WASHINGTON, DC—Last week 1623 Wisconsin Ave., in upper Georgetown, traded. The 6,200-square foot, two-story retail-office building—known to legions of local college students as the place that once housed the Georgetown café—sold for $2.1 million, or $339 per square foot.

Which doesn't sound that bad until you consider that the building needs about $1.5 million in renovations. Factor that in and pricing gets a little more aggressive at roughly $580 per square foot.

Even then, the building is not as aggressively-priced as some Georgetown buildings are.

1623 Wisconsin has been vacant for about five years, and the seller, a local high-net worth family, had been undecided about what to do with the property and what kind of tenant it should have, Josh Feldman, an associate director of Marcus & Millichap's National Retail Group who listed and sold the property, tells GlobeSt.com. "But they knew they wanted it to sell at $2.2 million." And indeed, the property was under contract for a long period of time until the buyer had to be swapped out. Nevertheless the pricing stood firm.

What is it with Georgetown commercial property buyers and sellers? Buildings rarely come to market and actual trades are even more rare—Feldman is one of the top brokers for Georgetown and if he does more than a couple of transactions for a year he is content. Sometimes the properties move quickly—1623 Wisconsin sold within four months—and sometimes stay on the market for a long period of time. Sometimes a buyer will be enticed by the glamor of Georgetown, and then quickly come down to earth once it realizes that some addresses, especially on upper Wisconsin, do not attract the highest rental rates. If they can, they will pull out of a deal.

"Investors can get confused about the area because of M street," Feldman says. "There, rents could be in the $100 to $120 per square foot range. Then the investors get sticker shock because they will be around $40 to $50 per square foot on upper Wisconsin."

Indeed, a building that goes on the market could wind up being under contract more than once before it finally sells, for one or more of these reasons.

1740 Wisconsin Ave, for example, a building now back on the market with an asking price of $1.275 million, had a previous buyer pull out from the deal.

Still, none of this stops sellers from asking for the moon. Of the commercial properties in Georgetown currently listed on the market (either with a broker or by the owner) their asking price per square foot are ranging from $565 to $727 to $1,000 to $1,800.

The reasons why are simple. One, the sellers usually are in no rush to sell. Once they set a price they are willing to wait, years if they have to, for that price to materialize. Two, occasionally properties do trade for unreal prices, precisely because this is Georgetown, Feldman says. "Usually what happens is the market catches up with the seller's expectations or someone comes in who really wants to the building."