Cheap House on 4th Street


1604-1610 4th St
Originally uploaded by In Shaw

The yellow one is 189K, per Redfin. That is cheap, and I take it the bank finally took it over as it was sitting at $350,000 for what seemed like a year and had now dropped below $200K. This baby appears priced to sell.
Here is what I know, which isn’t much. The property was owned by a guy whose name I keep messing up, starts with a ‘K’, who owns or owned several rental properties in the area. This was one. The house has a basement and similar homes have rented out the bottom part, but I don’t know if those are legal basements. It has no real front yard, and a very shady back yard. The back yard is big enough to park a Smart Car, or maybe a classic Mini Cooper. There used to be a family in the house until Mr. K encountered his financial problems.

4 thoughts on “Cheap House on 4th Street”

  1. I toured this house a couple months ago, and I’d guess that the back yard isn’t even big enough for a Smart Car because there’s a door coming up from the basement, the staircase to which comes up through the middle of the concrete. And like you said, it’s not a big yard in the first place.

    The inside of the house definitely needs some work (much of it could be DIY though), and the basement is so teeny that it would take some serious creativity to get a kitchen in there for a rental. One of the upstairs bedrooms has only a skylight, no windows. In short, we didn’t think it wasn’t worth it for the $350k, but $189k is definitely a different story.

    And thanks for reporting on all this neighborhood stuff — I really enjoy the blog!

  2. Mari I know you are a fan of well-designed small spaces so let me shill for my open house on sunday from 2-5, 203 morgan. I think it’s a cool (and small!) space and will be interested in your take. I did put a couple pics on zillow. i hope this isn’t spam. im not a realtor but I *am* selling it so feel free to delete.

  3. Maybe if you take out the fence you can showhorn a Smart Car in there.
    A long time ago I saw the basement in a house along that same row and it was like a studio apartment. Take a look at Apartment Therapy’s Small Cool Contest, particularly the teeny-tiny category and see how a basement unit could be. However, the houses are so small in total basements are just storage areas.

  4. there’s a better value over in Foxhall Village in 20007. it’s the same price but bigger and better with off street parking. the 4400 block of greenwich parkway south of Resevoir and east off Foxhall Road

    richard 446 M St nw

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