This condo is located at 1880 Columbia Road, NW:

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The flier says:

“Bright efficiency with new kitchen at The Georgian. Beautiful hardwood floors, roof deck, extra storage. Condo fee includes all utilities. Walk to Dupont red line metro. Cats only allowed.”

You can find more info and photos here.

I’m guessing the unit itself is pretty small but it’s pretty sweet to have a roof deck. Do you think $199,500 sounds reasonable for an efficiency at this location?

Photo from PoPVille flickr user JosephLeonardo

You can talk about whatever is on your mind – quality of life issues, a beautiful tree you spotted, scuttlebutt, or any random questions/thoughts you may have. I’ll open this thread every Monday and Friday. So anything good happen to you this week?

What’d you think of the Tiger apology?

Photo from PoPville flickr user fromcaliw/love

Griffin & Murphy, LLP, is a boutique law firm in Washington, D.C. concentrating its practice in real estate law (including development, finance, leasing, zoning and condominium conversions), as well as estate planning and probate, civil litigation, and business law. The attorneys of Griffin & Murphy, LLP are licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. Griffin and Murphy, LLP was founded in 1981.

Please send any legal questions relating to real estate, rentals, buildings, renovations or other legal items to princeofpetworth (at) gmail (dot) com, each week one question will be featured. You can find previous questions featured here.

Question:

I need some help that may benefit other readers as well. I bought a condo in a small 14-unit condo building in Mount Pleasant almost 2 years ago and everything has been good except for our management company. They do not respond to requests in a timely manner and often not at all. They have been terrible about simple things like sending bank statements for the condo’s bank accounts and cashing condo fee checks – even worse they ignore serious requests about leaks and a mice issue we had a few months ago. We have complained and have sent them a series of very firm emails but there has been no change. It has gotten to the point where our condo president is fielding all complaints and requests, which is ridiculous because we are not paying her, we are paying them. We pay the company $500 a month to manage the condo. Is this a super cheap rate compared to what other readers pay to management companies to manage buildings of a similar size? And have any other readers ever had to “fire” a management company? Last would anyone suggest a good and reasonably priced company that our condo board could approach? Thanks so much for your help!

MegDC

Answer:

MegDC,

You are right that your association president should not be fielding complaint calls. You are paying the management company to field calls, respond to issues, and solve problems regarding the operation of your building. While the management company is slow to pay contractors to fix problems in the building, our guess is that they have no problem paying themselves.

Does your association have a contract with the management company? If there is no contract, you can fire them at any time. If you have a management contract in place, you will need to review it and see what it says about the “term” of the relationship, any dispute resolution process, and finally what can be done to terminate the contract. You will want to look to make sure the contract was signed by the association, because sometimes an association will “inherit” a management company from the developer and the developer may have overlooked the actual paperwork to establish a contractual relationship between the management company and the association (i.e., the contract may be with the developer and not with the association). Continues after the jump. (more…)

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In real life, hipchickindc is licensed as a real estate broker in the District of Columbia, and as a real estate salesperson in Maryland. Unless specifically noted, neither she nor the company that she is affiliated with represented any of the parties or were directly involved in the transaction reported below. Unless otherwise noted, the source of information is Metropolitan Regional Information Systems (MRIS), which is the local multiple listing system. Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Featured Properties: 1835 North Capitol St NE

Original List Price: $450,000.

List Price at Contract: $430,000.

List Date: 11/14/2009

Days on Market: 57

Settled Sales Price: $399,000.

Settlement Date: 2/12/2010

Seller Subsidy: $4000.

Bank Owned?: No

Type Of Financing: Conventional

Original GDoN Post is: here.

Recent Listing is: here.

Commenters to the original Good Deal or Not (GDoN) post were quite vocal in their objections to the busy, busy street that is North Capitol. I live a block off of North Cap on the Bloomingdale side, so I know first hand how active it is during commuting hours. Historically, prices for comparable sales located on North Capitol reflect this concession. Similar homes on east-west streets, even very close to North Capitol typically sell quite a bit higher. North Capitol also serves as a physical boundary between Bloomingdale and the NE side of Eckington. Again, very similar houses within a short distance of each other can show a significant price differential with homes on the NE side selling for less than their NW counterparts.

