Buying & selling in Forest Hills

Forest Hills at a glance

Forest Hills sits in Ward 3 under Advisory Neighborhood Commission 3F, which also covers Van Ness, North Cleveland Park and Wakefield (Source: DC Council, September 2026). Its edges are Connecticut Avenue NW on the west, Rock Creek Park on the east, Chevy Chase DC to the north and Tilden Street NW to the south, and because the Metro station and the University of the District of Columbia campus both carry the Van Ness name, the avenue side is often called Van Ness instead (Source: Wikipedia, September 2026). The land was once the Shoemaker estate, Azadia; Louis P. Shoemaker began selling one-acre building lots in 1903–04, and after his death and a run of estate disputes the realtors Jesse H. Hedges and E. Eliot Middleton bought roughly 45 acres and, from 1925, subdivided and marketed 111 lots under the new name Forest Hills (Source: Forest Hills Connection, September 2026).

The housing splits by distance from the avenue. On Connecticut Avenue the Van Ness North, East and South towers, designed by architect Joseph Abel and built between 1964 and 1970 on an 18-acre site, hold most of the units — one a cooperative, one a condominium, one still rental (Source: Van Ness North, September 2026). Off the avenue the stock is detached houses on sloping, wooded lots, among them more than 50 individually commissioned Mid-Century Modern houses built mostly in the late 1950s and 1960s (Source: DC Preservation League, DC Historic Sites, September 2026). That gives a buyer three different products within a few blocks: a co-op share, a condominium unit, or a house whose roof, systems and grade are entirely yours to manage.

Forest Hills, block by block

The neighborhood reads differently depending on how far you are from Connecticut Avenue:

• The Connecticut Avenue and Van Ness Metro corridor — The transit and retail spine. The Van Ness North, East and South towers, built between 1964 and 1970 to Joseph Abel's design, sit directly on the avenue alongside the UDC Van Ness campus and the Metro entrance (Source: Van Ness North, September 2026). Bread Furst, a bakery and cafe open daily, is at 4434 Connecticut Avenue NW (Source: Bread Furst, September 2026).
• Linnean Avenue and Broad Branch Road — Large-lot detached houses, the grounds of Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens on Linnean Avenue NW, and diplomatic missions including the embassies of the Czech Republic and the Netherlands on Linnean Avenue (Source: Wikipedia, September 2026).
• Audubon Terrace, Fessenden Street and 31st Street — The Mid-Century Modern pocket: more than 50 individually commissioned houses from the late 1950s and 1960s, including Richard Neutra's Brown House at 3005 Audubon Terrace NW (1968) and Chloethiel Woodard Smith's Bender House at 2901 Fessenden Street NW (1962) (Source: DC Preservation League, DC Historic Sites, September 2026).
• Soapstone Valley and the Albemarle Street edge — A wooded Rock Creek Park tributary valley forms the eastern edge of the neighborhood, with a trailhead off Albemarle Street; the streets here end at woods rather than at more houses (Source: Wikipedia, September 2026, citing the National Park Service 1985 Rock Creek Park administrative history). Forest Hills Playground, with a fenced play area, tennis and basketball courts and a ballfield, is at 32nd and Chesapeake Streets NW (Source: DC Department of Parks and Recreation, September 2026).
• The Tilden Street southern edge — The transitional blocks along Tilden Street NW border Cleveland Park to the south and mix apartment buildings with detached houses, so the same street can carry both an association budget and a plat to read.

Five things locals know

Five things that usually surprise people who only know the Metro stop:

• A Civil War fort stood on 30th Place — Fort Kearny, built in the summer of 1862 by the 15th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry and named for Major General Philip Kearny, stood on ground near what is now 4900 30th Place NW until it was abandoned and the land sold off in 1866. Nothing of it remains above ground (Source: Wikipedia, September 2026).
• The name was a 1925 marketing decision — The land had been the Shoemaker estate, Azadia, where one-acre lots went on sale in 1903–04. Realtors Jesse H. Hedges and E. Eliot Middleton bought roughly 45 acres after the estate was settled, subdivided 111 lots and began selling them in 1925 under the new name Forest Hills; the reasoning behind the name is not documented (Source: Forest Hills Connection, September 2026).
• Three matching towers, three different ownership structures — Van Ness North, East and South were built as one complex between 1964 and 1970, but Van Ness North converted to a cooperative in 1979, Van Ness East converted to a condominium in 1980, and Van Ness South stayed rental after conversion attempts in 1980 and 1983 both failed. A co-op share, a condo unit and a lease can sit a few hundred feet apart (Source: Van Ness North, September 2026).
• The mid-century houses are a tour, not a district — The DC Preservation League documents more than 50 individually commissioned Mid-Century Modern houses here as a self-guided tour — among them the Rosenfeld House at 2900 Fessenden Street NW (Jean-Pierre Trouchaud, 1954) and architect Joseph Miller's own house at 2855 Tilden Street NW (1967) — rather than as a designated historic district (Source: DC Preservation League, DC Historic Sites, September 2026).
• A farmers market runs at the Metro entrance — The UDC Van Ness Farmers Market sets up at 4200 Connecticut Avenue NW, in front of the UDC Student Center beside the Metro station, on Saturdays in season (Source: UDC Van Ness Farmers Market, September 2026).

