A Million Here, A Million There

They did not give up on Bethesda. They wanted to be in Montgomery County so that someday their son Connor, now 1, could attend its well-regarded schools. Being in Bethesda would also cut down on Ed Aron's commute to Laurel.

So they bought a four-bedroom house a short drive from downtown Bethesda. It's about three times as large as the rowhouse they sold in Old Town Alexandria. Stephanie Aron said they are happy with the decision but "still shocked" at what they paid.

Jon Heimerman, a chief financial officer at a D.C. publishing company, is not shocked at what he paid. Rather, he's shocked at how little he got for it: a townhouse in Old Town Alexandria, and not even a historic one.

Heimerman moved here from Minneapolis, where he and his wife, Karen McKeon, lived in a five-bedroom house on a 3.5-acre lot in an upscale neighborhood.

They sold that house for about $1.2 million. He had no delusions that he would be able to get a replica of his Minneapolis home in this area, he said.

"But I also did not expect that whatever my money could buy in Minneapolis would be 50 percent more expensive here," Heimerman said. "Everybody kept telling us we'd see great deals and lots of opportunities since we were coming in as cash buyers. . . . But there weren't a whole lot of exciting or appealing things to choose from."

With the housing market downturn, many buyers expect more for a million now than they would have in the first half of the decade, when prices were soaring and bidding wars were common, real estate agents said.

Those heightened expectations have led to buyer hesitation as shoppers wait for falling prices to fall more.

"A luxury buyer does not have to buy a house tomorrow because they usually have a roof over their heads already," said Casey Margenau, an agent with Re/Max Distinctive in McLean. "So if they want to postpone a purchase for a year or two, it's not a big deal to them."

That has meant waning demand and then price cuts by sellers such as Jill Chodorov. She recently cut the asking price on her three-bedroom Cleveland Park condo from $1.3 million to $1.1 million.

Chodorov started what she described as a quality renovation of the condo immediately after she bought it in 2005. She said she spent $30,000 on the crown molding alone and rewired the place to include high-speed Internet. The condo, on the fourth floor of a 1920s art deco building, is one of the few units in the building with a private, heated garage.

"I felt it was priced right at $1.3 million, but the market decided otherwise," Chodorov said. "I feel it's a great value now."