DC Real Estate Brokers Optimistic About Second Trump Term

Commercial real estate owners in Washington, D.C. are fretting over their future as Donald Trump takes office for the second time. Residential brokers, however, see the other side of the coin.

Brokers in the nation’s capital are gearing up for an influx of government officials set to settle in the district when Trump is sworn in, the New York Post reported. It’s a tradition that pops up every four years or so, when there’s a changing of the guard at the White House. But a Trump administration also brings a potentially larger cohort of industry titans and billionaires.

Sotheby’s International Realty principal Michael Rankin told Curbed that he expected some “big numbers” to be transacted beginning next month as clarity over administrative posts emerges.

Not all neighborhoods in D.C. are created equally, even for the political elite. Kalorama is a constant that should see activity, as should Massachusetts Heights. Among those to shack up in Kalorama at one point or another: former President Barack and first lady Michelle Obama, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner and Jeff Bezos — who paid $23 million in cash for the largest home in Washington, D.C. in 2017. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently moved to sell his home in the neighborhood.

But Georgetown, known as being a more liberal part of the district, isn’t a beehive for Trump allies, hostess Sally Quinn told Esquire in 2019.

Bethesda, which is just outside the city limits, is also a well-established hotspot for the wealthy.

Still, the concerns facing commercial property owners in D.C. can bleed out into the residential market, too. If Trump guts the federal workforce, it may reduce homebuying demand in the area and even prompt holdovers to sell. Additionally, the president-elect’s infatuation with Mar-a-Lago could lead those who want to be in his orbit to move to Florida, rather than D.C.

There’s already activity afoot in Kalorama, where one prominent politics-adjacent figure is selling his home. Soon-to-be former CNN broadcaster Chris Wallace and his wife listed their home in the neighborhood for $6.4 million last month.

— Holden Walter-Warner