Quick Sale
This weekend a house near me got under contract, despite the price. Honestly, I thought $599K was too much, considering a house on the same block with a similar layout, but with a basement and a somewhat functional gas fireplace sold for about $150K less. Others who'd seen the interior of the higher priced home had said it was in move in condition and done very nicely. I saw the inside and admittedly couldn't play the IKEA/Home Depot game, but I swear one of the interior paint colors was the same as my dining room's. Ralph Lauren,
Stony Mountain, NA15.
Well I gather the Real Estate market in the circle of Truxton, is healthy. That or someone really wants to live on our street. Maybe I'll go with the second theory as Sunday was nice out, which meant the cute 5 and under set were out riding their bikes and razors. "Hey look, if you had kids they'd be playing with these kids by now." And the people with dogs chatting with the neighbors doing things in their yards. For a while it was the best advertisement. A living brochure. A clean block (cleaned earlier that day by a neighbor) with happy children, a diverse (age & race) set of friendly looking adults being all frigging neighborly, smiling, laughing. That's worth about $150K right there.
So putting your house on the market anytime soon? Somehow pick the nicest day for an open house and during the open house, convince your neighbors to make your block look like it's fricking Sesame Street. Guaranteed sale.
Labels: houses, real estate
ex-Shiloh Property under some renovation
PoP reports
here, with a hopeful picture that work is being done on this former Shiloh Baptist property. If I have the address right (1600 8th St NW?) the property was sold 12/30/2009, so if the new owner is starting now, three months later, the future is lookin' good.
Labels: development, real estate
Taxes
Let's get personal at first, then we'll get real.
In my general tradition I have finished my personal federal and DC taxes in the last week of February. I sort of did my federal taxes during the blizzard of 2010, but as always, there are forms and papers that trickle in the mail reminding me of donations and income I've completely forgotten about. But once you've done your federal taxes you can
file your DC individual taxes on-line, for free. To do so you will need your federal Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) you entered on your 2008 DC tax return (form D-40EZ, line 3 or form D-40, line 3). If you didn't file last year in DC then you can't use the on-line feature. A quick review of my taxes (I used H&R Block's software) shows that I could have donated more to charity, and put more in my retirement plan.
My biggest tax break came from real estate. I paid somewhere around 11K or 13K in mortgage interest, which knocked about 2K off in personal taxes. Maybe I can use that savings to make up for the noticeable jump in real estate taxes levied by the District.
If you haven't got your assessment, be prepared. You know that 10% cap? Yeah, forget about it. There's now a minimum tax floor, 40% of the assessed value of the home. Not even the senior citizens' are safe. I noticed they're getting hit with the same floor, so not so great news for granny. But on the plus side, it does make some problem houses have an incentive to sell.
My own feelings about it are mixed. I liked having a lower tax rate because I bought before the RE boom but at the same time the low tax was like a pair of golden shackles. The tax was a great incentive not to even think of moving. But as certain things in my life change, and I can anticipate that my housing needs may change, making the tax difference from one house to another a minor factor, frees me up to ponder living elsewhere, even if that elsewhere is down the block or off in PG.
Labels: real estate, taxes
And for a millyeon dollas this can be yours
Fooling around on Redfin I spotted a few houses east of Logan Circle going for $1 million and up. What is this
Southern California?
First is a penthouse
condo on R Street near Logan for $1.05 mil. It comes with parking and a condo fee.
Next is,
1114 P St NW, going for 1.15 mil and on the market for over 200 days, plus a month. I gather the $71K gross rental income justifies the price, for the three unit property.
There are a few more million plus places hugging the Logan Circle, but priced above them is closer to me, is
1400 5th St NW, for S1.399 mil. I gather that the idea that one could turn the three unit building into 5 units is justification for the price. However, there is no parking, it isn't next to any amenities and more work will have to go into it, as "potential" means "gut job".
Lastly, topping off at 1.45 mil is
1120 Rhode Island Ave, NW. A single family home boasting of a lot of original features. The city thinks it's worth 1.298 million, so the taxes are about $11K a year.
