Location, Location, Location

This house across the street from me looks nice and all, and I like this location very much, but it's by no means Dupont Circle.

I wouldn't mention it at all, but as it happens my house was listed -- by a different property management agency -- as also being in Dupont Circle, so I guess this is now a common tactic in real estate circles. Obviously, as with any neighborhood, the boundary lines get a bit fuzzy, but we're a little bit Shaw and a little bit Columbia Heights -- not Dupont Circle at all.

UPDATE: Incidentally, it's not that I'm unaware of the fact that it's common practice for real estate people to offer misleading neighborhood labels, I just think it's a bad thing. Bloggers push back against bogus White House spin and we should push back against bogus real estate spin as well. Nothing this far east or this far north could possibly be in Dupont Circle.

Comments

Fault the Bush administration.

Posted by hot kitty | July 15, 2007 2:23 PM

Didn't you used to live in New York? Shouldn't you be used to this sort of thing?

Posted by Reality Man | July 15, 2007 2:25 PM

This happens everywhere. My city splits North/South and more and more you see South side addresses advertised as "near North Tacoma". Whatever that means...

Posted by frinklin | July 15, 2007 2:48 PM

Yes- completely common for apartments to be listed as in "park slope" or the like when they quite obviously are not. Sometimes people at least try not to completely lie and say something like "park slope area", but then that sort of thing can be stretched pretty hard, too. (It also happens quite a lot in Philadelphia, so I guess it's common pretty much everywhere.)

Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | July 15, 2007 2:49 PM

What reality man said. If U stree is the border, you're just four blocks from it. Now Park Slope, there's a neighborhood that never ever ends.

Posted by Benton | July 15, 2007 2:50 PM

The usual dead giveaway is "within walking distance from", when actually it's as far away as Timbuktoo.

Caveat emptor.

Posted by Justin X | July 15, 2007 3:02 PM

The most egregious example of this I've seen is a place in northern Spanish Harlem listed as "Morningside." Come on....

Posted by BP | July 15, 2007 3:20 PM

Yes, these location stretches are pretty incredible, but I must say, similar real estate pitches in Brooklyn are far crazier. The definitions of "Williamsburg" and "Park Slope" have been stretched to almost comical proportions.

Posted by jhupp | July 15, 2007 3:21 PM

Yes. I'm looking for an apt and it is impossible to use these labels when all of south Minneapolis (Phillips, Linden Hills, Lyn-Lake, Loring Park, Whittier) is now listed as Uptown.

Posted by Noname. | July 15, 2007 3:33 PM

In Chicago, we've got the Lake and Lincoln Park which seem to extend several miles inland.

Posted by leo | July 15, 2007 3:37 PM

Here's one (partial) solution: In many parts of Portland the street signs have a 'neighborhood' identification included above the name.

Now, this just raises the question of the boundaries, which aren't always clear - but could be made clear by the planning/zoning boards providing clearly marked maps - after public input, of course, which would likely be contentious. But better contentious once (or a few times) than unclear forever.

It seems arbitrary to draw rigid boundaries (and it is), but the concept of neighborhood greatly helps a city be livable and have character. Example: Haight-Ashbury (with both 'lower haight' and 'upper haight', Upper Market, Castro, SOMA, Hayes Valley, Noe Valley, and Mission are cheek-by-jowl next to each other in San Francisco, but those IDs are important to those who live there.

The problem will often lead to one side of a street being district A and the other side district B, or even parts of one side of a block divided from another. But the post office and census deal with this problem year after year. It is solvable.

And f**k those real estate folks who cheat (including cheating on which schools serve an address).

Posted by JimPortlandOR | July 15, 2007 3:43 PM

Hey Matthew-

Is this your way of inviting us over to your apartment?

Posted by Preston | July 15, 2007 3:45 PM

Re: The usual dead giveaway is "within walking distance from", when actually it's as far away as Timbuktoo.

LOL.
I stayed at a B&B in New Orleans once which advertised itself as "within walking distance of the French Quarter". Well, yes if the walk in question was a military hike! Fortunately I had brought my bicycle and was able to do the tourist stuff that way.

Posted by Jonf | July 15, 2007 3:46 PM

In Providence, RI as the map below shows, neighborhoods have quasi-official boundaries recognized by the official city website, but I doubt if realtors observe these rigidly.

http://www.providenceri.com/Neighborhoods/NeighborhoodMap_c.html

Posted by James Kabala | July 15, 2007 4:04 PM

It's not just realtors. Sometimes it's City Hall. Here in Boston, Back Bay used to pretty much end at Huntington Avenue/Stuart Street (on the south) and Massachusetts Avenue on the west. Nowadays Back Bay creeps down to St. Botolph Street, and in one or two spots all the way down to Columbus Avenue. Similary, in the west Back Bay extends all the way to Charlesgate at the edge of Kenmore Square, beyond Massachusetts Avenue. I don't think it used to be like this. But now the city government's own neighborhood parking restriction signs define the desirable neighborhood in this generous, creative fashion. More property tax revenue, for them, I'd reckon.

