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Nature Of Business | 9 Months Ended
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Sep. 30, 2011
Nature Of Business [Abstract] |
Nature Of Business | NOTE 1: NATURE OF BUSINESS Washington Real Estate Investment Trust ("We" or "WRIT"), a Maryland real estate investment trust, is a self-administered, self-managed equity real estate investment trust, successor to a trust organized in 1960. Our business consists of the ownership and development of income-producing real estate properties in the greater Washington metro region. We own a diversified portfolio of office buildings, medical office buildings, industrial/flex centers, multifamily buildings and retail centers. Federal Income Taxes We believe that we qualify as a real estate investment trust ("REIT") under Sections 856-860 of the Internal Revenue Code and intend to continue to qualify as such. To maintain our status as a REIT, we are required to distribute 90% of our ordinary taxable income to our shareholders. When selling properties, we have the option of (a) reinvesting the sales proceeds of properties sold, allowing for a deferral of income taxes on the sale, (b) paying out capital gains to the shareholders with no tax to WRIT or (c) treating the capital gains as having been distributed to the shareholders, paying the tax on the gain deemed distributed and allocating the tax paid as a credit to the shareholders. Generally, and subject to our ongoing qualification as a REIT, no provisions for income taxes are necessary except for taxes on undistributed REIT taxable income and taxes on the income generated by our taxable REIT subsidiaries ("TRS's"). Our TRS's are subject to corporate federal and state income tax on their taxable income at regular statutory rates. On August 5, 2011, we entered into five separate purchase and sale agreements to effectuate the sale of our entire industrial segment and two office assets for an aggregate purchase price of $350.0 million. On September 2, 2011, we closed the first three of the purchase and sale agreements, for an aggregate $235.8 million. We closed on the remaining two purchase and sale agreements subsequent to the end of the quarter. We recognized a $56.6 million gain on sale of real estate during the third quarter of 2011 in connection with the first three purchase and sale agreements. A portion of the capital gains from the sales were reinvested in replacement properties, with the remainder to be paid out to the shareholders.

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- Definition The entire disclosure for the nature of an entity's business, the major products or services it sells or provides and its principal markets, including the locations of those markets. If the entity operates in more than one business, the disclosure also indicates the relative importance of its operations in each business and the basis for the determination (for example, assets, revenues, or earnings). + References Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef -Name Statement of Position (SOP) -Publisher AICPA -Number 94-6 -Paragraph 10 -LegacyDoc This reference is SUPERSEDED by the Accounting Standards Codification effective for interim and annual periods ending after September 15, 2009. This reference is included to help users transition from the previous accounting hierarchy and will be removed from future versions of this taxonomy. Reference 2: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef -Publisher FASB -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Topic 275 -SubTopic 10 -Section 50 -Paragraph 2 -URI http://asc.fasb.org/extlink&oid=6927468&loc=d3e6003-108592 + Details
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