Labels: real estate
Death, taxes and the assessment cap
Once again I was poking around seeing what my assessed value was, not that it matters. Those of us who bought our homes before houses were too expensive, have these lovely golden handcuffs in the combo dish of the
Assessment Cap Credit, and the
Homestead Deduction. That means that people who have been in their homes a long time (and bothered to get the homestead deduction) pay a couple or several hundred dollars a year in property taxes, as opposed to newer folks who pay a thousand to several thousands a year. I say the combo of those tax credits are golden handcuffs because the low tax, is a great incentive to not move. It is a good program, in that it encourages neighborhood stability. It allows long term owners to stay in their homes despite the rise in home prices around them. Provided they bothered to get the homestead deduction in the first place. There are neighbors who I know are living in their homes but don't have the homestead deduction and are paying the full price in taxes and aren't protected by the 10% cap.
I was poking around on the Tax Office's
real estate assessment database because a few months back I got a visit (wasn't home so I called him) from the tax assessor who wanted to know if I made changes. I did, but it seems none of them really matter tax wise. Curiously, being what it is I checked out the assessments of other properties in the area. What owners are taxed at varies, depending on if they are residents or landlords, when they bought, if they are senior citizens or
low income, etc. But then I'd see an exceptionally low taxable assessment value in the 10K-20K range, for a small number of owners who bought in the aughts. Not complaining, just observing.
What I will complain about are the dead people paying low property taxes. Mainly because said dead persons are getting the
Senior Citizen Homestead Deduction, which means they are paying super low taxes, which is fine if you're old and typically on a fixed income. However, grammy dies and the kids continue to pay the low tax. This is fine for the first couple of years after a death because of probate and clearing up the estate, which I understand is no easy task. However after say 3 years, the new owners (widow/widower or kids) need to be listed and taxed appropriately. Flipping around on the database there are still a few dead people in the hood paying taxes, according to the
Social Security Death Index, which the Office of Tax and Revenue doesn't seem to bother to check.
Labels: real estate, taxes
Sibling Rivalry & Slumlording All In One
I've been debating about if I should post this bit of family business on the blog. Everyso often I might mention my sister and my nieces, one of whom is my blog icon. But so I'm not explaining the story over and over, as I have forgotten who I've told and when and how much, I'm going to try here.
Shaw has a fair amount of subsidized housing, it is the thing that keeps the neighborhood economically diverse, which is good. However, I don't believe subsidized housing is a good long term solution for individual families. At least not my family. It's fine for seniors, as we do need to care for our elderly, but for young families with developing children, no. Not long term. My sister and her husband and her daughters (my nieces) live in subsidized housing in Florida, and finally G-d has provided the means for me to get them out of there.
My sister's family live in a run down apartment complex. Earlier this year the local paper announced that the conditions were so bad that HUD was going to revoke federal funding for that and another complex. From my own visits I observed poorly maintained parking lots with tons of pot holes, and a blue tarp covering the roof that had been there for a while.
Also going on is the Real Estate troubles which have hit Florida really hard. Poking around on-line I discovered a house near my mother's house for $7,500. Yes, $7,500 for a stick structure and a little plot of land. But the stick structure needed lots of work and in inquiring about it I hooked up with a Realtor. Bob, the Realtor worked with my Mom and my sister and found us a foreclosure that was clean and in almost move in condition for well under $40K. However, I've had to destroy all my savings and investments to make it happen. So there is some good in the foreclosure crisis.
So once I get some minor repairs done (some leaks, a hole in the wall, etc), figure out how to hook up the utilities, and get her to sign the lease, I will be my sister's landlord. She and the family will move to a working/middle class and diverse neighborhood. And if she can manage not to stiff me for the rent (taxes & insurance mainly), she will be able to buy the house at a discounted price after a number of years. Which is fair since she's in charge of all the maintenance. This moves my nieces out of an area of concentrated poverty and into an environment where they can be free to run in their own yard. The yard also give my BIL a place to garden.
This is not charity, it's taking care of family and an opportunity to live out my beliefs. As a society we should take care of the least fortunate, but we should also encourage them to become strong and independent so they on an individual level can help others as well. I see independence as freedom, and everyone should be free.
I want to thank my roommate whose help has been invaluable as she drove me to the inconvenient bank and the other places I needed to get to. And I need to thank my supervisor, who let me leave work with a moment's notice to deal with this.
So I'm going to put the blog in sleep mode while I take care of my new house, so the comments are in moderated mode. I'll be back to the blog in a week or so.
