NW TC houses 4Sale


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Originally uploaded by In Shaw

Mrs. Gibb’s house is no longer popping up on Redfin so that leaves me to gather that it is under contract. I hope that goes well. The house next to hers (yellow house in picture), 1628 3rd Street, is up for sale for the sweetheart price of $284,900, I wonder what’s wrong with it? It’s advertising itself as a 3 bedroom 1 bath “bayfront Victorian showing age and in need of a redo. Classic floorplan, everything painted, but orig mantels, 2 sets of pocket doors in place.”
The two 4th St NW houses that were on the market, then went off the market, are back on. This time it says that the renters were given right of first refusal. Now even though the renters can’t and don’t want to buy the houses, it’s nice (and legally required) to be asked. The prices for the rentals, still high, and I’ve been told about some ‘issues’ with one of the houses, that would need to be addressed. Knock the price down by $30- $50K as they will both eventually need work.
There is another house in the hood that I really want sold. Ok, not just sold, fixed up but owner occupied. But what can I do as a 3rd party? I’m seriously thinking of making up fliers to try to get that damned house sold, as it is becoming a nuisance.

DC is 1st time homebuyer friendly

Well, not in terms of prices, but programs. So in order to do something useful with my $50 Manolo housing rant, let me tell you of why I know DC is a great place to be a first time homeowner.

$5000 Tax Credit (pdf form)
OK, five grand is just a drop in the bucket, but I found the refund I got back for the two years after I bought my home (I didn’t pay enough in taxes to collect it in one lump sum), helpful. Besides every penny counts.

Below Market Rate Loans From The Housing Finance Agency
I was working with a councillor from the now defunct non-profit who steered me over to the DC Housing Finance office over on Florida Avenue. At the time they were offering 30 year mortgages at a rate so low, it was almost like an interest free loan. They were offering something lately but the 5.6% rate with 2 points was only good till Dec 15, 2007. The process was not without its headaches. I thought the woman administering my paperwork was slow and a bit mean. But in the end I got the loan, which will be forever called the 1st mortgage that will not be touched.

Tax Abatement
My housing councilor and my Realtor pushed the tax abatement, which in those early years made my house payment affordable. If you’re low-moderate income, you’d probably qualify. I was making what I’ll call a starter salary in my profession, so I wasn’t poor, but I wasn’t completely economically stable either, and the year before I made half of squat. So I qualified, with about $10K between me and the cutoff.
The abatement is a five year period of not paying real estate taxes. The money I saved, allowed for an emergency fix-crap fund. It seems that I could have extended the abatement if I hadn’t made $400 over the cutoff amount. So in year 6 I got hit with the full assessed amount, which was a lot, as the assessed value was 4x as much as it was when I bought it. I just got my tax bill and I praised G-d. My taxes have readjusted so it reflects what I would have been paying had I not taken the abatement. So I wasn’t punished for taking that deal. I can’t find an earlier post I made about how the RE tax system rewards long-term homeonwers who stay put AND take the Homestead Exemption. Long and short of it is, people who have owned their homes for a number of years (basically prior to the Real Estate boom) tend to pay less taxes than their neighbors who bought recently IF (big if) they have the Homestead Exemption.

There are other programs for 1st time homebuyer available to DC residents like the HPAP, but I didn’t use those, so I cannot testify to their goodness or badness. Also I think there were some real estate transaction costs that were dismissed because of my status, but I’m fuzzy on that. And there is a caveat to the loan (and/or maybe another program), in that if I sold my house within 10 years of purchase I’d have to pay the city back some of the benefits.

DC looked like a better deal when I was first looking because it has various programs like I mentioned above, that I could not find for Maryland or Virginia.

Mrs. Gibbs house up for sale

I blog this with a bit of sadness, because I’m not sure about the details. I met Mrs. Gibbs at the G2 bus stop. She is a small elderly slender woman and last I spoke with her she was caring for her husband in the home they’ve lived in since the post war period. Their house was filled with a life long and well lived. Logic tells me that time has caught up with them and so the house is up for sale.
1626 3rd St NW is being advertised as an “inherited home priced to sell.” I knew the Gibbs had children who lived out in the burbs, and I gather they have no interest in moving back into the city to live in the family home. $350K is an excellent price. If they include “stuff” in the house, that is a steal. The interior is large, it faces the quiet side of the Northwest Co-op, its right on the Georgetown/Howard bus line, and it has a rear yard big enough for a minivan. Please don’t let it go to an investor, but rather someone who wants to live here. The interior is well preserved and loved (well from what I could tell sitting in the living room), seriously, if you have an interest in trying to preserve interiors, buy this house, you will not regret it.

