By Buzz McClain

Of the seven units created in the brand new, well-received custom community of Capitol Hill’s The Jackson, there’s only one left, and it’s a carriage house.

A new 1,360-square-foot carriage house, not a vintage reconditioned former garage.

“The only history is what the new owners will make there,” said Jenna Jacobson, development manager and general counsel for boutique condo specialists S2 Development. With The Jackson, S2 is capitalizing on the success of its Huntress Coal Oil condo in Shaw, by bringing back architects Bennett Frank McCarthy Architects and having Anna and Dan Kahoe of GoodWood stage and style the interior.

The two-story, free-standing home with two bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths and a light-filled, spacious kitchen-living room at 630 14th St. NE, is part of The Jackson condo community–the shared yard, patio and outdoor gas grill are examples of the neighborhood unity–but the property, which has its own private outdoor space, boasts a hard-to-find element of true privacy. Close the door and you are in a rare, detached two-level dwelling on Capitol Hill.

The dazzlingly coordinated sleek and elegant–yet invitingly comfortable–furnishings by the Kahoes are available to the purchaser at closing, but even if you pass, the carefully considered contemporary fixtures and finishes are all yours. Top brand names abound, such as Restoration Hardware (lighting and mirrors) and Delta and Kohler (bath and kitchen fixtures). Wide plank hardwood flooring and Carrera marble countertops provide style and utility.

As for the neighborhood, The Jackson is situated at the fold of Capitol Hill and the H Street Corridor, both bustling with activity and bursting with bright futures as new businesses continue to compliment the established community. Countless restaurants, a Safeway, the resurgent Atlas Theater, the adventurous Rock & Roll Hotel and other destinations are in the immediate vicinity.

The carriage house at The Jackson (that would be a cool customized return address) is on the market now. There is a Valentine’s Days showing on Sunday, Feb. 14, from 1 to 3 p.m.

As for parking, there is a separately deeded off-street lot on site, next to the carriage house. Ask about it at the showing.

The Washingtonian raved about The Jackson when it previewed, including the carriage house; read it here. For information, check The Jackson website at 63014thstreet.com.

The cost of admission into some the city’s better ranked elementary schools may require the purchase of a Capitol Hill-area house that is about $550,000 or more, according to a new report.

District, Measured released a series of interactive maps today that compare public elementary schools’ testing scores to sale prices of three-bedroom homes in the schools’ boundaries during the past year.

Children of homeowners within a D.C. public school’s boundary lines are guaranteed admission in the school.

Amidon-Bowen in Southwest and Walker Jones on the Hill cost the least to attend, with median home prices near both school sitting at $550,000. They also are among some of the lower ranking schools in the District, although not as low as less expensive schools in the far eastern and southern parts of the District.

Capitol Hill’s most expensive school is also the most-sought public elementary school in the District. Brent Elementary has a wait list 880 names long and holds a median home price of $922,500.

Ludlow-Taylor is the highest ranked Capitol Hill school and the only one on the Hill to be receive a top-tier rating. Median home prices of $797,500 make it the least expensive top-tier elementary school in the city. Other top-tier schools lie in the far northwestern part of D.C. with homes that cost between $819,000 and $1.4 million.

Most Hill elementary are either second-ranked or second-to-last ranked. It costs at least $690,000 to live near a second-rank school. Hill residents need to spend more than $700,000 to avoid lower-tier schools.

Van Ness and Peabody elementary schools were not included in the provided data.

Image via District, Measured

As freshmen members of Congress get their bearings in the District and try their chances in the office space lottery, local real estate agents are preparing for a rush on Capitol Hill rental properties soon and a boost in sales later.

Brokers say they’re helping politicians and their staffers find homes now, and are expecting a surge as inauguration day approaches.

New members and their staffers are seeking homes farther from the office as neighborhoods including NoMa and the H Street NE area transform, according to Tom Carcone of the property management company Gordon James Real Estate Services.

“They wanted to historically stay closer to the Capitol, but that’s further expanding,” he said.

New members and their staffers make a significant dent in the market, Carcone said.

“You’re not talking about a mass quantity of rentals here, so they do have a big impact,” he said.

Donna Evers, broker and owner of the firm Evers & Company, said she recently showed a representative-elect a 700-square-foot basement apartment near the Capitol building, priced at $1,300 a month. Many members of Congress are competing with young people for small, inexpensive apartments, she said.

“If their family isn’t here and they work all the time, all they have to have is a very simple place to hang their hat,” Evers said. “Who wants to spend a lot of money on a place they’ll barely be?”

The market for multi-bedroom rentals might tighten slightly, too. Tim Burr, information manager at Yarmouth Management, said he expects some newly elected officials to seek houses to share with their staffers. He recalled a politician Yarmouth rented to who shared a home with his workers.

