Trinidad

Quick Answer

Trinidad is a row house neighborhood in Northeast DC, north of Florida Avenue and east of West Virginia Avenue, with Mount Olivet Road to the north and Bladensburg Road to the east. DC lists about 1,200 row houses here, and most went up in the 1920s. It is not a designated historic district, so exterior work does not go through historic preservation review. Houses range from fully renovated to unrenovated on the same block.

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 median Trinidad sale is $577K, against $1.1M on Capitol Hill and $625K in Kingman Park. The houses are mostly two-story brick row houses with basements, and the condition of each one moves the price more than the block does.

Trinidad row houses are close to identical. That is why two on one block can sell far apart.

DC lists about 1,200 row houses in Trinidad. About 1,175 are single-family houses, and the figures here are for them; the other 33 are recorded as converted to two units. More than half went up in the 1920s. Nine in ten are brick, and almost none rise to three stories. The typical house has about 1,300 square feet above ground and about 1,900 in total, on a lot of about 1,500 square feet. About six in seven have a basement, and three in four have finished it.

When the shells match, the shell does not set the price. The lower level and the age of the work inside do. A fourth bedroom in the basement is not the same as a fourth bedroom upstairs.

Here is what I do with that. I compare above-ground space first, then the lower level on its own: finished or not, ceiling height, a separate entrance. I ask the seller in writing what work was done and when, and the age of the roof and the HVAC. About 100 sold here in two years, so close matches exist.

When the houses match, the work inside them sets the price.

From the Record

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  The neighborhood takes its name from James Barry, a 19th-century land speculator who had lived on the island of Trinidad. The land passed to the Corcoran family, then to Columbian College, now George Washington University, and then to the Washington Brick Machine Company, which sold off parcels. The first houses, in southern Trinidad, went up in the late 19th century.

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  American League Park, home of the Washington Senators, stood at Florida Avenue and Trinidad Avenue NE from 1901 to 1904.