With all that said, I actually think that the net sales price of $395,000. was a good deal. Given that I live in and do much of my business in Bloomingdale, I often have buyer clients who specifically want to purchase a bay front brick Victorian rowhome. As prices have steadily risen in the neighborhood over the past several years, it can be a challenge for first time homebuyers to find this type of property in their price range. Over the years, I have had numerous buyers willing to live on a busy street or to make some other compromise in order to buy the kind of home that they really want at a price that they can afford. Continues after the jump. (more…)

“Dear PoP,

I work on public health policy and am seeing a trend across the nation that is especially obvious in DC. It is getting harder to find things to DO. The new development is always focused on condos, bars, and restaurants. Love to live in a home, and am a huge fan of drinking and eating . . . but people need something to do. There is this notion that going to the gym and getting on a machine or lifting heavy items with an ipod on is the only activity that people need. It is not a winning strategy for building a happy healthy society.

Look around– where are the bowling alleys, arcades with skeeball and air hockey and foosball, driving ranges, live music venues with dancing . . . etc.? Where are the racquetball courts? Nobody works 9-5 anymore . . . and when people get home at 7, there are no lights in the parks (or they are just scary). There are gyms with basketball/volleyball courts in every school in DC, but they are chained up at night. Once-a-year street fairs are nice, but having places where people can consistently go to find a band and a dancing mass is better. (Love Madam’s Organ and Wonderland for that but such places are oddly few and far between)

We need to make sure there are fun things to do in every community– things that lure people out away from their TVs and computers, that bring them together to meet each other, and use their bodies in some way besides eating and drinking. People seem to be yearning for it. Look at the popularity of H St. Country Club and Comet Ping Pong– goofy fun. Look how much people are willing to pay to bowl at that crappy place in Chinatown. How can there not be a reasonable bowling alley in a city this size? I know we can find a spot for one in the GaP. The good DC tennis courts (like Howard/Banneker) are packed all day until the dusk . . . why not put in some lights, and maybe with a pay-meter to defray the costs?”

What do you guys think – are there enough “things” to do in our neighborhoods (especially at night)?

Congrats to KR with:

U Street (Lincoln) Theatre’s latest production: “Grey Gardens: The Puppet Show”

At first I was just gonna ask when it changed names but then I realized I’d never actually visited this supermarket (3178 Mount Pleasant St NW). So was just curious – any fans out there? Is it kind of like a Murray’s? Or is it like Panam International Supermarket on 14th Street, NW?

Back in November I wondered what was going on with this great place located on 3rd Street, NW near the Anna J. Cooper Circle. I’m happy to see that some scaffolding has gone up. I can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s fixed up.

I think this one coincided with Valentine’s Day last week but it still made me chuckle.

Some folks didn’t like the last painted garage door I saw in Mt. Pleasant. What do you think about the one above from Adams Morgan?

This is definitely the coolest wreath of seen this season.

Since we judged this ultra modern new home in the Woodland-Normanstone neighborhood, I wanted to share a few other examples I encountered in the neighborhood.

From a WMATA Press release:

“Metro works with community groups to select art

The Metro Board of Directors today, Feb. 18, approved two Washington-based artists’ proposals for public art that will be installed at the Farragut West and Takoma Metrorail stations in 2011.

The artwork approved for the Takoma Metrorail station is by Washington-based artist, Sam Gilliam, who is best known nationally and internationally for his color field and abstract expressionist painting and sculpture. A large abstract mosaic tile mural designed by Gilliam will be installed in the underpass of the station entrance.

For his first public art commission, artist Michael Sirvet will create a series of low-relief, botanically-inspired aluminum and light sculptures that will be installed at the east Farragut West Metrorail station entrance at 17th and I Streets, NW. His work is currently included in numerous private collections both locally and nationally.”

We’ve previously judged Cafe Divan located at 1834 Wisconsin Ave., NW. I just noticed that they have had a grand opening of their Sea Room. Anyone know anything about this? I assume it will specialize in seafood but I didn’t see anything about it on their Web site. Anyone happen to try it out yet?

This is a pretty good looking building at 3417 Massachusetts Ave, NW. Anyone know what is housed here? What do you think of the building itself – thumbs up or down?