Labels: housing, real estate
Housing Dirt
Yesterday I was looking at my rear kitchen wall which has some fairly new and widening cracks (ah the joys of home ownership). Because of some funky fencing, part of my wall is on my neighbor's side of the fence. So I went over to his place and took a look at the part of the wall I couldn't see from my side of the fence. While I was over on his side chatting with him I did mention some of the dirt some of the other neighbors were saying about the construction quality of his place. From what I can remember the guys said that the contractor didn't make the foundation for the addition deep enough and the addition violated the 60-40 rule.
I'm glad I mentioned it as I felt bad about warning/ telling him early on as a buyer. But really how do you which people are actually going to buy the house?
And yesterday I got an email asking about a house, that is up for sale. The email wanted to know about the neighborhood and the street and so on, but the description of the house was close enough to a house I know that more than likely has some serious structural issues. So let me say if you're thinking of buying a house on the 100-200 block of Q Street, check the roof structure. If you or your home inspector can't see the roof joists, don't buy unless you are prepared to replace the whole roof.
Labels: houses, real estate
Carter G Woodson, and a broke agency
Yesterday was a nice activity filled day. Did some gardening in the morning. In the afternoon got some dancing in at the Afro-American Civil War Memorial as part of
DCLX. Lastly there was a meetup with Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and some other local bloggers. My hearing is bad because of the background noise at the coffee shop I didn't make out all that she said.
A topic of interest was the National Park Service and parks. Park-parks, with open space and stuff. However I asked about the NPS and the Carter G. Woodson house on 9th St. The short answer was the NPS did well enough to get the money to buy the Woodson house and the adjoining houses. They don't have any money to do anything else.
Labels: government, real estate
Death and Taxes
I was going to write up properties getting the Homestead or Senior Citizen Homestead deduction with owners names that are listed in the Social Security Death Index, but that was too much work. I didn't get past 3 northern Truxton block before I got bored.
Instead I'm going to complain about the Senior Citizen Homestead deduction, two dead people and their real estate taxes. I don't get it. One dead person, who has been dead for over 5 years, but who has been dutifully paying their real estate taxes is charged less than my aunt (alive) receiving the same deduction. Both properties have the same square footage, the dead person's house doesn't have AC. Auntie does have AC, one less bedroom and has a bigger yard. However, according to the City, Auntie's house is worth $100K less than the dead person and the difference in taxable assessment is $80K. Even though being dead is worse, Auntie is blind and suffering from dementia.
I said two dead people, one is our dead tax payer. The other is my late Uncle R, husband to blind Auntie.
They are pictured here back when they were young. Sometime in the 1950s they bought a house in SE DC, and lived there. In the 1990s Uncle R died. Currently Auntie is listed as the owner and it is a logical assumption that previously the house was in Uncle R.'s name, if not both their names. Did that transfer or change in name bump up the taxable amount? Even thought my aunt has been living in the house for nearly 1/2 a century? As far as I can tell dead person in Truxton was there from the 1940s or sometime after the 1930 census.
I can't see why my demented blind widowed aunt pays more in real estate taxes than a dead person for a house worth less.
Labels: real estate, taxes
Real Estate TMI
Georgetown Metropolitan
said it best, "sort of creepy". The site is called
Block Shopper. On one level it is good to know how many hands a property that's up for sale went through since 2001. However, when it
gets down to Technology Engineer Bob Brown sells Dupont Circle house for $899,088, that's too much information. Seriously, too much.
Also (I just noticed) they STOLE, STOLE, as in not attributing or crediting, my Flickr pix. A few weeks ago I got on the case about this with the owner of one 4th Street house who used my picture of his house (and the neighboring houses) to advertise it as a rental. Hey-zeus Christie people, I don't want money but I do want to be asked or acknowledged. Yes, someone's getting a terse email.
Labels: real estate
Property Values
Well like many people I got my tax bill and my assessment. It seems that, according to the city, my house will be worth almost $10K less in 2010, compared to 2009. Oh well.
I'm not too concerned as it is not a jump but a shuffle. When I bought the house, several years ago, I've seen the city assessment of the value jump $50-$100K each year. This might be the first sign that the peak is over. It doesn't however slow the 10% increase cap, which I noticed continues to go up. I bought the house before prices in the neighborhood shot up, and it is that lower value the cap was based on. That lower value has gone up about 10%.
