Wednesday, January 14, 2009

DC Neighborhoods

Ever see a listing for "Old City #1" and wonder where it is? Do you know the difference between Penn Quarter and Chinatown? Do you know where, exactly "16th Street Heights" is?

I'm working on a DC neighborhood boundary and home search map (click link to see it in progress) for you, home buyers. It's a work in progress, so bear with me while I work to complete it. On it you'll see I've outlined the approximate boundaries of many neighborhoods, and if you click on each one you'll see (for most) a link to read more about the neighborhood, and also a quick search link to see listings.

I'm not sure I'll ever cover the entire map, but I've tried to hit some of the more common areas I get asked about: Cleveland Park, Woodley Park, Adams Morgan, Mount Pleasant, Foggy Bottom, West End, Dupont Circle, Columbia Heights, Petworth, Eckington, Logan Circle, Shaw, LeDroit Park, Old City (H Street), U Street, Penn Quarter/Chinatown, Takoma, and Tenleytown. I'm still working on a few more.

My hope is that it will help illuminate some alternatives for a buyer who finds any particular neighborhood too expensive...just move a block or two to the east or west and you may find yourself in a whole new range of affordability. It also might help find 'hidden' listings...for example many buyers lump "West End" in with Dupont, so if you're only searching Dupont you might miss that enclave.

(NB: The listings link has some caveats to it...not all neighborhoods are available on my data feed, and if listing agents don't enter the data exactly right it won't show up. Agents have also been known to take some creative liberties when putting some properties into certain neighborhood boundaries for purposes of the MLS. For a complete list of homes in a given neighborhood, you can always contact me directly to set up a very detailed and accurate search.)

Have a link that's relevant for a particular neighborhood? Email me and I'll add it! I may eventually overlay the metro lines on the map as well, but am trying not to clutter it up too much. If you zoom in to a detailed view, though, you can see where the stations are.

My hope is that this map will give buyers a bird's-eye view of some neighborhoods and the chance to get an idea of what homes in each neighborhood sell for. Over time, I'll be adding in real estate statistics so that a user can see, at a glance, what the current state of the market is in one neighborhood versus another.

And remember, if you want to search the MLS using your own parameters, you can use the search feature at my website - this map view allows you to draw a box around the area in which you want to search, and the filters at the bottom allow you to narrow the search.

Read More: DC Real Estate Market Stats

Read More: Buyer Resources

Read More: Blog Posts for Buyers

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great idea onthe DC boundary map. I know all the names (brookland, Old City etc), but never know where exactly they start or stop. Looking forward to seeing this!