Getting around

The Red Line stops in the middle of the neighborhood at Van Ness–UDC, which opened on December 5, 1981, and most of the avenue towers are a short walk from the station entrance (Source: Wikipedia, September 2026). Metrobus route D70 runs the length of Connecticut Avenue NW through Forest Hills between Farragut Square and Chevy Chase Circle on the timetable effective December 14, 2025 (Source: WMATA, December 2025); other Metrobus routes on Connecticut Avenue also serve the corridor, and since WMATA has renamed its DC bus network under its Better Bus redesign it is worth checking current route names on wmata.com rather than an older listing.

Distance from the avenue decides the daily reality. From the towers, the Metro, the bus stops, the UDC campus and the shops are on foot; from the interior streets toward Rock Creek Park the walk to Connecticut Avenue is longer and uphill on the way home, and most households there drive for part of the week on Connecticut Avenue, Nebraska Avenue, Van Ness Street, Tilden Street or Broad Branch Road. Detached houses usually come with a driveway or garage, but confirm that against the plat for the specific address; tower parking is a matter of the building's deeded or rented spaces and should be read in the documents, not assumed. On-street parking on residential blocks generally falls under the District's Residential Permit Parking program, which limits how long cars without the zone permit can stay on signed blocks during posted hours, so read the signs on the actual street.

The market & what to expect

Price differences here run on a short list of things, and the list changes with the product. In the avenue towers it is the ownership structure first — a cooperative sells shares and a proprietary lease, with board approval and share-loan financing, while a condominium sells a deeded unit — and then the building: fees and what they cover, reserves, elevator and facade history, rules on renting, and whether a parking space conveys. On the interior streets it is the lot as much as the house: grade and drainage on a sloping site, the mature tree canopy, and how much of the original fabric — roof, windows, wiring, supply and drain lines, the heating and cooling plant — has been replaced. The Mid-Century Modern houses carry their own list: flat or low-pitched roofs, large glazing, and original details that are part of the value and part of the maintenance (Source: DC Preservation League, DC Historic Sites, September 2026). Zoning is set lot by lot, so check DC's zoning map for the specific address before planning an addition, since lot occupancy, setbacks and tree rules are decided by the zone rather than by the neighborhood name. Forest Hills as a whole is not a designated historic district — this guide's research found none in the DC Inventory of Historic Sites or on the National Register — so exterior work is generally a matter of DC building permits and zoning; individual properties can still be designated on their own, so confirm the status of a specific address with DC's Historic Preservation Office.

No current neighborhood-level figure for Forest Hills is published by the sources this guide relies on, so pricing here is done from comparable sales, block by block and building by building. District-wide, DC homes carried a 30-day median time on market and about five months of supply in July 2026 (Source: Bright MLS via UrbanTurf). That is a District figure, not a Forest Hills one.

For buyers, the work happens before the offer: in a tower, the association's or cooperative's budget, reserve study, rules and any underlying mortgage; on a house, an inspection scoped for its era and its slope, plus the permit record behind any addition or finished lower level. For sellers, documents carry weight — permit history, records of system replacements, and a clear answer on what parking conveys all settle questions buyers otherwise price for. Start with the buyer's guide or the seller's guide to see how Kelly runs the process, compare it with her guide to Cleveland Park across Tilden Street, or get in touch for a read on a specific address.

Why work with Kelly in Forest Hills

Kelly Balmer is a Vice President & Partner, Mollaan Babbington Group at Compass, with $130M+ sold and a Best-of-Zillow, 5.0-star record across 130+ client reviews over more than 13 years in DC, Maryland and Virginia. She works from Compass's office at 1313 14th Street NW, a direct run up Connecticut Avenue or the Red Line from Van Ness–UDC, and she has handled co-op shares, condominium units and detached houses — the three products that sit side by side in Forest Hills.

In Forest Hills that means the specifics: reading a cooperative's financials and approval process differently from a condominium's, checking what a tower listing's parking space actually is in the documents, scoping a house inspection for a sloping lot and for its decade — a 1920s colonial and a 1960s flat-roofed commission fail in different places — and pulling the permit record before you write. On the sell side it means preparing the house or unit so the condition and structure questions are answered on paper instead of discounted in an offer, and pricing against the right comparable sales rather than against a broader average that mixes tower units with detached houses.

Kelly Balmer
Vice President & Partner, Mollaan Babbington Group at Compass · Licensed in DC · MD · VA