City rents are $2,133 versus $2,168 metro-wide, a gap that's shrinking as the city catches up. But sub-markets are diverging wildly: Landover rents rose 9.9% while Annandale fell 6.0%. District-only owners should focus on their specific sub-market, not city or metro averages, when making acquisition and refinancing decisions.
If your portfolio is district only, this is actually good news. Here's a trend I want every district-only owner to pay attention to. City rents are $2,133. Metro-wide rents are $2,168. That's a 1.6% gap. Last month that gap was 2.2%. The gap is shrinking. The city is closing the distance with the suburbs. Metro-wide annual rent growth is -1.9%. Still better than the city's -3.5%, but the city is gaining ground on the metro faster than the metro is gaining on the nation. If your portfolio is district only, this is actually good news. The suburban competitive pressure that's been squeezing you for the past year is starting to ease. Now let's get granular, because the metro average is hiding a massive spread. The fastest growing submarket this month is Landover, up 9.9% year over year. The slowest is Annandale, down 6.0%. That's nearly a 16-point spread inside one metro area. This is the number that should drive your acquisition and refinance decisions, not the citywide average, not the metro average, the submarket you're actually standing in.
