Wayne and Lea Berman, an Ogilvy superlobbyist-cum-GOP bundler and former Bush White House social secretary, sure are optimistic about D.C.’s luxury real estate market. The couple bought their 82-year-old, seven-fireplace, nine-bedroom Georgian mansion on Whitehaven Street in Burleith for $4.836 million in 2001 (although a $4 million deed of trust filed in property records suggests that the sale price might not have made up the full value of the house). Three years ago, they tried to sell it for $20 million—-quite the ask, in the teeth of a recession.

Nobody bought, and the house is now back on the market for  $13.7 million; a more modest but still ambitious price for a property assessed at $7.68 million. Tax assessments, though, don’t take into consideration the value of living two doors down from Hillary Clinton.