Morning Real Estate Fix

Mortgage rate approaching Fed funds rate (Daily Mortgage Reports)  With mortgage rates at all time lows, the FOMC is not likely to change interest rates in general, and mortgage rates are historically close to the Fed's interest rate benchmark.

Is DC's market headed up or down?  (Daily Beast)  A set of reasons and explanations - though not necessarily conclusions - about what has been happening in the DC real estate market, and what may be in store.

64 unit condo planned for Dupont Circle (Urban Turf)  The row of buildings on N Street, owned by Mort Bender and vacant for decades, may actually be turned into something useful.

28% of home sales all-cash transactions (National Association of Realtors)  Though similar to last year's number, economists say the high rate of cash purchases shows that mortgage standards have tightened appreciably.

Today in Pictures - Boilermaker Shops

With exterior construction of the boilermaker building complete, southeast DC will soon have its own retail pavilion in one of the city's more exciting venues.  Forest City started construction on the project in late 2011, turning the century old boilermaker building of the Navy Yard into a waterfront locale for destination restaurants.  With exterior work complete, tenants are now beginning to build out their restaurants, which should put opening day next spring.  On track so far are Buzz Bakery and Blue Jacket brew pub, both operated by Neighborhood Restaurant Group.  Blue Jacket, named after the common apparel for navy personnel, will take the end space (on 4th) with walls of glass reaching 3 stories to the steel raftered ceiling.  On tap at the opposite end (on 3rd) is Willie's Brew & Crew (a sports bar & barbecue) from restaurant mogul Xavier Cervera, as well as a drycleaner.  BRB, which had originally signed on, is no longer on the list, but officials say a burger joint is likely.  Across the street construction is underway on a new apartment building, Harris Teeter, and now a Vida Fitness.

Your Next Place

This beautiful corner home has been extensively remodeled after being vacant for decades.  I live just two blocks away and I can attest that for the past five or six years, it was the scariest, filthiest, most haunted-looking house in the neighborhood; I wouldn't even let my dog crap in the trash-strewn yard for fear it would step on a syringe and contract hepatitis B.  Now that this place has been turned into a crown jewel of the neighborhood, the crappiest scariest-looking crown has been passed down to ... crap, it's now my house!  (True story:  the sinkhole that's formed on my stoop as a result of a botched water main repair is so wide and deep that the mailman just tosses our mail onto the stairs from the sidewalk, lest he plummet to his death.)

A duplex condo, this unit has huge, oversized windows wherever you turn, flooding the living spaces with natural light.  Maybe too much natural light - I went to this open house with my girlfriend, and when we were in the light-flooded living room I caught her looking at me up and down, as if seeing me for the first time, and muttering, "wait a second, does my boyfriend look like a Depression-era Mexican standup comedian?!"  (Answer: yes.)  There are gleaming hardwood floors and recessed lighting throughout, and the kitchen sports granite countertops and beautiful custom cabinetry.

Upstairs is a similarly light-filled master bedroom (check out those closets!) and a fantastic master bath featuring side by side twin basins for those late night handwashin' competitions (what, you thought no one knew about that?), and a huge glass cube shower that's equal parts Vegas and Star Trek.  And on the roof is a fantastic 800-square-foot roof deck from which you can juuuuuust see the Washington Monument, which you will never ever look at, but which you can casually mention to people at cocktail parties as a subtle way to convey that despite all appearances to the contrary, you're actually quite annoying.

1600 8th St. NW #1
3 Bedrooms, 2.5 Baths
$895,000

Morning Real Estate Fix

New home construction back to 2006 levels around DC (Washington Post)  While new home construction in the urban core has been on the rise for the past few years, single- and multi-family home construction is now on the rise in the suburbs, putting the whole area back to development not seen since before the crash.

Wheaton Costco opening delayed til March or April (Gazette) The store was originally scheduled to open this month, but construction issues have pushed it back half a year.

The Great Recession: U.S. added 4.8 million renters, lost 1.7 million homeowners (HousingWire) In a dramatic shift away from an ownership society since 2008, ownership fundamentals have shifted significantly in last 4 years.