Info Government May Provide

During one of the usual weekend calls I have with my mother, my mom was complaining once again about her property tax. Without getting too detailed, my parents divorced but Dad’s name is still on the land, and thus, Mom says her homestead exemption is not as great as it could be. So the other day I wandered over to her Florida county tax assessor’s website, which is embarrassingly amateur looking, to see exactly how Mom’s getting taxed.
I wasn’t expecting much, maybe just an assessment pulled out of thin air. What I got blew me away. I got the usual, the assessor’s idea of property worth, the homestead exemption, the tax, and a general description of the property. In addition, there were links to vital records like my parent’s divorce judgement. Clicking around, for other properties, there were links to PDF copies of death certificates (with SS#s blacked out), quit claims, certified titles, maps, tax deeds, and building permits issued if the documents were produced in the last 10 or so years. The public information about things relating to property was linked right on the assessor’s page.
This made me wonder, could larger cities have the same sort of traditionally public information (deaths, divorces, permits, quit claims) available on line? Links to permits would be exceedingly useful. Not even the copy of a building permit, but just even the building permit number, date issued, would be very helpful. Right now I can only find permits issued in the last few months.
But I realize this is only a dream because it would mean different agencies actually working together to serve the citizenry.
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Additional: I just dug deeper with the example permit, it shows the inspection. I would kill for this depth of detail with permits issued in the city. No more trying to read tiny writing on a stair of a rickty house.

1st & Q.


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Originally uploaded by In Shaw

55 Q Street NW is up for sale but I was not entirely sure this was the same house. Why? Because the photo being shown on ZipRealty is a crappy magneta colored ugly thing from 2003. I’m encountering a lot of bad re-used photos on Ziprealty. Redfin is better. Anyway this house on the corner is going for 1/2 a milllllion dallahs, $500K.
It is a two unit building, a trend I noticed with some of the turn of the century homes that were built as investment properties. The rental units are bringing in $1340 & $1215 a month, $2555 in total. You’d need a big down payment to get the rentals to cover the price of the mortgage. People you wonder why renters get kicked out? Because their rent don’t cover the mortgage and taxes.
Sorta on the other side of the street is 1537 1st St NW at the much cheaper price of $299K. And, it has parking.

34 Q St NW 4Sale


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Originally uploaded by In Shaw

I’m not sure which house is 34 Q. Actually, I’ve been flipping through my flickr collection and trying to match up houses for sale, and I really need to take more pictures…. and do a better job of taking the addresses.
From the description, I am guessing it is a short sale as the bank has to approve the price. But what you get for your $305,000 is a 10 bedroom 3 bath, 3500 sq ft vacant building with taxes high enough to make you cry if you keep it vacant. The price is a significant reduction from the $550K it started off as back in July of 2007. And the seller is taking a big hit as it was purchased in 2006 for $685K. *wince*

1225 1st St NW for sale


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Originally uploaded by In Shaw

Okay last house for sale of the day. I will post no more till, maybe Friday or next week. Red house is for sale. Red, not vacant house, is on the market for $599,900. It is a two unit building with a paying tenant in one unit. The other unit I guess could go to the new owner or be rented out as well. But honestly, I rather have owner occupiers. Not that there is anything wrong with renters. Sometimes renters become owners.

Nother 4th St house for sale


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Originally uploaded by In Shaw

I need to find another street to hawk.
Anyway, vacant house 1721 4th St NW (the blue-gray one) is up for sale for the lovely price of $368,000. Apparently it is all historic being a two unit investment rental building, the way the developer intended it to be back in nineteen oh something. It’s also an historic mess needing some structural work done on it. Other houses on the block are assessed in the $400-500K range so you can be somewhat justified in the $100-$200K you’re going to have to sink into this thing to get it suitable for human habitation. Thankfully, this is not an HD so your rehab won’t be too costly or lengthy. Sadly, the backyard is just big enough for a lawn chair and a tiny toy-sized dog.

More houses on sale


1620-1626 4thSt
Originally uploaded by In Shaw

1620 (the tan house on the far left) and 1624 (the red painted with white trim) 4th St NW are up for sale.
1620 is a foreclosure and is the cheapest at $275,000. Now you might be thinking “Wow, $275,000 what an affordable bargain.” Well I’ve been inside. Add $60-100K in repairs because that’s what you’ll need to make it decent. If you click on the full sized picture you might be able to see on the top right window, the bricks are doing something and look like they are about to pop out. Let’s say there are issues the house has that aren’t cosmetic. But neither are those things something that need to be addressed right now, but they need to be addressed in the next few years.
I’ve been inside 1624 too and I could have sworn it had AC, so I don’t know why there is a window unit in the top window. It is going for $390K. It’s not fancy. It’s got renters in it, so it is in a livable condition, unlike 1620. It’s okay looking and I’m not really sure what justifies that price. Of course it has only been on the market for 2 weeks.
Both 1620 and 1624 4th St have backyards big enough to fit a compact car in, and nothing else. Well maybe a Mini Cooper and a deck chair. Or enough of a rear yard to send the dog out back to do the doo when you’re too cold or too busy to take him out.
Both also have a one story kitchen attached to the main part of the house. Three houses further down the block have expanded, replacing the one story part to a two story, adding more square footage and look quite nice from the alley. So that is a possibility, more so with 1620 because of its price and its need for repair.

1631 4th ST NW for sale


1629-1633 4th St
Originally uploaded by In Shaw

I had a longer post on this but accidentally closed the window and lost it all. So a summary from what I remember: Not a foreclosure but a bank short sale. House is $415K, a down payment of 20% or 83K, would possibly make it $1,990 a month. Monthly RE taxes would be $315.00. There are renters in the house now and I have no idea of what a 3 bedroom 2 bath house rents for around these here parts to know if the house is actually a decent investment.