The Four Tantallons Are Four Different Markets (Part 16 of 30: The Fort Washington Files)
This is Part 16 of The Fort Washington Files from Donnell Williams Jr. and DMV Prime Properties, a thirty-part series built entirely on what 689 Fort Washington listings actually did in 2026.
Ask a buyer what they are shopping for in Fort Washington and a lot of them answer with one word. Tantallon. Ask a seller in the same area what the house is worth and the answer often arrives as a Tantallon number somebody heard at a cookout. Most people count four Tantallons. Donnell's Bright MLS export, covering 689 Fort Washington listings tracked through September 17, 2026, carries the name on five separate subdivision lines, and those five lines did not behave alike on a single measure this year.
Median sale price across them ran from $470,000 to $730,000. Median days on market ran from 8 to 70. Median above-grade size ran from 1,836 square feet to 3,330. Median annual property tax ran from $5,497 to $9,411. That is one word covering five different pricing problems.
One name, five subdivision lines
Here is every Tantallon line in the 2026 closed data, with the number of closings, the median sale price, the median days on market, the median above-grade square footage, the median annual property tax and the median price per square foot on sale price:
- Tantallon on the Potomac: 25 closings, $605,000, 10 days, 2,522 square feet, $7,043, $240 per square foot
- Tantallon North: 5 closings, $730,000, 19 days, 3,330 square feet, $9,411, $226 per square foot
- Tantallon Hills: 7 closings, $560,000, 70 days, 2,368 square feet, $6,963, $236 per square foot
- Tantallon Square: 7 closings, $499,900, 26 days, 2,092 square feet, $5,632, $280 per square foot
- Tantallon South: 7 closings, $470,000, 8 days, 1,836 square feet, $5,497, $281 per square foot
For context, all 361 closed Fort Washington sales in the export carried a median sale price of $470,000, a median of 18 days on market, a median of 1,716 above-grade square feet, a median annual property tax of $5,485 and a median of $265 per square foot.
Tantallon on the Potomac is the largest sample
Twenty-five of the 361 closed Fort Washington sales this year were in Tantallon on the Potomac, more than any other named subdivision in the zip code. Those homes closed at a median of $605,000 in a median of 10 days, at 2,522 above-grade square feet, with a median annual property tax of $7,043 and a median of $240 per square foot.
Read those five numbers together and the shape is clear. This is a larger home at a higher total price than the zip code median, moving faster than the zip code median, at a lower price per foot.
Tantallon on the Potomac also produced the most failed listings in the export, with 12. Part 15 covered that pairing in detail. The short version is that the subdivision with the most sales also had the most listings leave without selling, which is what high activity looks like in a data set rather than a comment about the place.
Tantallon North carries the highest price and the biggest houses
Five Tantallon North closings recorded a median sale price of $730,000, the highest of the five Tantallon lines, on a median of 3,330 above-grade square feet, which is the largest median size of any subdivision in the closed export.
The median annual property tax on those sales was $9,411. That is the highest neighborhood tax figure in the Fort Washington data and it sits well above the $5,485 zip code median.
The price per square foot was $226, the lowest of the five Tantallons. That is the same arithmetic Part 10 found across decades. Bigger houses carry higher total prices and lower per-foot numbers, because a kitchen, a roof, a set of mechanical systems and a lot are in the price whether the home is small or large.
Median days on market came in at 19, essentially at the zip code median of 18. Five closings is a small sample and should be read as a direction rather than a rule.
Tantallon Hills sat the longest of the five
Seven Tantallon Hills sales closed at a median of $560,000 on 2,368 above-grade square feet, with a median annual property tax of $6,963 and a median of $236 per square foot. The median days on market was 70.
Seventy days against a zip code median of 18 is the single widest gap inside the Tantallon name. It is also the slowest median of any subdivision in the closed Fort Washington data.
That is a pace and pricing observation, not a statement about the neighborhood, and the difference matters. Part 2 of this series showed what time on market does to the final number here. Among Fort Washington closings that took 61 to 90 days, 82.6 percent sold below their original list price. Past 90 days, 94.3 percent did. Homes that take longer here tend to arrive at a different number than the one they opened at.
