The DC Market You Can See — and the One You Can't

Today is Election Day. Polls in DC and Maryland are open until 8 tonight, and this year DC voters rank their choices instead of picking just one — a first for a general election here. However you rank them: vote. The mayor and council members chosen today will set the housing rules this market lives under — zoning, rents, taxes, what gets built and what gets preserved. More than 70% of DC voters this year called housing and the cost of living "very important." Today is the one day it is actually on the ballot. The market those winners inherit has two halves — and most people only ever see one of them.

The market you can see

Start with the numbers anyone can pull up. Condo supply across the metro reached 4.92 months in September. Condo sales fell 16.3% year over year, while active condo listings rose 30.3% to 4,891. In DC itself, the median condo sold for $539,900 in August — 95.4% of list price, after 58 days on market. Translation: buyers have choices, time, and leverage they have not had in years, and sellers are negotiating again — on price, on concessions, on terms.

None of these numbers is weather. Inventory, fees, and financing rules all trace back to decisions made by people who got elected — which is why today matters more to this market than any rate print.

The homework matters as much as the headline price. Condo fees and building reserves deserve the same attention as the kitchen. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are raising the condo project reserve minimum from 10% to 15% for loan applications on or after January 4, 2027 — buildings with thin reserves will get harder to finance, which affects buyers and the sellers who need those buyers. Rates remain the headwind, with a small crack of light. Freddie Mac's weekly survey put the 30-year fixed at 7.24% at the end of October — down two weeks in a row, to its lowest level of the month — even as the Federal Reserve held its benchmark rate steady on October 28, with two officials voting to raise it instead. Buyers are nibbling: mortgage purchase applications rose 4% in the latest weekly survey, though they still trail last year by 18%. A small break, not a rescue — which is exactly why motivated sellers are listening.

The entry level shows the visible market at its best. At The Chesterfield, 3315 Wisconsin Ave NW, a co-op residence is offered at $154,000 — one of the most accessible ways into DC ownership, sitting on the portals for anyone to find. Listed, photographed, priced, negotiated in the open. That is the visible market working the way it should.

The market you can't see

But scroll Zillow all day and you will still miss part of this market. There may be private exclusive listings from high-profile sellers that never appear on Zillow or any other portal — no listing page, no photos, no days-on-market counter, no price history building up in public. The home is offered quietly, to a short list of qualified buyers, and it can sell without ever being "on the market" as most people understand the phrase.

Why would a seller give up the widest possible audience? In Washington, the answer is usually standing at the front door. For members of Congress, senior officials, and other public figures, a home address is not like a vote — a vote is cast in public on purpose; an address is where your family sleeps. Officials' homes have become stages in recent years: protests outside front doors, cameras on quiet streets, addresses passed around online in a single afternoon. And in this city, a real estate move gets read like a press release — a bigger house becomes ambition, a sale becomes retreat. Most public figures I work with just want to move house without issuing a statement about it. Privacy, for them, is a safety decision, not a vanity one.

The mechanics are ordinary. A purchase through an LLC or a trust puts an entity's name on the deed instead of a family's. A quiet listing skips the portal, the yard sign, and the open house, and goes out to a short list through agents who know how to keep a file closed. Outreach is unbranded — the house sells the house. Closings are timed away from sessions, votes, and news cycles. Showings are private and pre-screened: buyers are vetted before they learn the address, not after.

This is not hypothetical. My team is currently representing a private exclusive in Piney Point, Maryland — a six-bedroom waterfront home at 17203 Piney Point Rd, offered at $869,900, with 30 feet of deep-water frontage and a pier with lifts. It has a showcase page, but it is not being launched like a portal listing; it is being introduced the quiet way, to the buyers most likely to understand it.

The honest limits

I'll be plain about this, because any good advisor will be: privacy tools protect an address and a daily life — they do not hide assets from the rules. Members of Congress and senior officials file financial disclosures, and investment real estate is generally reportable; a trust or an LLC may keep a name off a deed, but it removes nothing from a disclosure obligation, and it should never be used that way. Anyone in that world should confirm the structure with their ethics officer and their attorney before buying, not after. Privacy done right is about safety; it is not secrecy from the ethics rules.

What this means for you

Start with the ballot. If you haven't voted yet, you still can — DC and Maryland polls are open until 8 tonight, and every housing question in this article, from condo fees to property taxes to what gets built on your street, runs through the people on that ballot first.

If you're buying, work both halves. The visible market is tilting your way — inventory is up, sellers are negotiating, and the homework is the building's finances. But the full market includes homes you will never see on a portal. A team that hears about the quiet half is how you shop all of DC, not just the listed half of it.

If you're selling, know the quiet route is not reserved for the famous. Executives, families in the middle of a hard change, anyone who would rather sell a home than announce it — the same discretion is available at any level. Discretion is a service, not a status.

I wrote about the Chicago side of this in a companion piece — a $4.5 million Lincoln Park sale where the paper could name the seller but not the buyer, because the buyer was an Illinois land trust: The Buyer's Name Was the Only Thing Not for Sale. Different city, different tool — same instinct. The home is private, even when the job isn't.

My team and I work the DC market every day — Capitol Hill rowhouses, Georgetown and Kalorama, and the neighborhoods across the river in Arlington and Alexandria. Some of our clients are names you'd recognize. You will never hear which ones, or where they live. That silence is part of the job, and it's the part I'm proudest of.

If a move is on your horizon — in either half of this market — start with a conversation. You can read more about how we see this market in our weekly articles, or call me directly at (571) 497-4607. And if you're reading this before the polls close and you haven't voted yet: go vote first. Then call.

Danny Leung CEO & Team Leader, C21 Team International at Century 21 Redwood Realty Washingtonian Top Agent every year since 2019 · CLHMS/GUILD luxury designations · Licensed in DC, Virginia, Maryland and Illinois I work with clients in English, Mandarin and Cantonese; my team adds Spanish, Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi. (571) 497-4607

— Danny Leung, Century 21 Team International, (571) 497-4607