Is this house worth $1.25m?

[Anonymous]

http://franklymls.com/DC7377469

[Anonymous]

Not with only 3 bedrooms, one of which is on the first floor. And no yard at all (but some people like that). Guess it depends on whether you have children. It looks to me like you'll be busy redoing hideous wallpaper, and the one (only one) bathroom that they showed doesn't have a door to it.

[Anonymous]

3200 square feet? Yeah, it's worth it.

[Anonymous]

lovely! I can't comment on value - don't really know the neighborhood or comparables - also, from map, looks like a bunch of apartment buildings across the way - nice or not?

[Anonymous]

3200 sq ft is only really relevant if you're going to use all the space in the way it's layed out. If you have an enormous living room and dining room, but you don't use it much, it's still a waste.

Depends on whether you plan to have a lot of large parties, or if you want more suitable space for a family. (Like bigger/better laid out) bedrooms. They didn't show the 3rd bedroom, just mentioned it's a den/bedroom on first floor. So you may find when you go look at the house that you essentially have a lot of space for entertaining, but just the huge MBR and one small one upstairs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:http://franklymls.com/DC7377469

No. Look at weird master bath, 1 bd on entry level, kitchen on level 2, 2 beds on 3rd level. The laundry room has the HVAC stuff in it. No walk in closet. If it was some one would have bought it over the last 400+ days.

[Anonymous]

Looks moderately walkable. But the huge apartment complexes are a bit of a turn off.

[Anonymous]

It sold in '07 for $1m. House prices certainly haven't going up from then to now. Even if they did renos, they'd only be able to expect a certain percentage of what was put into it. If they overpaid (which is likely if the did a ton of work to it) that's their problem--not the new buyers'.

[Anonymous]

It's been on the market for 407 days at that price, so I think we can safely say it's not worth the asking price. I don't know that it's "moderately walkable" - walk score is 69, which is pretty bad for the city. There's not a lot nearby you'd want to walk to, and no Metro.

It's interesting that they think it's gone up in value nearly 20% (almost $200,000) since July 2007. And by interesting, I mean freakin' crazy.

[Anonymous]

If you watch HGTV's "Real Estate Intervention" you'll know that Mike Aubry says that a property is worth what the market will bear, e.g. what a buyer will pay, not just what an appraiser or (worse) what a seller says it's worth. If DOM=408, then you can bet that it is not worth that in this market. Maybe in 2004-2006 at the height of the bubble, but not now. Common practice is that when you hit 100 days, you HAVE to cut the price and then every 30 days after that, until you reach a price that a buyer will pay. My guess is that these sellers have their heads in the sand and have no idea what they're doing. If they have an agent, and the agent is not recommending that they lower the price, they need a new agent. If they want to try to move the house, they need to do a bit of work, like stripping wallpaper, repainting, changing out all of the very dated gold hardware in the bathrooms and changing out the very dated window treatments and chandelier. Right now, this looks like senior citizens who are ready to downsize and since many buyers do not know how to look past the cosmetics, they need to address those.

[Anonymous]

I sure wouldn't pay that much. But given how crazy the DC market is now, I bet someone will (and then will be underwater in a couple of years when the market comes back to reality and prices drop substantially).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's been on the market for 407 days at that price, so I think we can safely say it's not worth the asking price. I don't know that it's "moderately walkable" - walk score is 69, which is pretty bad for the city. There's not a lot nearby you'd want to walk to, and no Metro.

It's interesting that they think it's gone up in value nearly 20% (almost $200,000) since July 2007. And by interesting, I mean freakin' crazy.

That was me, not based on the "walkability" score. No idea where they get that. But I've lived in the neighborhood, and if they're not lazy they can easily walk to the cathedral and all of the shops/restaurants that are there. 5 blocks or so. Hence "moderate", as you can walk to groceries, movies, etc. But not around the corner, no.

No metro, but plenty of buses nearby. I think they did some reno (like the kitchen maybe) which means they think it's worth more.

But like a PP said, they need to remove the obvious signs of it being an older persons home, cosmetically. Many people can't see past that. Or don't want to bother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think they did some reno (like the kitchen maybe) which means they think it's worth more.

But like a PP said, they need to remove the obvious signs of it being an older persons home, cosmetically. Many people can't see past that. Or don't want to bother.

PP 12:20 here again. The renovations are nice, but again, a very "old" look. While the marble (probably cararra marble) is elegant, the hardware is more traditional and gives an older feeling. More modern hardware would help to remove some of that dated feel.

Another downside is that if the window treatments are going to convey, then they need to have window treatments that other people would want otherwise, it's actually a detriment since not only would you have to put up new treatments, but you have the hassle of taking down those old, bulky window treatments and trashing them. In this case, if I were to buy the house, I would stipulate either a window treatment allowance that would allow me to replace them or a decrease in the price AND ensure that they removed the window treatments before closing.

[Anonymous]

It sold in '07 for $1m. House prices certainly haven't going up from then to now.

Actually, within in a handful of NW DC zip codes, they have been going up slightly. Where are you writing in from today?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's been on the market for 407 days at that price, so I think we can safely say it's not worth the asking price. I don't know that it's "moderately walkable" - walk score is 69, which is pretty bad for the city. There's not a lot nearby you'd want to walk to, and no Metro.

It's interesting that they think it's gone up in value nearly 20% (almost $200,000) since July 2007. And by interesting, I mean freakin' crazy.

Exactly - 407 days on the market = not worth the asking price. Maybe they put that much in renovations into the house and they're trying to break even since they haven't owned the house very long, but that's obviously not working for them.