Comments on: Good Deal or Not? 2 Car Garage Edition

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:38:08 +0000

What are your thoughts on ROI for this area in the next 3-5 years?

By: Tom A.

Tom A. — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:06:21 +0000

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.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:54:45 +0000

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?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:59:51 +0000

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.

By: dcpublius

dcpublius — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:22:46 +0000

“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.

By: JustMe

JustMe — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:10:53 +0000

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.

By: Just J

Just J — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:24:26 +0000

It definitely has issues and you would have to do a lot of DD, but I think its a good deal

By: J.D. Hammond

J.D. Hammond — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:57:47 +0000

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.

By: non-vitrol anon

non-vitrol anon — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:42:06 +0000

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.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:55:56 +0000

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.