The real estate market is all about submarkets

As MZ points out in a comment in an earlier entry...

1. The Financial Times Weekend Home section has a big feature on Petworth as part of its weekly focus on changing urban neighborhoods around the world, "A Capitol Investment" (registration required). It's an interesting read only in how it sheds light on the process of neighborhood change. But yes Ward 1 and Ward 4 neighborhoods are changing, just as are many of the other neighborhoods in the city that are close to the center and enjoy subway station access. (And it reads the same as other articles describing this phenomenon, such as "Renovation Frustration" from the Express about Judith Matloff and her experience as a white woman rehabbing a house in Harlem.)

2. The Post real estate section has "Post-Election Trends," a not very good article about how the Obama Administration change won't effect the Washington metropolitan real estate market.

Of course it won't have much impact on the entire almost 7,000 square mile region. But it will affect a handful of submarkets where Democrats are more likely to live, including Capitol Hill and Georgetown in DC, and probably Arlington and maybe Alexandria in Virginia, and potential Bethesda and Takoma Park in Montgomery County.

Given the slightly weak real estate demand we are experiencing in the city, which has brought housing prices down from stratospheric top prices, but still finds that base prices are relatively high in in-demand neighborhoods in the core, and reduced prices farther out from the core (such as Petworth), even a slight increase in demand can have a stabilizing effect.