Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
This is true. My ex co-worker and her boyfriend paid $3,400 to live in one of those buildings in Downtown Bethesda...
Do you have studies on this? I'm curious about the profiles of those demanding higher-density housing. Some people suspect that greater demand for higher-density housing reflects a value shift from more traditional suburban living, but I wonder if the demand for "traditional" housing is only weaker because the people who typically demand it have been hardest hit by the recession.
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Complaining about housing prices in downtown Bethesda is like complaining about housing prices in Beverly Hills. It's one of the choicest bits of real estate in the entire country, so of course it's not affordable.
The NAR study is one example of how values are shifting. From a more practical standpoint, a few other data points that
I rounded up earlier:
- Fewer than 1/10 of households in DC are married couples with children, but 1/3 of its housing stock is 3+ bedroom
- Only 1/15 of new households in the entire region, 2005-2010, are married couples with children
I'm a member of
the Urban Land Institute, which is the closest the development industry has to a professional association, and their reports and conferences have for years tracked an ongoing shift in demand across almost all product types towards core locations.