Tag: houses

I believe it was the house of this gentleman that I wanted to interview. I could be wrong. Someone on Sq 507correct me if the elderly man lives in another one of the red houses.
1700 4th is the 1st red house, detached looking, up for sale. The Redfin

According to our friends at redfin, this lovely piece of crap is up for sale for $500,000. As you see, it is a shell.
Here is what the script about it says:

APPROVED PLANS AND PERMITS EXISTS FOR THIS ONE STOREY ADDITION AND CONDO CONVERSION TO 2 BED 2.5 BATH LUXURY CONDOS. .. .STARTED CONDO REGISTRATION, PLUMBING, FOUNDATION AND BLOCKWORK TO 3RD FLOOR, INTERIOR FRAMING AND ROOFING. ONE OF PRIVATE LENDERS DIED, THE ESTATE EXECUTORS PRESSED TO CLOSE HIS ACCOUNTS, BUILDER/OWNER COULD NOT FINISH WORK; WHAT A DISTRESS. I NEED A QUICK SALE, BRING ALL OFFERS PLEASE.

First, I am sorry for your loss.
Second, Luxury…. There is nothing luxury about this, no guarantee that it would have been luxury even if a lender lived, and was just really sick.
And, third, my mind races wondering, ok, your individual, not a bank or financial institution, lender dies, what does that have to do with anything? I could understand if a part owner, part investor died that would be a problem for the other owner/investor and builder. But if my lender/ mortgage bank was to implode, go out of business, etc, then my mortgage would get sold to another lender, as it is an asset.

So let me get this straight. You buy a property at the top of the market for $405K in 2005. You screw around with it to try to turn it into two condos, mess up the windows, and throw a pop up on top, which could be incredibly ugly. The city discovers, hey, this is vacant and in 2008 starts charging you at the vacant rate and now you owe $13K in taxes, some of it looking like back taxes from 2007 too. At some point somebody necessary to this scheme passes on to the great beyond. And so you place this mess on the market, during a downturn.
Best of luck with that.
My deepest condolences to the people who have to live near this.

Up on the auction block is 1620 4th St NW. This weekend B., I.T. and I took a look at this house that is listed for $250K. I’m guessing that’s where the bank wants to start bidding. Last time it went to auction it was in the $300,000 range and didn’t get sold.
Taking a closer look at it, the interior is a mess and it was designed by crackheads. The small bathroom has wasted space near the toilet. There is very little closet space, considering there could be more, and something that could be used as storage is closed off. Then there is the wood rot around the windows (see picture) and the water damage in the back bedroom.
There were some ‘investors’ sniffing around. As a short term investment this is a no. I guess it would take $60-$100K of work, and I don’t think the average rent amount for the area, plus taxes would rake in the dough. Besides we kind of prefer owner occupiers ’round here. Not that renters are bad. We’ve had some wonderful rehabs done by owner occupiers who have up and moved due to marriage or job and are renting their places out, and those places are fine. It’s the ones where the owner approached it as a rental (or a developer as a flip) and did superficial work that are undesirable.
There are more pictures just put in “1620 4th St” as a search term in flickr and the pix I took will show up.

Thank goodness for Truxtoncircle.org or else I wouldn’t know about these things…
On Wednesday a house on 3rd Street caught on fire. Pictures of the incident are over at DCFD, who reports that the Fire Department responded to the report of there being people trapped. However, there doesn’t seem to be anything else saying if there actually were people inside.