Good Deal or Not? 2 Car Garage Edition
20 November 2009 1:00 PM | By Prince Of Petworth in Good Deal or Not?, Neighborhoods - Truxton Circle, Real Estate - Truxton Circle
This home is located at 137 P Street, NW:
The flier says:
“Great 2 Unit Semi-Detached w/ 2-Car Garage w/ Overhead door. Fully Renovated top 2 bottom w/ laminate floors, maple cabinets, granite, new appliances. One bedroom + den unit upstairs; two bedroom on main and lower level. New Sump Pump and dry basement. Separately metered. Live in one & rent other. Condo conv. process started but not finished.”
More info and photos found here.
Anyone know what they mean by Condo conv. started but not finished? How easy would it be to finish it? Does $400,900 sound reasonable?
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20 November 2009 1:06 PM | Angry Parakeet Said:
Posters on this blog will condemn it for its Pergo floors.
20 November 2009 1:19 PM | K St. Said:
What’s going on with the sale history. It was listed on Aug. 5 for $460K after it was apparently purchased on Aug. 4 for $500K. Is some one just trying to use it as a tax write off ?
20 November 2009 1:21 PM | K St. Said:
Nevermind, I need to read more carefully, it’s a foreclosure
20 November 2009 1:21 PM | Goot Lemmon Said:
Is that Formstone? If so, it actually doesn’t look half bad.
20 November 2009 1:26 PM | recent home buyer Said:
NO way this thing is worth 400k…it shouldn’t sell for more than 300k in my opinion.
20 November 2009 1:26 PM | U Said:
How is this in any way semi-detached?
20 November 2009 1:27 PM | LG Said:
You need to file and record various items (declarations and covenants, etc) and pay fees and go through process with gov’t to become a condo. They must have started and not finished.
20 November 2009 1:27 PM | LG Said:
The facade is vile. Durastone is never OK.
20 November 2009 1:55 PM | Anonymous Said:
Recently on my block there was an unfinished 2-unit rowhouse that went into foreclosure and sold to a flipper for $310k in April. He turned it back into one home, and it sold for $570k in July.
20 November 2009 2:42 PM | non-vitrol anon Said:
In addition to the declaration, etc.. Make sure it has a proper C of O. The ‘process started’ could mean we did a flip w/o pulling permits and the next person is going to go through dcra hell.
20 November 2009 2:57 PM | J.D. Hammond Said:
The facade is vile. Durastone is never OK.
Formstone is an important cultural asset to our community!
I would totally buy that house if it cost $50K less. That said, it isn’t a bad deal with the garage.
20 November 2009 3:24 PM | Just J Said:
It definitely has issues and you would have to do a lot of DD, but I think its a good deal
20 November 2009 4:10 PM | JustMe Said:
I visited this. Ignore the formstone for the moment. That is the least of its problems.
The second floor is wider than the first floor, so the first floor unit cannot fit a full bathroom. Rather, the first floor has a half-bathroom and there is a full-bathroom in the still-unfinished basement. There are a few “little things” like counters that don’t line up flush with the wall and appliances and the kitchen.
It has potential, but not at $400k. Maybe if it were $300k, you could put $50k into it to turn it into something resellable at $400k and get a return on your investment.
Also, the top unit is not a “two bedroom” unit, since you have to walk through one bedroom to get to the other. Neither are very big, nor do they have closets. This was a renovation pursued by amateurs trying to do it on the cheap, and they obviously ran out of money midway through.
20 November 2009 5:22 PM | dcpublius Said:
“new sump pump, dry basement”
Does anyone read this as problem house with history? There’s several areas in that region where basements get flooded quite frequently because of weak WASA infrastructure.
21 November 2009 10:59 AM | Anonymous Said:
At least the seller has the good sense to use Redfin to market the house, rather than a full-commission real estate agent. If ever there were an industry ripe for reform, it is the Realwhore, oops, I mean Realtor business.
21 November 2009 11:54 AM | Anonymous Said:
i dont think this block has issues with flooding.
lg, where are you from?
the big distributors in this are were Permastone and Formstone. was it called durastone elsewhere?
22 November 2009 5:06 PM | Tom A. Said:
anon, just because a property appears on the redfin website does not mean is it being marketed by them. In fact, redfin does NOT handle forclosures.
23 November 2009 10:38 AM | Anonymous Said:
What are your thoughts on ROI for this area in the next 3-5 years?