I have a bunch of friends who left DC, Arlington, Alexandria, and even the 'burbs of VA for states they never would have considered pre-pandemic. Why? Because their jobs are now 100% remote WFH.

My best friend from this area just bought a huge property in a red state last fall. The house they sold up here was $1.2mil and the property they bought down there is 200 acres with a stream and 30 acre lake for around $450k. The house that was on the property is 2500 sqft with 3 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, and has an in-ground pool. It's all one level, which she doesn't really like, so they are currently building a home on the property and will keep the current home as a guest house or potential property their parents can live in once they are much older.

She was able to do this because both her and her husband's companies went 100% WFH. They also put out notices that they would not be adjusting salaries for any COL changes made. That was huge!

I have like 3 sets of friends who have moved to TX over the past year and one who moved to AZ.

I know we're looking at southern VA, FL, TN, and SC as possible moving locations in the next year. Why stay in this high COL area when I can keep my high COL salary and live in BFE? Moving to lower COL area means we can save more and retire sooner. Win win!

Anonymous wrote:Posters who have moved, did you go back to areas where you had family or had previously lived or did you go to states/cities where you had no ties? If the latter, what guided your choice?

I know a few how temporarily relocated during the pandemic. Kids had virtual school and they could work virtually. I imagine DC with a more white collar work force had opportunities to work virtual. Many of the people in Virginia would not have that opportunity.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol oh look a 3% decline during a pandemic and administration change. Anyone making any kind of sweeping conclusion from this is an idiot.

ANY amount of population drop is bad news for anyone who bought overpriced property in DC the last decade or so. Because they will not see the kind of return on investment they were expecting.

Sure
In November 2021, Washington, DC home prices were up 6.8% compared to last year, selling for a median price of $728K. On average, homes in Washington, DC sell after 34 days on the market

Posters who have moved, did you go back to areas where you had family or had previously lived or did you go to states/cities where you had no ties? If the latter, what guided your choice?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don't understand why the housing inventory continues to be at historic lows if there is a significant number of people from the city. Are people moving but keeping their property?

Renters are moving from buildings rather than owner occupants. The rental occupancy rate is very high but DC is still pushing the narrative that empty office buildings can be converted to residential use.

DC did not have the wealthy investors who can leave residential buildings empty. It needs to fill the units. Look for declining rents that might bring people to the city.

Many of those units are being filled with tenants using city vouchers that pay the landlord 180% of market rate (not a typo) and once a voucher is used once for a unit, even just one month, the unit is permanently out of rent control. So quite a great deal for landlords on many fronts. This has not been without issues, search for the WP articles on Sedgewick Gardens or blogs re: The Brandywine.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I drove to DC today and it was a ghost town with mostly homeless people, tents, and the smell of weed stinking the air. It's definitely different than 2 years a go.

Newsflash: it’s December 23. DC is always empty around Christmas. Obviously you don’t live here.

I was downtown for lunch. And if anything I was surprised at how many people were in town.

I keep having this same conversation with my coworkers who live in the suburbs. They all seem to think that we are a bombed out, post apocalyptic, barren city. And I keep having to correct them: most neighborhoods in DC (outside of the downtown/Penn Quarter/L'Enfant plaza area) are bustling and quite the opposite of a ghost town.

“Neighborhoods”. That’s the point and the key distinction. Even if the most central, dense and urbanized neighborhoods are not doing so well. By contrast, shopping and dining options in the suburbs are going gang busters: particularly Pike & Rose and the Mosaic District.

I go downtown every day for work and can confirm the following trends:
- for food, almost all chains are still open but probably 50% of “mom and pop” places have closed and most places have substantially reduced their hours.
- while food is surviving, barely, downtown retail is almost completely disappearing.
- vehicle traffic is probably 80% of normal but foot traffic is probably 20% of what it used to be.

The issues with metro service and more recently, bus service, have likely increased the number of drivers.

The numbers are only for DC proper. How much of that "decline" was just people moving from Shaw to Fairfax?

You can move to a low-density suburb and still be within city limits in a sprawling city like Houston or Kansas City so the numbers don't change. You can't do that in DC.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol oh look a 3% decline during a pandemic and administration change. Anyone making any kind of sweeping conclusion from this is an idiot.

ANY amount of population drop is bad news for anyone who bought overpriced property in DC the last decade or so. Because they will not see the kind of return on investment they were expecting.

Everything is not about real estate prices. Even if those 20k who left were renters, that’s a huge loss of tax revenue that the city was not expecting nor had planned for. This is on top of the city blowing their federal Covid relief and rainy day funds on “historic” investments in public welfare. Whether those investments are good or bad, I’m not here to say. But what I can say is that if you empty your piggy bank it is probably not good if you also suffer a pay cut at work at the same time. Otherwise, what the city will be confronted in the coming 6 months with a big choice, cut services, raise taxes or even both. This is where the potential for negative feedback loops start.

Anonymous wrote:Lol oh look a 3% decline during a pandemic and administration change. Anyone making any kind of sweeping conclusion from this is an idiot.

Oh look, incredibly ignorant person doesn’t understand significance of numbers while calling others an “idiot”.

Anonymous wrote:How many of you lived in DC during the 70's and 80's? Places like Shaw, NOMA and U Street were persona non grata.

Even around 2000, Shaw and NOMA were still pretty bad. Those were the "slum historique" days in Shaw.

U Street was just starting to be revitalized. That's how crazy long the legacy of the '60s, especially the rioting, kept central DC neighborhoods depressed. We've already seen that movie... why on earth have we forgotten just how crazy bad things were and why would anyone want to repeat this destructive cycle.

How many of you lived in DC during the 70's and 80's? Places like Shaw, NOMA and U Street were persona non grata.

Hey PP, the decrease predates COVID. Homicide became notably uncomfortable for me in 2019 and I began to get my ducks in a row to leave. Finally, earlier this year, I and my six figure salary said goodbye to a DC that is intent on reliving the 90s. No thanks! If you can’t even see the problems, you’re not close to solving them.

Anonymous wrote:Lol oh look a 3% decline during a pandemic and administration change. Anyone making any kind of sweeping conclusion from this is an idiot.

ANY amount of population drop is bad news for anyone who bought overpriced property in DC the last decade or so. Because they will not see the kind of return on investment they were expecting.

Lol oh look a 3% decline during a pandemic and administration change. Anyone making any kind of sweeping conclusion from this is an idiot.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don't understand why the housing inventory continues to be at historic lows if there is a significant number of people from the city. Are people moving but keeping their property?

This Washington Post article explains half of the story, rental vacancies shot up to 7.7%.
https://apple.news/ACwycHq-CTQCFbd5SaEVluw

The other half of the story is that there is a huge cohort of people in their 30s, Millennials, who are starting to form families.

The big question for me is not why inventory is low. What bothers me is why rental prices are increasing, particularly as more and more new buildings are being delivered. Really throws a huge monkey wrench in YIMBY/GGW theories.

Anything can throw a monkey into YIMBY and GGW. Their philosoply is political rather than economics based. They don’t know basic economic concepts but rely on socialist arguments of equality.