Refinances expected to fall in 2013 (HousingWire)  In a significant downward revision, the Mortgage Bankers Association expects refinances in 2013 to be far below its original prediction.

Vida at the Yards, Officially

Vida Fitness finally announced today that it is opening its next location at the Yards, Forest City's mixed-use neighborhood next to the ballpark.  The site has been a not-very-well kept secret for the past few years, but new details emerged about the 28,000 s.f. facility, including that it will house another Penthouse Pool Club and Lounge, a rooftop lounge which Vida added to its new U Street location last year.  Vida, along with 50,000 s.f. Harris Teeter, is being built as part of Forest City's Twelve12 mixed-use project at the corner of 4th and Tingey Streets.  Designed by Shalom Baranes Associates, the building will house 218 apartments, and is scheduled to open in the spring of 2014.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

The Crimson on Glebe Set to Break Ground

Having gained unanimous approval from the Arlington County Board back in May, The Crimson on Glebe, Crimson Partners' six-story 165-unit apartment building at 650 N. Glebe Road, across from Ballston Commons Mall, faces a clear runway to construction.

"We were approved for 165 apartments, so now we're working through the last of the permitting, " says Christian Chambers, Managing Partner at Crimson.  "We're going to break ground in January of next year."

The Crimson will also feature approximately 2,200 s.f. of ground floor retail space along Glebe Road; however, no decisions have been made yet as to a potential tenant.  "With this amount of retail space, we'll probably wait until closer to delivery before we sign someone in there," says Chambers.

The site, formerly a Goodyear tire store, is located on one of the area's longest blocks, and developers, as part of an agreement with the County, have agreed to build a 220-foot extension of North Tazewell Street at the rear of the property to ease resident access without disrupting traffic on Glebe.  Developers also secured increased density for the building (which was originally five stories) by agreeing to build to LEED Silver standards, and by contributing a half million dollars to the county's Affordable Housing Investment fund, $75,000 to the public art fund, and $42,000 to the utility fund.

For all those concessions, developers get to build a mixed-use building along one of the busiest stretches of Glebe Road, just a third of a mile from the metro, in the heart of commercial Arlington, at a time when the area is just starting to transition from an auto-centric area of strip malls, surface parking lots, and office buildings (a previously approved site plan, dating from 1989, was for a four-story office building) to a more pedestrian-friendly vision of shops, restaurants, and apartments.  This Janus-faced transitional moment is perhaps best summed up by developers' agreement to, on one hand, "encourage residents and retail tenants to live and work car-free," while on the other still providing 164 below-grade parking spaces.  The plan also calls for additional street trees along both frontages, as well as dramatically widened sidewalks.


The L-shaped, KTGY Group-designed building will feature a small internal courtyard for residents, and a varied facade of neutral-toned brick, laminate cladding, metal panels, and manufactured stone and glass, with a residential entrance and lobby along North Carlin Springs Road.  The average unit size will be just over 700 s.f.

Crimson Partners and Washington Real Estate Investment (WRIT) acquired the site for $11.8 million in June 2011; construction is expected to cost approximately $43.5 million.  Crimson is also working on the 65-acre Dulles Station project along the toll road.

Arlington, VA real estate development news

Morning Real Estate Fix

Tenleytown Safeway seeks Bozzuto for redevelopment (Washington Post)  Like Giant down the street, executives at Safeway are in talks with Bozzuto over the slow-going redevelopment of their Tenleytown store.

Commercial property continues slow recovery (NuWire Investor) Despite a slow recovery, commercial property has been making a slow but steady contribution to the recovery, and will likely continue doing so, though much uncertainty remains.

New Maryland University dorm opens as sustainable project (Multi-housing News) Designed by WDG Architecture, the new residence has earned a LEED Gold ranking by the USGBC.

Are you worse off than you were 4 years ago?  65% of housing markets are (Washington Post)  A recent study says that 65% of 919 counties surveyed are in worse shape now than they were in 2008, while the other 35% is only slightly better.