Hot for Haute Rows

Townhouses on Evans Farm Drive, in a Craftmark Homes community in McLean where 64 units have sold for $1 million to $2.3 million. (Gerald Martineau -- The Washington Post)

It is the beginning of the baby boomers "coming into those years without children, coming from those big homes, and they don't see themselves downsizing to two-bedroom apartments," she said. "This is the step in between."

Kopsidas said: "Our buyer is very secure in spending $2 million on a townhouse. While a lot who are in the market place need the presentation, the presence of a larger home on a larger lot, many of our buyers have already had that experience."

Added Mark D. Gent, Craftmark's vice president in charge of its high-end division, "We have some who are trading up. In this project [Evans Farm], most are move-downs. For 20 or 30 percent, these are second and third homes. They also own homes in Florida, Long Island, Colorado. Some just come for a place to stay in the summer when they're visiting their children. It's a nice place to be in life."

One customer, Gent recalled, "said he just got tired of no privacy because everyday someone was in the back yard pruning or seeding or something."

The new million-plus townhouse buyers have already been spending in six figures "just in maintenance," Kopsidas said. "Now, they've come full circle to the point where they have people to take care of their dogs, everything from walking their dog to having someone clean up after -- a high-end pooper-scooper."

Annual property taxes alone on such townhouses are $15,000 to $20,000. But at this level, that seems to be no problem. Nor is financing, said Craftmark's Gent. About a quarter of the buyers pay cash for their townhouses. These are usually the downsizers. Those trading up, Gent said, tend to be younger and finance part of the purchase.

Fabiani may be typical of the downsizers. She sold her large single-family house in McLean for nearly $2.7 million and paid $1.6 million for her Evans Farm townhouse. For Neil Greenberg, 37, a land developer with two children and a wife who teaches at a Montessori school, moving from Avenel in Potomac to Evans Farm was almost an even swap, with each home in the $1 million range, he said.

"I really consider it an attached home as opposed to a townhouse," he said. At 5,500 square feet, "it's as big as my home was in Avenel, just a different configuration."

What's fueling the high-end townhouse market?

Said Rosemark's Pobiak: "You get quite a few people who are retired and want to stay in the area -- people who would've moved to the Carolinas or to Florida are opting to stay in the D.C. market. You've also got empty nesters that want to downsize but may entertain quite a bit, don't want to sacrifice that lifestyle, like the low maintenance and opt for these large townhouses. The demographics are certainly there."

Beyond that, he added, "obviously, land prices are driving things."

Population is increasing, land isn't, especially land close-in, where the most affluent townhouse dwellers want to live.

"You're going to see more of this," he predicted. "It seems to be a growing trend."

The newly built million-dollar townhouse is a factor in other hot urban markets such as Chicago and Boston, said Youngentob. And Craftmark's Kopsidas expects more builders to enter the high-end townhouse market here.

"Stay tuned," he said.