Brookland

Quick Answer

Brookland is in Northeast DC, east of the Red Line tracks at the Brookland-CUA Metro. Catholic University and the National Shrine sit across the tracks to the west. DC records about 725 row houses here, nearly all brick and built between 1901 and 1939. 12th Street is the shopping street, and Monroe Street Market sits beside the station.

How We Calculate $/sqft

$/sqft is calculated on above-grade finished square footage, the standard used by DC appraisers, MLS systems, and most market participants. Properties with finished below-grade space (English basements, rental units) carry that square footage as additive value, but appraisers typically apply a discount of 50 to 75 cents on the dollar relative to above-grade space. Blending the two into a single $/sqft figure would make a home with a finished basement look cheaper than it is and obscure the real comparison. When a property has significant finished below-grade square footage, both metrics are presented in context so you understand the full picture before the appraiser does.

Brookland is on the Red Line. Its median row house sale is $624K, and the median house sells in 23 days at 98.9% of its list price.

In the last twelve months, 103 row houses closed here. A median built on that few sales moves with each one, so read it beside the count.

A Brookland row house sits on a lot about two-thirds larger than one in Eckington or Trinidad.

DC lists about 725 row houses in Brookland. All but six are single-family houses, and the figures here are for them. Nearly nine in ten went up between 1901 and 1939, and three in four were built in the 1920s. Nearly all are brick and two stories. The median lot is about 2,500 square feet. The typical house has about 2,000 square feet in total, and about a third of that is in the basement. Nearly every house has one, and about seven in ten have finished it. About one in four has four bedrooms or more.

The houses are close in age and shape, so two of them differ mostly below ground and out back. Sales are few: about thirty in the last two years.

Here is what I do with that. I compare a Brookland house with Brookland sales first, and I go back further in time before I go further away. I adjust for the finished lower level and for the lot separately, because they do not move together. I ask the seller in writing what work was done to the basement, and when.

Where the houses match, the basement and the yard set the price.

From the Record

• ●

  The Catholic University of America was established in Brookland in 1887. Religious orders and seminaries later built houses and colleges nearby.

• ●

  The National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception was formally dedicated on November 20, 1959, and is the largest Roman Catholic church in North America. Built beside Catholic University's campus, it is the neighborhood's defining landmark.

• ●

  The Brookland station opened on the Red Line in February 1978 and was renamed Brookland-CUA in 1979.

• ●

  The Franciscan Monastery at 14th and Quincy Streets was completed in 1899 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

• ●

  Monroe Street Market and its Arts Walk, a row of artist studios beside the Metro, opened in 2013.