Condo conversion in DC, explained by someone who has actually done one.
Condo Conversion DC is an owner-side condo conversion advisory based in Washington, DC. If you own a rowhouse and are weighing a split, two questions decide the deal: what the conversion really costs, and what the tenant rules mean for your building. This site answers both, with the numbers on the page.
Converting a DC rowhouse into condos typically costs $45,000 to $110,000 on top of construction: the District charges a 5 percent conversion fee on each unit’s sale price under the Rental Housing Conversion and Sale Act, condo documents and legal work run $10,000 to $20,000, survey and plats $3,000 to $6,000, a structural engineer letter $2,500 to $5,000, CASD filing and recording costs sit in the low thousands, and the paperwork tail adds several months of carrying costs after construction ends. Most projects are two-unit splits of RF-1 rowhouses or English basement carve-offs, and the whole conversion runs 12 to 24 months from purchase to final settlement. Buildings with tenants route through TOPA and the tenant election; vacant buildings apply for a vacancy exemption through DHCD’s Conversion and Sale Division. The calculator and process guide on this site break down every line.
Written by an owner, not a lender.
Most of the advice on this subject comes from people whose product is a loan or a settlement, so the parts that decide whether your deal works never make it onto the page. That is how owners end up learning the 5 percent fee at settlement, discovering TOPA after going under contract, and modeling six months of carrying costs when the paperwork actually takes ten.
This site is the version of the internet I wanted when I ran my first conversion: the all-in numbers, the actual process with the tenant rules stated plainly, and a phone number that reaches a person who has sat on the owner side of the table, not a loan officer working a lead list.
Three answers that decide whether your deal works.
The all-in cost calculator
The 5 percent conversion fee, condo documents, survey and plats, the engineer letter, CASD filings, and the carrying-cost tail, itemized against your unit count and sale prices, so you see the whole bill before you commit to the deal.
Read it →The process, actually explained
TOPA rights, tenant election mechanics, the vacancy exemption path, and what CASD registration involves, with realistic timelines, stated plainly before you go under contract instead of after.
Read it →Basement condos, the Hill special
Carving an English basement into a sellable unit while you keep the main house: when it pencils, what the two-unit regime looks like, and the rental-history question that decides your filing path.
Read it →Neighborhood by neighborhood, with the local math.
Petworth’s proven up-down splits, the Hill’s basement carve-offs, Shaw’s half-finished rescues, Trinidad’s thin-margin frontier: each page covers what actually converts there and what it costs.
Have a specific building in mind? Talk it through.
Whether it is a Petworth rowhouse under contract, an English basement you are thinking of selling, or a conversion someone else abandoned mid-filing, describe it below. You will get a straight read on the path, the costs, and the timeline, from an investor who runs these projects, not a pitch for a loan.