“The member had one bedroom and the staffers had the other two,” Burr said.

As for home sales, Evers and broker Lee Murphy both said they expect freshmen members to wait at least a year until buying, when they’ll have a better sense of their longevity in Washington.

“Until they feel like they’ve nabbed that district forever, they’ll rent here,” Evers said.

Elected officials who do buy homes are careful to manage perceptions about their wealth, Murphy said.

“They never want to make the mistake of coming and buying a house that gives the indication that they’re out of touch with their own constituents,” she said. “No McMansions.”

Disclosure: Gordon James Real Estate Services is a Hill Now advertiser.

Last month, 33 single-family homes sold in the broader Capitol Hill area, from H Street NE to the north, 14th Street to the east and Southeast Freeway to the south. Most of these sales resulted from September contracts between buyers heavy with cash and willing to make sellers happy about more than the weather.

The northeast side of the Hill saw a “beater” home on Emerald Street NE rise in price from $385,000 to $435,000, in a skirmish amongst developers. A home on 7th Street NE at Massachusetts Avenue sold for $1,604,000 after six days. The vast majority of of sales in Northeast fell between $600,000 and $800,000.

Here’s sales data on the northeast side of the neighborhood for October. DOMP is the number of days on the market. Full listing details can be found here.

The southeast side of the Hill had 15 sales in October; averaging around $1 million each. A home on the 300 block of 5th Street SE had a whale of an escalation, from $899,000 to $1,077,000. That was more than 15 percent more than its list price, which is much less common in the upper price brackets than in the middle and lower.

Full listing details can be found here.

My takeaway for October? This was the last of the summer wine. There will be stragglers between now and late January, and then we’ll see if 2014 was a peak year for home sales.

I believe sellers, particularly in further reaches of the Hill, will no longer be able to take multiple offers for granted. Buyers, who have far greater high-rise rental options than they did this time last year, will have more to choose from and more time to make decisions. But be careful, buyers — we’ll need a little more inventory to tell if the market is truly turning.

This regularly scheduled, sponsored Q&A column is written by Tom Faison of ReMax Allegiance at Eastern Market. Please submit your questions via email.

Think you know the best time to list your house for sale?

Spring time on Capitol Hill; first crocus, then daffodils, then just a couple of weeks after tulips start losing their petals, the half-cross wooden real estate signs begin sprouting up. Just a few at first appear in March and April, they peak in May and June — with some plucked quickly — and then some wilt all the way into August.

It’s important to understand that while there are countless reasons folks need or want to sell or buy their current or future home, as well as 365 days on which to do so, in general a large number of sellers become active around spring and early summer, often in order to get settled before the start of a new school year. But while Capitol Hill schools have become very popular, they don’t drive our market any more than politics do.

On any given weekend in D.C., plenty in the purchaser population are able to buy your home, an even larger crowd who would be willing and quite a few who might actually be ready, but how many are all three? The crowd thins out. When do their jobs start? Do they need schools? Where will they work? Where will they play? Important questions, but less so in my opinion than how many homes are available when the ready, willing and able line up to look.

Supply and demand strike again. Assuming proper pricing and presentation, would a seller prefer a higher number of listings on the market, in competition with their home, or lower? I might suggest a listing time outside of the norm, avoiding the onslaught of “option paralysis,” a springtime affliction many buyers experience after walking through their fifth Sunday open house. How many homes, similar to yours, is your buyer likely to view on the weekend you list? How likely is yours to be “best in show” on the first of June?

Here are some good times to list your home outside of the spring rush:

• Third week of January to early February. Baffling to some, and based largely on personal experience. I suspect these factors are at play: pent-up demand following three months of slim pickings; reducing active competition and many within the buyer population need a little time for life to get back to normal after the holidays. A couple of paychecks after all that spending doesn’t hurt either.

• Late January to April 16th. This date will list your home ahead of the masses but close to the “let’s see what comes next week” conversation amongst buyers. The April 16 part is easy. Potential first-time buyers have often discovered by then the generous amount of tax deferment homeownership provides.

• Third week of September. This date works for almost the same reasons late January does: pent-up demand is high, summer spending is done and life is getting back to normal, so let’s get settled into new digs before year’s end!

Despite all the chatter, real estate sales is a business of attraction, not promotion. Balloons and broker bellowing aren’t what inspires buyers to write million-dollar checks. In my opinion, the date you list your home runs in fourth place in terms of importance, behind pricing, presentation and exposure. This is as true in Anacostia as in Adams Morgan, and everywhere in between.

Ultimately, if handled properly, there is no bad day to list a home in DC. Dec. 24 can work well for a well-priced listing so long as enough time on either side of that date is given for exposure. Just save some open house cookies for later that night.

The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of HillNow.com.