Looking at my neighbors assessments, and really who doesn't look at the neighbor's assessments, the increases and decreases have been minimal on my block. Minimal as in a couple hundred dollars, $1K max, if any change.
Oh for anyone planning to fight their assessment, note that the city is placing a greater value on the land, not the house (aka improvements). So it won't matter too much if the house next door is nicer. For some odd reason your land is worth $200K and your house is worth $100K. Same with the badly maintained rental up the street. See for yourself at the
DC Assessment database.
Labels: real estate, taxes
DC will auction off nuisance properties
Their own properties that is.
You've complained about them. I've complained about them. DC owned properties that do nothing but harbor rats and trash. Well it looks like they are on the auction block (HT:
Bloomingdale Blog)
Let me point out two Shaw
properties on the auction block, 1713 New Jersey Ave. NW and 1504 6th St. NW. Most of the properties are in NE, and Columbia Heights. They all look like shells. But some of them are huge looking mansions, shells of mansions but huge. They'd probably make some well endowed non-profit a nice home.
Labels: houses, real estate
214 P St NW
Broken windows, bad paint, weedy yard, just a lot of ugly. According to the DC tax database
this vacant house is a class 3 exeception, so it is paying regular taxes, and not the vacant house rate. The owner is Steward Investments in Clinton, MD and they came to possess it in 2006 for 419K.
I am not going to quibble about that value, as the
house next door is up for sale for $750K.
Labels: houses, real estate
This Could Be Yours For $199K
Looking on Redfin there are a few places in NW DC that can be had for less than $200K.
This is one. It will more than likely need work. However, it may be one of those things you can fix up while living rough. Sort of a bachelor project or something for a super handy couple.
Yet, it is interesting to see the number "1" in front of the numbers for some abodes again. Haven't seen that number starting housing prices since 2003. Don't be fooled by the 4 bedroom 3 bath claim. Houses on that side of the street are small and are usually 2 bedroom and at the most 2 bathrooms.
Labels: houses, real estate
General Real Estate post
Hey I remember that doey eyed look. That's the look of a young first time homebuyer. I used to have that look.
Meltdown, schmeltdown people are still buying in the hood if today's encounter with a young woman and her Realtor was anything to gauge anything by. The pair were walking up and down the block pointing at houses, I assume, after they looked at the one house on my side of the street that is still on the market. I was outside puttering in the yard, and we chatted for a bit. Normally I'd talk up the neighborhood a bit more, but the house they were looking at has a family renting, with one really good kid in it. If Ms. Doe Eye or anyone else were to buy it, I'm sure the family could find equal and suitable housing, but moving is such a pain.
I believe the market is slow but not dead, as the house with the loud and out there residents disappeared from the real estate listings, I gather it is under contract. We'll see in a month or so. I suspect another house on the block being fixed up will hit the market in a month or two, and maybe it might sell in the next 9 or 10 months. Maybe. Though it maybe wrong to judge a place that's on 2/3rds done, I don't think it would be a quick sell manly due to proportions and the aesthetic. IT and I took a quick peak at the place while workmen were still working. I think it reveals too much of a suburban Maryland aesthetic trying to shoehorn itself into a small DC rowhouse. The house was around 1,000 sf with 2.5 bathrooms. If you have a 1,000 sf house I think you may understand the problem of a 2.5 bathroom house. I have a 1,000 sf house and just 1.5 (would be 1.75 or 2 if I had $5,000 fall into my lap). One of the bedroom bathrooms was tiny and hard for IT to turn around in. IT is a thin man. The bedroom for this tiny bath was also quite small and maybe, just maybe could have a double bed and nothing else. More than likely it could have a twin and a dresser/ desk, or just be an office. Anyway it's still not finished, and it will be interesting to see if the builder will do anything to make it easy to imagine the space as something besides cramped.
Labels: housing, real estate
Buy a church for your new home
This place has been on the market for a while and I do wish I could find a non MRIS picture, but
1641 4th St NW is up for sale. According to a
1957 study of NorthWest 1 churches, it served as a house church. That's sort of like a storefront church, but instead of a store, worshipers used a house. Up until last year or two years ago, a small sign reading "Faith Temple" was near the door of this house.
