Where Your Money Goes Furthest Per Square Foot in Fort Washington (Part 17 of 30: The Fort Washington Files)
This is Part 17 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.
Every buyer working a budget eventually asks the same question in some form. Where does the money go furthest. In this zip code that question has an actual answer, because Donnell's Bright MLS export, covering 689 Fort Washington listings tracked through September 17, 2026, records what each closed sale worked out to per above-grade square foot.
Across all 361 closed sales, the median was $265 per square foot. The subdivision numbers underneath that median run from $190 to $355, which is a spread of more than 80 percent between the two ends of the same zip code.
This post covers the low end of that range. Part 18 covers the high end. Neither one is a ranking of neighborhoods, and it is worth saying clearly up front that a low price per foot is not a discount anyone is handing out. It is usually a description of the houses.
The six lowest per-foot subdivisions in the closed data
Each line gives the number of 2026 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:
- Pinewood Hill: 7 closings, $350,000, 23 days, 1,969 square feet, $3,387, $190 per square foot
- Tantallon North: 5 closings, $730,000, 19 days, 3,330 square feet, $9,411, $226 per square foot
- South Fort Foote Village: 6 closings, $477,500, 16 days, 1,907 square feet, $5,832, $228 per square foot
- Tantallon Hills: 7 closings, $560,000, 70 days, 2,368 square feet, $6,963, $236 per square foot
- Aragona Village: 13 closings, $600,000, 16 days, 2,386 square feet, $6,892, $239 per square foot
- Tantallon on the Potomac: 25 closings, $605,000, 10 days, 2,522 square feet, $7,043, $240 per square foot
One more line belongs in the conversation even though it is a different product type. Devon Hills Condo recorded 7 closings at a median of $239,900 in a median of 11 days, at 1,144 above-grade square feet, with a median annual property tax of $2,830 and a median of $216 per square foot. A condominium carries a fee structure and a maintenance arrangement that a detached house does not, so it does not compare cleanly to the rows above it.
The one thing every low row has in common
Look at the square footage column and the pattern arrives without any interpretation.
The zip code median above-grade size across all 361 closings was 1,716 square feet. Five of the six subdivisions on that list came in above it, four of them substantially: Tantallon North at 3,330, Tantallon on the Potomac at 2,522, Aragona Village at 2,386 and Tantallon Hills at 2,368.
A house carries costs that do not scale with its size. The kitchen, the bathrooms, the roof, the mechanical systems, the driveway and the land are in the price whether the home is 1,200 square feet or 3,300. Divide those fixed elements across more feet and the per-foot number falls. That is arithmetic, not a statement about construction quality or condition.
The decade table says the same thing
Part 10 of this series sorted all 361 closed Fort Washington sales by the decade the home was built, and the result runs in the direction most people do not expect.
Homes built in the 2000s produced 17 closings at a median sale price of $675,000, the highest median of any decade, at $215 per square foot, the lowest per-foot figure of any decade. Homes built in the 1960s produced 78 closings at a median of $459,450, at $310 per square foot, the highest per-foot figure of any decade.
The newest and largest housing stock in Fort Washington delivers the cheapest feet. The older and smaller stock delivers the most expensive ones. So a low per-foot number in this zip code is usually pointing at a bigger house, and often at a newer one, rather than at a bargain.
Pinewood Hill is the lowest, and its row explains itself
Seven Pinewood Hill sales closed at a median of $350,000 in a median of 23 days, at 1,969 above-grade square feet, with a median annual property tax of $3,387 and a median of $190 per square foot. That is the lowest per-foot figure of any Fort Washington subdivision in the export.
Notice what the rest of the row is doing. The median sale price is $120,000 below the $470,000 zip code median. The median size is about 250 feet above the zip code median. The median annual tax is roughly $2,100 below the $5,485 zip code median.
More square footage and a lower total price at the same time is exactly what produces a $190 figure. The median of 23 days on market is above the zip code median of 18, and Pinewood Hill also appears in the failed-listing counts with 4. Seven closings is a small sample and should be read that way.
Tantallon North is the low per-foot row that costs the most
The second lowest per-foot figure in the list belongs to the most expensive subdivision in it.