Tantallon South was the fastest and the lowest priced
Seven Tantallon South closings recorded a median sale price of $470,000, exactly the zip code median, in a median of 8 days, at 1,836 above-grade square feet, with a median annual property tax of $5,497 and a median of $281 per square foot.
So inside a single neighborhood name, one line sold in a median of 8 days and another in a median of 70.
The mechanism is visible in the rest of the row. Tantallon South's median sale price was $260,000 below Tantallon North's and $90,000 below Tantallon Hills'. Its median tax bill was nearly $3,900 a year below Tantallon North's. The pool of buyers who can reach a $470,000 total price in this zip code is deeper than the pool that can reach $730,000, and depth of buyer pool is what shows up in the days on market column.
Tantallon Square sits in the middle of the name
Seven Tantallon Square closings came in at a median of $499,900 on 2,092 above-grade square feet, with a median annual property tax of $5,632 and a median of $280 per square foot, in a median of 26 days.
That price per foot, $280, is nearly identical to Tantallon South's $281, while the median sale price is about $30,000 higher and the median size is about 256 feet larger. Two lines with the same name and almost the same per-foot number, ending at different totals because the houses are different sizes.
Twenty-six days is above the zip code median of 18 without being anywhere near Tantallon Hills. In Part 2's table, Fort Washington sales taking 15 to 30 days sold below their original list price 42.6 percent of the time, against 13.0 percent for sales that closed inside the first week.
The tax line moves more than almost anything else
The five Tantallon lines carried median annual property taxes of $5,497, $5,632, $6,963, $7,043 and $9,411. The Fort Washington median across all 361 closings was $5,485.
For a buyer building a monthly payment, that range is not a footnote. The difference between the lowest and highest of those medians is roughly $3,900 a year, which is real money inside an escrow figure at any interest rate. With the 30-year fixed at 6.95 percent per Freddie Mac's survey for the week ending September 17, 2026, up from 6.65 percent on August 20, 2026, every fixed monthly cost is doing more work in a buyer's qualification than it was a month ago.
Property tax figures on a listing are historical and specific to that property and that assessment. Donnell is a broker rather than a tax advisor or an attorney, and buyers should confirm any recorded assessment, credit or deferred charge with the Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation or the appropriate county office before relying on it.
What this does to a seller's comparables
A Fort Washington seller who prices off "recent Tantallon sales" without specifying which line is pulling from a set whose medians range from $470,000 to $730,000 and from 1,836 to 3,330 square feet.
That is exactly the mistake the failure data in this series keeps pointing at. Across the export, 144 of the 505 Fort Washington listings that left the market without selling amount to a 28.5 percent failure rate. Those failed listings were not overpriced per square foot. On original list they were at $267 per foot against $273 for the closed group. They were bigger, at a median of 1,952 above-grade square feet against 1,716, and they were priced at an absolute number the local buyer pool could not reach.
Pulling a comparable from the wrong Tantallon line is one clean way to land at that kind of number without meaning to.
The correction is mechanical. Match the line, then match the size, then match the tax figure, then look at what the days on market column did for that specific group. Four checks, in that order, before a list price gets set.
What this does to a buyer's search
A buyer who saves a search on the word Tantallon is looking at five different total prices, five different tax bills and five different paces at once.
The useful questions are narrow ones. What does this specific line's median size look like against the square footage being shopped for. What is the recorded annual tax on this specific address. How long have comparable listings on this line actually taken, since 8 days and 70 days call for completely different offer strategies.
None of these subdivision counts are large. Five to seven closings is a small sample, and every figure here is a median from Donnell's export rather than a promise about the next sale. They are the best available read on what actually happened, which is a better starting point than one word.
Get the right comparables for your address
If a Fort Washington home is being bought or sold anywhere under the Tantallon name, the first step is knowing which line the address sits on and what that line actually did this year. Donnell Williams Jr. is the broker-owner of DMV Prime Properties at 12815 Old Fort Road in Fort Washington, and this analysis comes out of his own zip code because he works it every day. He will pull the correct comparables, put the tax and size figures next to them, and explain where a Tantallon number applies to an address and where it does not. Call 301.818.0313 or email donnell@dmvprimerealty.com.
Part 17 of The Fort Washington Files looks at where a dollar buys the most square footage in this zip code, and what a low price per foot usually reflects.
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