Posted by Jasper | July 15, 2007 4:17 PM

And let's not even get started on the way real estate agents physically describe houses for sale. "Handyperson's special," "cute," and "needs a little TLC" are just a few examples of seemingly innocuous terms that in fact are loaded with meaning. And not good meaning.

Posted by Peter | July 15, 2007 4:32 PM

Just today I had a broker claiming a bit of the South Bronx as Inwood. I showed him my map, "See, it's over the river." Him: "Huh, I'm pretty sure it's Inwood." Block creep I can sort of understand, but if there's a body of water in the way?

Posted by Jackmormon | July 15, 2007 4:45 PM

its strange to me, because I don't find the area immediately surrounding dupont circle to be attractive.

Posted by thehvoa | July 15, 2007 5:08 PM

In Chicago, we've got the Lake and Lincoln Park which seem to extend several miles inland.

Or, more often, the "neighborhood creep" phenomenon, where there are more and more neighborhoods, because if you create a new neighborhood name, you can pretend the house you're renting isn't in whatever undesirable neighborhood it really is.

Posted by Freddie | July 15, 2007 5:22 PM

This is a strangely bourgeois post and thread for MY.com.

Posted by otto | July 15, 2007 5:28 PM

Otto, even when you're crashing the gate you still need a place to crash...

(I'll take mine near a cheese store and a wine shop!)

Posted by Preston | July 15, 2007 6:02 PM

Dupont Circle? Why not Chevy Chase?

Posted by Alan in SF | July 15, 2007 6:53 PM

BTW, I got stuck with a Boston motel recently on Priceline that claimed to be in Back Bay, and is actually in Dorchester. Now that REALLY sucks.

Posted by Alan in SF | July 15, 2007 6:59 PM

You should read some of the housing bubble blogs. The hatred on those blogs directed towards realtors (for practices like this, as well as conflicts of interest like showing their own investment properties before those of clients) dwarfs the hatred of the MSM on the political blogs.

Posted by Walker | July 15, 2007 7:30 PM

My favorite was the attempt to turn Southie into SoBo. If anyone is in the market, I have a nice property on a gentrifying block near southwestern City Point available.

Posted by D Street | July 15, 2007 9:01 PM

Alan in SF---good one!

I guess if you rent there, one upside is you
can always get out the lease at any time--it's
pretty clearly common law misrepresentation-->
unilateral mistake.

Posted by Jason | July 15, 2007 9:33 PM

In LA, "Beverly Hills adjacent" translates roughly to "anything north of Inglewood and west of Silver Lake."

Posted by anon | July 15, 2007 9:46 PM

This is standard real estate practice. Around here the desirables include "minutes to the beach" (actually, twenty minutes by car to the beach),
"walking distance of the beach" (true only if you are like Jesus, and can cross the Intracoastal Waterway on foot), and various forms of ocean view, water view, etc. My favorite is a condo that was advertises as having an ocean view. When we went to see the property, we found the ocean view was 1)from a small kitchen window 2)over three blocks of roofs belonging to low rise buildings 3)between two high rise buildings on the beach side of A1A. Yes, you could see a patch of ocean, but you could block it out by a sheet of paper in the appropriate part of the kitchen window. Second favorite is those people who advertise a one bedroom with a convertible room as if it were two bedrooms. So you don't find out the unit is too small and has no closets for the second bedroom (and usually no door, either) until you get there. Maddening when you need two full bedrooms.

Al in SF--no dissing Dorchester. I spent my first year of life, and my parents spent most of the first three decades of theirs, in Dorchester. Of course, the neighborhood has changed slightly in the intervening time. Real estate agents would of course term it "convenient to the Kennedy Library".

Posted by kishnevi | July 15, 2007 10:41 PM

This is standard real estate practice. Around here the desirables include "minutes to the beach" (actually, twenty minutes by car to the beach),
"walking distance of the beach" (true only if you are like Jesus, and can cross the Intracoastal Waterway on foot), and various forms of ocean view, water view, etc. My favorite is a condo that was advertises as having an ocean view. When we went to see the property, we found the ocean view was 1)from a small kitchen window 2)over three blocks of roofs belonging to low rise buildings 3)between two high rise buildings on the beach side of A1A. Yes, you could see a patch of ocean, but you could block it out by a sheet of paper in the appropriate part of the kitchen window. Second favorite is those people who advertise a one bedroom with a convertible room as if it were two bedrooms. So you don't find out the unit is too small and has no closets for the second bedroom (and usually no door, either) until you get there. Maddening when you need two full bedrooms.