A few years ago, I swear there were more of these little house churches around the hood. I remember years ago walking around 1st and Bates and hearing a woman preaching, well saying words loudly in a rhythm similar to preaching. That's gone now. There is a house church on the corner of 3rd and P. The building looks nice and seems to be well kept every time I pass by. I do have a pciture of that.
The Redfin ad for 1641 4th St, the former Faith Temple, says it has the original wood floors and looking at the pictures it looks like it has a lot of original stuff. I can see how the layout can serve a small number of people.
Now that I think of it, I have attended an Eastern Orthodox service in a converted rowhouse in Columbia Heights. While there I was paying more attention to the fact they had chairs, than the normal, non-churchy windows. Depending on the size of the congregation, a house can work for worship purposes and neighbors like it if worship does not require drums, electric bass and amps.
Labels: churches, neighborhood history, real estate
People check to see if you paid your taxes
I was glancing at the
2008 Tax Sale Properties and I noticed some familiar names on the list and so, not to name names, please check. Some of the amounts are small, like a few hundred dollars small, which leads me to believe that your mortgage company didn't adjust for the taxes. So check. Seriously. Check.
Why was I looking? I was looking to see what empty lots were listed. I want a garden. More realisticly, I want to fantasize about getting an empty lot via a tax sale and turing it into a garden.
Labels: real estate, taxes
Pluleeeze buy this and open my fantasy French Restaurant
Just hitting Redfin today is
1700 New Jersey Avenue for 1.2 million. It can be a restaurant, with an apartment above and outdoor seating.
So if you happen to have a million, please, please, please, please, pretty, pretty please with sugar on top buy this and open my fantasy French bistro. That or my fantasy tandoori carry out. Or a fantasy wine bar. And since we're talking about my fantasies, throw in my fantasy trophy husband while we're at it.
Yes, the picture is old, but I don't want to anger the MRIS gods.
Please buy it and open something nice. I beg you.
Labels: business, real estate
Fun with Redfin: Houses Under $200K
Seven years ago, when I started looking for a place to buy, the RE market was starting its roller coaster ride up to crazy. In the "better" neighborhoods houses didn't stay on the market very long and there were bidding wars. I was looking for fee-simple places under $125K, which was hard but not impossible. The third house I looked at, was way less than $125K and on a street I liked, so I bought it.
Fast forward, the roller coaster has gone up, and now it is heading down. Playing around with
Redfin I decided to see what was out there and lo and behold prices that start with a '1' are back. Just not a lot of them.
There are a bunch of under $175K condos over in the Petworth and Fort Totten area, if we want to limit this to NW DC. Bump the search up to $200K and a house will appear in Columbia Heights.
Expand the under $175K search to NE DC and more houses do appear in Frozen Tropics' Trinidad.
The point is that the affordable house I believe is coming back. Right now it's a handyman special or a about to be foreclosed condo. It's not luxury for cheap but something to start with.
Labels: housing, real estate
Real Estate Agents Back on Crack
I swear some Real Estate Agents are on crack. And it has been a while since I've written that phrase. I was going to ponder the minor mistakes of location listing, like listing a house that is clearly in the TC as being in Eckington. But then I spotted a LeDroit Park house listed for over 4 million dollars. 1-2-3-4 Million! Yes, it
has a huge lot, and 8 bedrooms, but great googgly-mooggly.
The days of houses in the hood selling in a matter of a few days gone. Gone with the $400,000 mortgages, no down payment loans given to unemployed. Gone, hopefully, is the army the get rich quick flippers and hysterical buyers descending on the next new thing.
We were the next new thing. The hot hip neighborhood. We were like the bright newly graduated student, full of potential and promise. In the 7 years I've been here we have come a long way, but there is still a ways to go. Still more untapped potential and promise. But it's not going to be released any time soon with the fury and near mindless abandon we experienced, until we are once again rediscovered.
Until then lets continue to add value, real value, to those who live here now. Let us improve our homes, not for some faceless unknown buyer, but for ourselves. Let us fight for usable parks and recreational facilities. Let us encourage businesses and non-profits we will actually patronize and support with our dollars and our time and our hearts, not just to heighten our property values or to have something to mention on the MLS as an amenity, but to improve our quality of life.
Labels: real estate
