Washington, D.C. joins Denver and Seattle as locations credited with slowing the rising cost of housing by building an abundant new supply of residential units.
"In 2015, DC permitted more new housing units—4,956, to be exact—than in any year since the Census started keeping track in 1980," according to an article by John Ricco, "and there's reason to believe it's helping to slow rent increases."
According to Ricco, "The record-setting year is most likely due to both long-term factors (a shift towards city-living among young professionals) and short-term, cyclical ones (federal government job growth having recovered from the sequester)."
Ricco offers a lot more detail about the D.C. market and how it compares to other cities. Importantly as well, Ricco concludes by citing three separate sources that have found evidence that rent increases are slowing in Washington, D.C.:
- Chloe Johnson, writing for Bloomberg Business
- Maeve Gallagher, writing for The Washington Post
- Cha'Mia Holloman, writing for Multifamily Executive
FULL STORY: DC added record housing in 2015. That’s slowing down price increases.

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Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research