Just to get a feel for rents in DC, I was looking at the rentals in the City Paper and found:
SHAW/ BATES ST. NW. Large, sunny apt. in 2nd floor of townhouse. W/D, CAC, $700/mo.+. Habitat Real Estate, 202/232-XXXX
Damned we’re cheap.
So people of Bates, if you have a poor college grad you want in your hood, see if s/he’ll take this.
I wonder what it looks like! We have 2 moderatly nice group houses very close to that and we get 550-600 per room. (One has 4 rooms and one has 5). And they rent out very quickly.
The owner of 1718 #1 is going to rent it out. You don’t even want to know…
Hooray for “cheap” rental units!
It’s amazing to me that rentals in DC are not much more expensive than Houston, once you get out of the big hot spot areas (Dupont, Logan etc.). I noticed the same thing in SF last month. As a renter I could easily live in either city.
Of course, in Houston every time I pay the rent, I realize that if I owned the house I’d be writing a check for the mortgage that’s about half my rent.
Still, for non-owners in DC, renting and waiting to see if things crash seems like a good strategy to me.