Navy Yard

Quick Answer

Navy Yard runs from the Southeast Freeway to the Anacostia River, east of South Capitol Street. Navy Yard-Ballpark station is on the Green Line. DC lists about 300 fee simple row houses here, and 85 percent were built since 2000. Nine in ten row house sales in the last two years carried an association fee.

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 row house market here is small: 11 closings in the last twelve months. The median sale is $1.2M, at 98.2% of list price after 21 days.

The median Navy Yard row house sold for $1.2M, against $1.1M on Capitol Hill. The houses differ. Most here were built since 2000 and nine in ten sales carried an association fee. Capitol Hill row houses are older, and almost none carry one.

The row houses south of the freeway near the Navy Yard have turrets, gables, and porches. They look a century old. Most are about fifteen years old.

The public record lists about 300 fee simple row houses here, and 85 percent were built since 2000, most of them in the 2010s. They are tall and narrow: eight in ten rise to three stories or more, on lots of about 700 square feet at the median. Three in four have a finished lower level. Owners have held them for a short time, which makes sense for houses this new: only a handful have had the same owner for twenty years.

The biggest difference is the association. In the last two years, nine in ten Navy Yard row house sales came with a homeowners association. On Capitol Hill a few blocks north, almost none do.

Here is what I do with that. I comp a Navy Yard townhouse against other houses of the same age in the same development, not against a Victorian on the Hill with the same bedroom count. I read the association's budget, reserves and rules before a buyer offers.

Price the house that was built, not the one it imitates.

From the Record

• ●

  The Washington Navy Yard dates to 1799 and is the Navy's oldest shore establishment. It set the site's industrial character for two centuries.

• ●

  The Commandant's House, now Tingey House, was built in 1804. In August 1814, ahead of the British, Commandant Thomas Tingey ordered the yard burned. The house, the officers' quarters and Latrobe's main gate survived.

• ●

  The yard turned to ordnance in the late 1880s. By the end of World War II it was the largest naval ordnance plant in the world. In December 1945 it was renamed the U.S. Naval Gun Factory.

• ●

  Nationals Park opened on March 30, 2008, at South Capitol and N Streets SE.

• ●

  Capitol Quarter, the row house blocks between 3rd and 5th Streets SE, went up from 2009 as part of the Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg redevelopment.