The Emotional Economics of the DC Rental Market
T and I finally put our months of renting woes to rest today. We’re staying at Sheffield Court and moving from my tiny studio to a roomy one-bedroom just a couple of buildings away. Same 1940s garden style three-stories, same sunny view of Route 50, same short walk to Clarendon. It’s a known quantity, and one without further move-in fees or other hassles. We move to the new place next weekend.
Getting to this decision has been an ordeal, or at least a series of disappointments. The rental market in the DC metro area is, in a word, godawful. Let me explain.
If you’re young and hip you’re supposed to live in the city, ideally in an up-and-coming neighborhood like Shaw, Columbia Heights, Logan Circle, or maybe Eastern Market. The idea is that you’re so desperate for the “urban experience” that you’ll set all common sense aside and pay a tidy sum to live in a crime-ridden neighborhood while paying taxes to a city government that provides abysmal social services. Oh, and you’ll probably be in a group house or an “English basement” (read: any basement apartment, it just sounds better with “English” in front of it) if you want to have enough money to feed yourself, too. You don’t get a vote in the District, but at least you’ll have license to complain about how rough “life in the city” is to all your friends back home. And really, the whole urban experience only has any mystique for kids who didn’t grow up near a major city. Trust me, living next door to real live minorities isn’t going to change the fact that you’re white and middle class and bourgeois enough to care.
We saw truly ghastly apartments in both the aforementioned gentrification-magnets and more established neighborhoods like Dupont Circle. Dark, dank, dirty, and desolate doesn’t seem to deter real estate agents from renting these hovels to the suckers who line up to compete in application-filling-out speed trials at open houses. If you’re ready to brave the lines, get ready for the trade-offs. You can find 1000 square feet, but no washer, dryer, or dishwasher to take up all that room. You can find amenities straight out of a chic loft but no room for anything other than granite countertops. Or, if you have our luck, you’ll find the perfect place in the perfect location only to be told by an icy would-be landlord that all resident cats must be de-clawed, a practice that every shelter in the area condemns as inhumane and has made contractually illegal. Renting in the city is all about learning to settle, and settle low.
If you’re young and professional, you’re supposed to live just outside the city in Northern Virginia, ideally in a neighborhood like Ballston, Old Town Alexandria, Courthouse, Rosslyn, or our own Clarendon. In these neighborhoods, every high-rise is “luxury”, and you’re lucky to find one that hasn’t yet turned to condos. I understand that NoVA attracts prosperous people, but pervasive luxury is a contradiction in terms. The management companies that run these sorts of buildings seem to think that a marble lobby, a business center, and a litany of outrageous move-in fees is enough to convey “luxury”. We nearly ended up in one of these buildings, but ultimately decided that paying upwards of $1800 a month after pet fees and utilities was a touch steep for a 600-odd square foot studio. Luxury aside.
Sheffield Court is not luxurious. They have the obligatory business center tucked away in a squat, old-timey building alongside leasing office. The appliances, stairwells, and cramped parking all show the community’s age, and it’s a puffy uphill walk to the nearest Metro. Still, it’s become familiar, and Clarendon has some character beyond the high-rise condos going up every other block. It’ll be a fine place to spend another year, by which time we’ll hopefully be moving on to a city that’s new for both of us. That’s all beside my point, though.
If you’re thinking about moving to the DC area, think twice about the rental market before you invest time, energy, and money into finding a halfway-decent place to live. And don’t think you can escape to the suburbs or exurbs; I haven’t even started on the commuter situation.