Capitol Hill

Quick Answer

Capitol Hill is DC's largest residential historic district. It runs east from the Capitol to about 15th Street, between F Street NE and the Southeast Freeway. Nine in ten of its row houses were built before 1940. Exterior changes go through historic preservation review. Eastern Market, at 7th and C Streets SE, has operated since 1873.

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.

The neighborhood is built out. New houses are rare inside the historic district, so supply changes only when an owner sells. 305 row houses closed here in the trailing 12 months, at a median of 8 days on market.

Capitol Hill has more row house sales than any other neighborhood in DC. That is the trap.

DC lists about 7,600 row houses on the Hill. About 5,800 are single-family houses, and the figures here are for them. A third are recorded as built in 1900 or earlier. The city enters 1900 when it does not have the true year, so many are older. Most of the rest went up between 1901 and 1939. Size runs wider than the fronts suggest. About one in four has under 1,500 square feet in total, and about one in twelve has more than 3,000. Six in ten have a basement, and fewer than half have finished one.

The other 1,900 are recorded as converted to two units, and they run taller: about one in four rises three stories or more, against one in eight single-family houses.

In the last two years, more than 500 sold. With that many sales, there is always a comp that supports the number someone wants. A 1,400-square-foot house with no basement and a 2,800-square-foot house with a finished one can share a block and look alike from the street.

Here is what I do with that. I throw out most of the comps. I keep the ones that match on size, on the basement and on the era. Five close sales tell me more than twenty loose ones.

Plenty of comps is not the same as the right comps.

From the Record

• ●

  L'Enfant called the hill Jenkins Hill in 1791. The Capitol's cornerstone was laid there in 1793, and the neighborhood grew up between the Capitol and the Navy Yard. Most of the row house blocks filled in between the 1890s and the 1930s.

• ●

  Eastern Market's building, designed by Adolf Cluss, opened in 1873. It is the last of the city's public markets still operating. A fire gutted the South Hall in 2007, and the building reopened in 2009. The halls close on Mondays.

• ●

  The city designated the Capitol Hill Historic District in 1973, and it joined the National Register in 1976. It was expanded in 2003 and again in 2015, and covers about 8,000 buildings. Changes to the outside of a house in the district go through preservation review first.

• ●

  Barracks Row, on 8th Street SE, takes its name from the Marine Barracks at 8th and I Streets SE. Thomas Jefferson chose the site in 1801, within marching distance of the Capitol and the White House.