Al in SF--no dissing Dorchester. I spent my first year of life, and my parents spent most of the first three decades of theirs, in Dorchester. Of course, the neighborhood has changed slightly in the intervening time. Real estate agents would of course term it "convenient to the Kennedy Library".

Posted by kishnevi | July 15, 2007 10:41 PM

One could also ask for a modicum of truth in the names of real estate developments. In my "metro area" there is Chesnut Ridge which is flat, and, as far as I know, has no chesnuts. My subdivision is called Oak Grove, and it is adjacent to a grove which is made mostly of black walnuts with some maples, then ane can find birches, ashes, even an elm or two, hawthorns, crabapples, but no oaks. A partial justification is that walnuts indeed grow all over our "metro area", and they sound nice, so almost all possible "walnut" names are already in use.

Still, truthful and memorable names are possible. The development occupies one slope of a hill (take that, Chesnut Ridge!), and the other slope is an active quary, where they blast once a day. So one could name us Pit Brink, Quary Edge, or Dynamite Hill. Or, to contrast with the other side of the hill, Quiet Slope. (The grove is a strip that separates us from the quary.)

Posted by piotr | July 15, 2007 10:42 PM

piotr... Up the block from my house is a street named "Ridge Top" located in a bog.

What confuses me is... why do you have to get off New Hampshire Ave? Why the extra turns?

Posted by Grumpy | July 15, 2007 11:32 PM

In semi-defense of this, I rented an apartment that was listed as being in Federal Hill. Now, I'm maybe two blocks from the actual Federal Hill boundaries, so the creep is somewhat understandable.

Federal Hill is mostly young upper income folks, South Baltimore is mostly blue collar descendants of Appalachian immigrants. But when you've spent a lot of money renovating a place and the block is gentrified, advertising it as Federal Hill makes sense -- it may not be technically in the neighborhood, but spiritually and economically it definitely is. The kind of people who will respond to an ad for a Federal Hill place are not the same people who will respond to a SoBo ad.

The creep does reach ridiculous proportions at times -- south of Fort Avenue is unquestionably SoBo, but I've seen ads listing properties there as Federal Hill. But I at least understand why they do it. It takes a while for perception to catch up with gentrification.

Posted by Jon Parker | July 16, 2007 4:20 AM

I don't see how this is a good thing for realtors. I mean, it's not like this ruse is hard to unravel. I was looking for an apartment and saw a lot of that, but each time I did, I just marked it down as someone I don't really want to do business with. The situation kishnevi describes is absolutely absurd - nobody expecting an actual ocean view would trust that realtor after seeing the house. It's not like realtors get paid like websites during the dotcom boom, they get paid when they sell the house.

Posted by Joshua | July 16, 2007 9:22 AM

Grumpy: NH Avenue becomes one-way for about a block or two in there.

Posted by sara | July 16, 2007 9:33 AM

This is not a new phenomenon in DC. When I rented at 15th and U back in 1989, it was being billed as Dupont Circle East. And it was a somewhat dubious neighborhood in those days. Capitol Hill also had some pretty interesting boundaries in the minds of real estate agents then.

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | July 16, 2007 12:48 PM

Here in Los Angeles, the Hollywood Hills (great neighborhood, exclusive, multimillion dollar homes) is right next to parts of Hollywood that are absolutely dreadful (dilapidated houses, ugly old apartment buildings). So, the latter, of course, is referred to by the real estate and apartment industries as the "Hollywood Foothills".

I should add that what we really want to do is stop Realtors' attempts to prevent you from buying or selling your home on the Internet and avoiding the 6 percent commission. Believe it or not, by the way, Bush is on the right side of this one.

Posted by Dilan Esper | July 16, 2007 4:29 PM

I was a victim of this last week when looking for a place in Chicago through Craigslist. Locals, obviously, are much less likely to fall for their "East Wicker Park" and other such false references. It really just hurts those who are looking to move into a new city. I'm from the midwest...I seem to remember people being nicer...

Posted by Kelly | July 16, 2007 5:37 PM

Hi Matt,

I used to own a house on your block. 1446 Florida that now has (I would never do this) chintzy white vinyl windows. In any event, when I bought in 1998 it was listed as "North Dupont." I no longer live in the city but it was my understanding that "U Street" as a neighborhood (yes I know it's part of Shaw) was now, to my great chagrin hot, hot hot! I'm surprized to see they'd still chase the Dupont name ten years later.

Best,

Chris

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