Washington, DC, Multifamily Report – February 2024
A stable economy and low unemployment have contributed to the metro's better-than-average metrics.
Feeling the seasonal lull at the end of 2023, the Washington, D.C., multifamily market closed the last quarter in the red, with rates down 20 basis points on a trailing three-month basis. Even so, last year was a relatively good one for the market, with the average rent up 1.6 percent over 12 months, to $2,114. That was significantly above the U.S. figure, with the national rate up just 0.3 percent last year, to $1,709. Northern Virginia outpaced the larger metro, with rents rising 3.1 percent and occupancy up a strong 70 basis points, even as large swaths of the country recorded contractions.
Metro D.C. continued to display one of the most stable economies among major coastal cities, with unemployment at a tight 2.7 percent as of November 2023 and the market adding 60,300 net jobs over 12 months. And while new development initiatives lack the magnitude of earlier megaprojects such as Amazon’s HQ2 or the Silver Line metro extension, the pipeline remains relatively strong. The metro had more than 13 million square feet underway in industrial, office and self storage projects alone as of January. That comes on top of a sizable residential pipeline and several infrastructure and civic projects.
A total of 12,002 units came online across the market last year, with an additional 33,196 apartments underway. Meanwhile, only $2 billion in rental assets traded in 2023, a decade low and an abrupt drop from the volumes recorded in the previous two years.
