Washington, D.C. This place and its people are energetic, alive—owned and loved by God Himself. When I fully digest this, my love for this city and my understanding of who God is intensifies and spills over into love and hope for those nearest me.
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| Boomcity DC! |
A passion pervades this city. Sirens sounding remind me of the pain. Church bells ring out in answer—a song of hope. From grand columns and architecture, the meticulous detail of America's most precious man-made structures testifies to man's passion to create something beautiful; it reflects minds filled with creativity and a longing for permanence.
The intricate design of the city's flowering trees speaks of God's attention and intense delight and matches the marvels of the constructed beauty for which the city is known. Engaging this culture is riddled with pain and disappointment, but where there are sirens, there are also church bells ringing with hope.
Washington has a growing, diversified economy with an increasing percentage of professional and business service jobs. The gross state product of the District in 2010 was $103.3 billion, which would rank it No. 34 compared to the 50 U.S. states. The gross product of the Washington Metropolitan Area was $425 billion in 2010, making it the fourth largest metropolitan economy in the United States.
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| DC Chinatown |
A new wave of contemporary architecture is taking hold and a growing class of tech executives is helping to fuel the boom. All this is happening in Washington, D.C., a town known for its relative affordability compared with cities such as New York and San Francisco, and for architecture about as exciting as its fashion sense. Today, home prices in Washington and its surrounding suburbs are rapidly rising to new levels.
Washington's property market has been buoyed two forces specific to the capital city: a surge of federal contractors and a rising tide of government spending. The result: what real-estate agents and developers are calling an unprecedented real-estate surge.
During the first four months of this year, 11 homes in the D.C. metro area—which includes the District of Columbia, the city of Alexandria, Va., Virginia's Arlington and Fair-fax counties and Maryland's Montgomery County, among others sold for more than $5 million, according to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems. That's more than three times the number that sold during the same four-month period last year. Homes priced over $1 million saw a 32% rise over the same period. In the area's more-affluent neighborhoods, luxury-condo developers from around the country are arriving in droves.
Washington's economy which was never hit as hard during the recession as other major U.S. cities is flourishing. Foreign buyers, who long overlooked D.C. in favor of New York or Miami, are now beginning to purchase real estates, houses and condos in the Washington area. Lots of foreign money coming into DC housing market has added new impetus as they are tired of overheated NYC and Miami markets. Russian being heard more and more on the streets of tonier sections of town, this will never be the case in Chicago, Denver or Dallas.
The city is also becoming safer. Abandoned storefronts and burned-out buildings are being converted into condos. While it used to be dangerous to walk a few blocks to a nightclub in Logan Circle, that neighborhood is now known for its sprawling Whole Foods grocery store. Washington has always had the potential to be a truly world-class city, but in recent years it has really come to life in a way that we have never seen before.
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| Beautiful Row houses in DC |
A more-contemporary design aesthetic is also finding its way into individual homes, as more young people arrive in the city. Homes with floor-to-ceiling windows and skylights are joining the brick row houses and Victorians that have long lined the city's streets. People are much less afraid to do modern stuff than they used to be.
One of our clients, after buying a condominium from us remarked:
"It was really the views that sold me", who spent another $1 million to finish the 5,300-square-foot space, which has white marble floors and 14-foot ceilings. "A building as luxurious as this condo is still a rarity in D.C.," he added "D.C. isn't a money town, it's a power town''.
Robert Gurney, one of the city's most prominent modern architects, says he has triple the number of clients that he had five years ago. "In the old days, I used to hide modern elements behind traditional structures," he says, citing a project where he put a gabled roof on a house to help minimize the conspicuousness of large, modern windows. "But today there is no shortage of people in Washington that want a completely modern house," he adds, noting he has about 20 active projects in the works.
Washington D.C. is the city where we all love to live our entire lives. Its developing faster than anticipated and the Real Estate industry is growing everyday. Certainly, Washington D.C. is turning into the new boomcity.