Five Tantallon North closings recorded a median sale price of $730,000, the highest of any Fort Washington subdivision in this year's closed data, on a median of 3,330 above-grade square feet, the largest median size in the export, with a median annual property tax of $9,411, the highest neighborhood tax figure in the data.
A buyer who filters on price per square foot alone would see $226 and read it as the second best value in the zip code. A buyer who filters on total price and monthly payment would see $730,000 and a $9,411 annual tax bill and read the same house completely differently. Both readings come from the same row.
South Fort Foote Village and Aragona Village sit in between
South Fort Foote Village recorded 6 closings at a median of $477,500 in a median of 16 days, at 1,907 above-grade square feet, with a median annual property tax of $5,832 and a median of $228 per square foot. That is a total price close to the zip code median of $470,000, a size modestly above 1,716 square feet, and a pace faster than the 18-day median.
Aragona Village recorded 13 closings, the third largest subdivision sample in the zip code, at a median of $600,000 in a median of 16 days, at 2,386 above-grade square feet, with a median annual property tax of $6,892 and a median of $239 per square foot.
Aragona Village is the closest thing in this list to a large sample moving at a normal pace. Thirteen closings at 16 days is a group of buyers absorbing a $600,000 median price without a long wait, at a per-foot number well under the zip code figure.
Tantallon Hills is the pace exception
Seven Tantallon Hills sales closed at a median of $560,000 in a median of 70 days, at 2,368 above-grade square feet, with a median annual property tax of $6,963 and a median of $236 per square foot.
Seventy days is the slowest median in the closed subdivision data and it belongs to a row with a competitive per-foot number. That combination is the whole argument of this post in one line. Price per square foot did not predict how quickly these homes sold, because buyers do not qualify on price per square foot. They qualify on the total number.
Part 20 goes into what a long median time on market means for a buyer making an offer. It is a pricing and pace observation, never a judgment about the neighborhood.
What a low per-foot number is worth knowing
There is a real and useful version of this data for a buyer who wants space.
If the requirement is square footage, the low rows on this list are where the closed sales put it. Tantallon North at 3,330 feet, Tantallon on the Potomac at 2,522, Aragona Village at 2,386 and Tantallon Hills at 2,368 all delivered more above-grade space than the 1,716-foot zip code median, and all did it under the $265 median per foot.
The tradeoff shows up in two columns. The total price, which is what a lender underwrites, and the annual tax, which sits inside the monthly payment. Four of those six subdivisions carried median tax bills above the $5,485 zip code median, and three carried them above $6,800.
Why sellers should not price off this column
The failure data in this series is a warning against treating per-foot pricing as the whole job.
Across the export, 144 of the 505 Fort Washington listings that left the market without selling represent a 28.5 percent failure rate. Those failed listings were priced at $267 per square foot on original list, against $273 for the group that closed. They were not overpriced per square foot. They were larger, at a median of 1,952 above-grade square feet against 1,716 for closed sales, and they were priced at an absolute number the local buyer pool could not reach.
That is the precise trap on the low end of the per-foot table. A larger home can look reasonable per foot and still sit at a total price that too few buyers in this market can finance. At 6.95 percent on the 30-year fixed per Freddie Mac's survey for the week ending September 17, 2026, the total number is doing more of the deciding than it was a year ago, when the same survey read 6.26 percent.
Find the rows that match what you are buying
Price per square foot is a good way to compare two genuinely similar Fort Washington homes and a poor way to shop a whole zip code, because the subdivision figures here run from $190 to $355 on the same year of closings. Donnell Williams Jr. is the broker-owner of DMV Prime Properties at 12815 Old Fort Road in Fort Washington, and he built this analysis on his own market. He will put a buyer's actual budget, space requirement and payment tolerance against the closed data and show which rows are reachable and which ones only look that way. Call 301.818.0313 or email donnell@dmvprimerealty.com to start with the numbers instead of a guess.
Part 18 of The Fort Washington Files takes the other end of the table, the subdivisions where square footage cost the most, and explains why the most expensive feet are usually in the smallest houses.
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