers. So what ends up happening is a large number of people come in, buy up the place, homes become unaffordable for even the lower end rich. Apartment construction increases and those that before could afford a home on Capitol Hill become renters of high end apartments like the Hine. The other thing is that there are visa schemes that benefit foreign investors that give them the ability to invest in the US, which is often done through sham apartment building investment, and then because the foreign national “invested” in the US they get a residency visa which creates a pathway to a green card. US residency is highly valuable.

Only thing that will prevent this from happening is if those wealthy foreign buyers don’t trust the US policies when it comes to the economy and laws that might impact foreign nationals.

One positive about Trump’s presidency is that foreign investment in US real estate has slowed. We are bound to have a recession in the near future, and there likely is a small but real housing bubble in DC which might correct prices in places like Capitol Hill by 5-10%, and in gentrifying areas like Petworth, Trinidad, H Street Corridor, and Hill East/Kingman Park/Rosedale buy 10-20%. If the recession hits, interest rates increase, housing bubble pops, and people that were previously priced out are able to buy, that might cause this issue to be put on the back burner.

Best solution is to eliminate foreign investor residency visas, restrict purchases of US homes to US Citizens and Green Card holders, heavily promote low and middle income housing development, and create housing at all income levels in areas throughout the city.

This makes too much sense. it would benefit US citizens. Crazy talk. Urban elites filled with guilt would never allow it.

Don't worry. Trump would never allow this to happen. He would not want to piss off his master, Vladimir Putin.