Investing in real estate has so far never been a bad idea. But as you can see, we are going through strange times. This year has been filled with downs and lacked a lot of ups. With the worldwide pandemic going on for months, nobody knows what the right thing to do is. But, we decided to talk more about buying a house in 2020 because we feel like not enough people have spoken out about this. Is 2020 the right year to buy a house in Washington DC? As professionals, we know that Washington DC is a very popular home-buying place. A lot of people move to Washington DC every year. And if you were planning on doing the same after purchasing a house, you came to the right place. We’re here to discuss whether you should buy a house in Washington DC this year or abandon this idea for now as Covid-19 had impact on real estate.
Washington DC real estate market
Before investing in a home anywhere you have to get to know more about the real estate market of the place you are planning on investing in. That’s why we also wrote about Chicago’s real estate trends. And as we are currently talking about investing in Washington, we decided to make this easier for you. We are here to tell you a couple of things we think you need to know about before you decide that Washington is the right place to invest in.
Let’s start by talking about the average home price in Washington. It sits at around $670,000. This is the average price. You will be able to find homes that cost less than this, of course. But this all depends on the neighborhood you are searching for a house in. There are plenty of them and some of them are more expensive than the others. Have in mind that Washington home values have gone up 3.2% over the past year and now houses cost more than they did the same time last year. But we have some good news! Professionals are predicting that the prices will fall -2.1% within the next year. This is of course just a prediction based on thorough analysis. Whether you decide to invest this year or the next, Allstate Moving and Storage can help you relocate.
Is buying a house right now a good idea?
As you are here to find out whether you should buy a house in Washington DC this year, we don’t want to take away much of your time so we’re here to answer this question right away. But the answer is not easy to give when it comes to this question. There are plenty of factors that need to be taken into consideration before deciding whether to invest in a house this year. First of all, how stable were your job and your earnings during the coronavirus pandemic? If you didn’t work for a while or you had a smaller paycheck during this period, maybe 2020 is not the right year for buying a house. We are solely telling you this because the future is unpredictable. The second wave of the pandemic could hit any day and you might end up not having any money.
But if your income was stable and you worked from home or your business wasn’t impacted much or you simply have a lot of money saved on the side, investing wouldn’t be such a bad idea. But you also need to have in mind the professional predictions we mentioned. They believe that the prices will drop almost to what they were last year. This means that you could save a lot of money by simply waiting a couple of months. But there’s also a risk that the prices will rise instead of dropping. Buying a house is a risk every time as you never know what can happen next.
But…
For now, you might be thinking that investing in a house in Washington this year is a bad idea. But we would say otherwise. Investing in real estate is never a bad idea. You might lose money, you might save a lot. You never know. That’s exactly what makes it exciting and fun. Besides, if you feel like you can afford a house right now, why not go for it? After purchasing a house, all you have to do is hire a moving crew to help you get comfortable in your new property by moving your belongings there. Whether you already live in Washington or not, hiring movers is the best thing to do as there are services of all sorts that you can choose from.
Best neighborhoods to buy a house in
Now that we have told you what we think about buying a house in Washington DC this year, it’s time for us to give you a couple of suggestions on where to buy this house. As we mentioned, there are plenty of neighborhoods in Washington and the prices in almost every one are different. Some neighborhoods are more expensive than others. Bloomingdale is one of the most expensive ones out of all of them. The median home value in Bloomingdale is $912,000. This is a very large amount of money which is why we would suggest avoiding Bloomingdale this year.
The next expensive neighborhood is Shaw. Kalorama, The Palisades, Berkley, Georgetown, and Barnaby Woods are just a couple of other expensive neighborhoods. As you can see, there are plenty of them because Washington DC is an expensive city. Moving to Washington DC rural areas is a good idea though.
