Buying & selling in Kensington

Kensington at a glance

Kensington is an incorporated town in Montgomery County, Maryland, just outside the Capital Beltway, where Connecticut Avenue and University Boulevard meet the old B&O Metropolitan Branch. The area was farmland until the railroad was completed across the county in 1873; a community grew where the line crossed the old Rockville–Bladensburg road, and in the early 1890s DC businessman Brainard Warner bought land and platted it as Kensington Park, naming it after a trip to London. The town incorporated in 1894 (Source: Wikipedia). Its legal limits are small — 0.50 square miles (Source: Wikipedia) — while the far larger area that shares the Kensington mailing address and ZIP 20895, including North Kensington and Rock Creek Hills, is unincorporated county land outside the town, with no town government and no town tax (Source: Wikipedia; Wikipedia). Two neighboring municipalities, Chevy Chase View and Garrett Park, are separate incorporated towns with their own tax rates, not Kensington neighborhoods (Source: Maryland Manual).

South of the tracks, the Kensington Historic District holds the town's late-19th- and early-20th-century houses, including Queen Anne examples from Warner's 1890s subdivision, on the streets he laid out (Source: Kensington Historical Society). Outside the historic core — inside and outside the town limits alike — the stock is chiefly mid-20th-century detached houses, colonials and ramblers from the county's postwar buildout, on suburban lots. The choice here is usually between an older house under county historic review, a mid-century house inside the town paying a second tax bill, and the same kind of house a few streets away in unincorporated county paying the county rate alone.

Kensington, block by block

The Kensington name covers one small town and several distinct areas around it — Chevy Chase and Bethesda have their own guides — and these are the pieces buyers ask about:

• Kensington Historic District — South of the rail line, the streets Brainard Warner platted in the 1890s as a Victorian Garden subdivision, with the late-19th-century houses that came with them. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 14, 1980 (Source: Wikipedia) and placed on the Montgomery County Master Plan for Historic Preservation in 1986 under County Code Chapter 24A, so exterior work on designated resources goes through the Montgomery County Historic Preservation Commission (Source: Kensington Historical Society).
• Howard Avenue & Antique Row — The town's commercial spine beside the station: a run of multi-dealer antique shops, a design center, an art gallery and a handful of restaurants along Howard Avenue (Source: Kensington Antique Row). The Kensington Farmers Market sets up at the historic station, 3701 Howard Avenue, on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., year-round (Source: Town of Kensington, 2026).
• Warner Circle & Carroll Place — The center of Warner's original plan, where his 1892 Queen Anne mansion, Warner Manor, built as his own retreat on the subdivision, stands across from the Noyes Library at 10237 Carroll Place, opened in 1893. The library is closed for a renovation that guts the interior to update building systems and improve the layout, and the library system's own project page carries the closure status and dated construction updates, though no reopening date is posted (Source: Montgomery County Public Libraries, Noyes Renovation Project). The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission acquired the manor in 2005 through the Legacy Open Space program, and it is now the subject of a Montgomery Parks and Kensington Historical Society rehabilitation project (Source: Kensington Historical Society).
• North Kensington — A separate, unincorporated census-designated place north of University Boulevard on both sides of Connecticut Avenue and southeast of Veirs Mill Road. It is much larger than the town itself, mostly mid-20th-century houses on suburban streets, and it is not part of the Town of Kensington: no town government, no town tax, county permits (Source: Wikipedia).
• Rock Creek Hills & South Kensington — South of the town line, toward the Beltway and Chevy Chase. Also unincorporated county land: county tax, county permits, no town bill — the county-billed rate alone, with no municipal line on the bill.
• Chevy Chase View & Garrett Park — Two separate incorporated towns that are easy to mistake for Kensington neighborhoods. Chevy Chase View, bordered on the north by the Town of Kensington and on every other side by unincorporated South Kensington, began as a special tax district and incorporated by referendum in 1993; its town office sits on Connecticut Avenue with a Kensington mailing address, but it bills its own municipal tax (Source: Maryland Manual). Garrett Park is likewise its own town with its own municipal tax line in the state rate table (Source: Maryland SDAT, FY2025–2026).

Four things locals know

A few things that shape a purchase here and rarely make the listing sheet:

• Inside the limits, the tax bill has three lines — A property inside the Town of Kensington pays the town's own municipal rate, $0.1312 per $100 of assessed value in the state's fiscal year 2025–2026 rate table (Source: Maryland SDAT, FY2025–2026), on top of the county-billed rate of $1.1521 per $100 for the July 2026 through June 2027 levy year, which combines the general county tax of $0.6706, the schools-only tax of $0.0470, the state tax of $0.1120 and $0.3225 in county district taxes (Source: Montgomery County 2026 levy year rate schedule); a property outside the town line pays the county-billed rate only. Chevy Chase View and Garrett Park bill their own separate municipal rates (Source: Maryland SDAT rate table, revised December 2025).
• The Day of the Book festival is paused for 2026 — The Kensington Day of the Book Festival, an 18-year tradition of author readings, music and food, is not being held in 2026: its founder and organizer told the town in January 2026 that she could no longer run it, and the April 26, 2026 date was dropped. The Town Council will weigh whether to take the festival over during its 2026–27 budget planning (Source: Town of Kensington, January 2026).
• The depot is the county's second-oldest station still in use — The 1891 B&O station at 3701 Howard Avenue, designed by E. Francis Baldwin in the Stick Style, still serves MARC Brunswick Line trains and is a contributing structure of the Kensington Historic District, listed on the National Register on September 14, 1980 (Source: Wikipedia). The Kensington Historical Society describes it as the second-oldest active train station in Montgomery County (Source: Kensington Historical Society).
• Recordation tax climbs above $500,000 — Montgomery County's recordation tax has been tiered since October 1, 2023 under Bill 17-23: the base rate of $2.08 per $500 and the school increment of $2.37 per $500 apply to all amounts, and a premium rate is added on top of them for the part of the price above $500,000 — Premium 1 at $2.30 per $500 from $500,000 to $600,000, then $5.75 per $500 from $600,000.01 to $750,000, $6.33 per $500 from $750,000.01 to $1,000,000, and $6.90 per $500 from $1,000,000.01 and over (Source: Montgomery County Department of Finance, Bill 17-23). Combined, the county's own worked examples put the rate at $4.45 per $500 on the first $500,000, $6.75 per $500 on the amount exceeding $500,000 up to $600,000, $10.20 per $500 up to $750,000, $10.78 per $500 up to $1,000,000 and $11.35 per $500 above $1,000,000, and the first $100,000 of consideration is exempt from recordation tax when the buyer files a principal-residence affidavit (Source: Montgomery County recordation tax examples). The county transfer tax is a separate charge whose rate varies with the value of the property (Source: Maryland Department of Legislative Services, FY2026 local tax rates).

Getting around

Kensington has commuter rail but no Metro. MARC's Brunswick Line stops at Kensington station, 3701 Howard Avenue, in the 1891 B&O depot, on its way to Union Station (Source: Wikipedia). No Metrorail station lies inside the town limits; the nearest Red Line stations are Wheaton and Grosvenor–Strathmore (Source: WMATA), and no official walk or drive distance to either is published, so check it from the specific address. Ride On, Montgomery County's bus system, runs through Kensington: Route 4 stops in Kensington on its way between the Wheaton and Silver Spring Metro stations, and Route 33 runs on Connecticut Avenue at Kensington Parkway between Glenmont station and Medical Center station (Source: Montgomery County DOT, Ride On Route 4; Ride On Route 33).

By car, the two arterials are Connecticut Avenue running north–south and University Boulevard, MD 193, running east–west, with the historic core between the rail line and those roads and the Capital Beltway just to the south. Detached houses on suburban lots generally mean driveway parking; the historic core around Howard Avenue is the one part of Kensington where you walk to shops, the station and the Saturday market. Wheaton Regional Park is adjacent — 538 acres at 2000 Shorefield Road, open sunrise to sunset year-round, with Brookside Gardens, the Brookside Nature Center, a miniature train and a carousel (Source: Montgomery Parks).

The market & what to expect

Prices here split on three lines that a listing rarely spells out: whether the house sits inside the Kensington Historic District, where exterior changes to designated resources go through county historic review; whether it sits inside the town limits, where a municipal tax is billed on top of the county bill; and the era of the house — an 1890s Queen Anne on Warner's original streets versus a mid-century colonial or rambler in North Kensington or Rock Creek Hills on a larger lot. No Kensington-level sales figure is published by an allowed source, so the closest current number is the county one below.

Across Montgomery County as a whole, the median sale price in June 2026 was $680,000, up 5.4% from June 2025, with homes taking a median 22 days to sell and 1,022 new listings for the month (Source: GCAAR via MoCoShow, June 2026). That is a county-wide figure, not a Kensington one.

For buyers, the first checks are the jurisdiction on the parcel — the Town of Kensington, unincorporated county, or one of the separate towns of Chevy Chase View and Garrett Park — and whether the house is a designated historic resource, before an inspection or an offer. Closing costs in Montgomery County include the county transfer tax and the tiered recordation tax described above, plus Maryland's state transfer tax, which carries a reduced rate for qualifying first-time Maryland buyers. For sellers, the job is pricing to the right comparison set: same side of the town line, same era, same historic status. The buyer's guide and seller's guide lay out how Kelly runs each side, and the Chevy Chase guide covers the area just across the Beltway if you are weighing both. For a read on a specific street or house, get in touch.

Why work with Kelly in Kensington

Kelly Balmer is Vice President & Partner, Mollaan Babbington Group at Compass, licensed in DC, Maryland and Virginia, with $130M+ sold over 13+ years and a 5.0 Best-of-Zillow record across 130+ reviews. Her office is at 1313 14th Street NW in DC, which matters in Kensington, where many buyers are comparing a Montgomery County suburb against DC and Chevy Chase on tax, commute and home type, and where the town line itself moves the tax bill.

In practice that means confirming before an offer whether an address is inside the Town of Kensington, in unincorporated county, or in Chevy Chase View or Garrett Park; checking whether the house is a designated historic resource and what county review that brings to exterior work; pulling comparables from the same side of the town line and the same era; and, on the sell side, documenting prior exterior work and any historic approvals before they become a contract problem. She handles every transaction personally.

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