Are these H St. NE / Capitol Hill houses priced appropriately?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This one SHOULD FLY OFF THE HANDLE:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/402-G-St-NE-Washington-DC-20002/415407_zpid/

This one is still on the market, with an open house set for this weekend. It's only been 9 days, but hot houses were selling by the first weekend not that long ago. Maybe this house isn't as aggressively priced as some think, or maybe the market is cooling down. Or maybe everyone was too busy watching election drama to look at houses last week. I wonder if we'll see a price adjustment if it doesn't get any offers this weekend.

Chuckling at the bolded. If memory serves this is the same house that several DCUM posters talked up (especially in comparison to the one two blocks East that is now under contract). I guess the agent's guerilla marketing campaign wasn't that successful, huh?

Almost two weeks later, it’s still on the market. The sellers seem to be trying a strategy of holding an opening house every weekend instead of dropping the price.

Yup, just poorly priced. Once you are over 850-900, people are going to be underwhelmed by that main floor. It looks tight, the kitchen is updated but not beautiful, the entry is particularly sad... I guarantee that nearly everyone who has walked through that place has muttered "This is going for nearly a million dollars?" to their spouse or realtor.

Absolutely nothing wrong with the house. Just not a 919k house, regardless of location.

I would argue the kitchen set up is a major problem. The oven is on the opposite side of the kitchen from the fridge and the sink is awkwardly on the other side of the peninsula. Anyone who cooks would see this layout as a huge negative.

I don’t think there’s any perfect way to do a rowhouse kitchen.

Perhaps, but there’s definitely a wrong way. And this is an example of the wrong way. They completely disregarded the work triangle - sink, oven and fridge. Cooking in that kitchen will be a huge pain. Maybe even dangerous if you’re carrying hot pots of liquid to the sink from the oven with kids or pets underfoot.

look if you want a perfectly proportioned kitchen, you need the suburbs. No Hill kitchen in a victorian rowhouse is going to be spacious unless maybe the whole first floor has been gutted to be open. Even then, it’s gonna be narrow. I can’t tell exactly how this kitchen works, but personally I would accept a little awkwardness to gain counter and storage space with the island.

[Anonymous]

I live in a row house on the Hill and, even though it’s a wider house, we didn’t do an island when we renovated our kitchen. A row house kitchen needs to be exceptionally wide to look good with an island, and you still should probably only do storage, not counters, on the narrower side. Our kitchen honestly does feel spacious and well designed because it’s u-shaped rather than built around an island.

[Anonymous]

How about this one? https://www.redfin.com/DC/Washington/1231-E-St-SE-20003/home/9912076

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about this one? https://www.redfin.com/DC/Washington/1231-E-St-SE-20003/home/9912076

No, thank you. Although it’s kind of impressive how they managed to make 2400 sqft look cramped and small, at least from the curb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This one SHOULD FLY OFF THE HANDLE:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/402-G-St-NE-Washington-DC-20002/415407_zpid/

This one is still on the market, with an open house set for this weekend. It's only been 9 days, but hot houses were selling by the first weekend not that long ago. Maybe this house isn't as aggressively priced as some think, or maybe the market is cooling down. Or maybe everyone was too busy watching election drama to look at houses last week. I wonder if we'll see a price adjustment if it doesn't get any offers this weekend.

Chuckling at the bolded. If memory serves this is the same house that several DCUM posters talked up (especially in comparison to the one two blocks East that is now under contract). I guess the agent's guerilla marketing campaign wasn't that successful, huh?

Almost two weeks later, it’s still on the market. The sellers seem to be trying a strategy of holding an opening house every weekend instead of dropping the price.

Yup, just poorly priced. Once you are over 850-900, people are going to be underwhelmed by that main floor. It looks tight, the kitchen is updated but not beautiful, the entry is particularly sad... I guarantee that nearly everyone who has walked through that place has muttered "This is going for nearly a million dollars?" to their spouse or realtor.

Absolutely nothing wrong with the house. Just not a 919k house, regardless of location.

I would argue the kitchen set up is a major problem. The oven is on the opposite side of the kitchen from the fridge and the sink is awkwardly on the other side of the peninsula. Anyone who cooks would see this layout as a huge negative.

I don’t think there’s any perfect way to do a rowhouse kitchen.

Perhaps, but there’s definitely a wrong way. And this is an example of the wrong way. They completely disregarded the work triangle - sink, oven and fridge. Cooking in that kitchen will be a huge pain. Maybe even dangerous if you’re carrying hot pots of liquid to the sink from the oven with kids or pets underfoot.

look if you want a perfectly proportioned kitchen, you need the suburbs. No Hill kitchen in a victorian rowhouse is going to be spacious unless maybe the whole first floor has been gutted to be open. Even then, it’s gonna be narrow. I can’t tell exactly how this kitchen works, but personally I would accept a little awkwardness to gain counter and storage space with the island.

I think the point is they could have done something better with that space, despite it not being perfectly proportional. Which is true, but this is a fixable problem. Or the new owners could live with the awkwardness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about this one? https://www.redfin.com/DC/Washington/1231-E-St-SE-20003/home/9912076

No, thank you. Although it’s kind of impressive how they managed to make 2400 sqft look cramped and small, at least from the curb.

Why to their yellow house neighbors hate them? And will they be able to block construction the same as what they did (because you’d wreck yellow house “view” of your from yard).

[Anonymous]

The yellow house was a historically significant site (see “shotgun house”) that was rebuilt using repurposed materials from the original. The footprint is the same as the original. 1231 is a bad new build crammed in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The yellow house was a historically significant site (see “shotgun house”) that was rebuilt using repurposed materials from the original. The footprint is the same as the original. 1231 is a bad new build crammed in.

So 1231 can’t add the front addition like the yellow house? I’m put off that 1231’s front yard provides the views for the yellow house front room.

[Anonymous]

I think the developer had to set back 1231 in order to get zoning because the shotgun house takes up too much space. If the developer just had 1231 become part of the apartment/condo building it backs into, it would have been more attractive. However, that would not be as lucrative.

1231 has 1.5 bathrooms too many for its square footage, as problem with new builds in old locations

[Anonymous]

why are the gas meters for house next door facing 1231

[Anonymous]

the roofs overlap. the downspout drains on the next-door property.

there must be some serious easement issues.

as someone with a "dominant easement," i will never buy another house with any kind of easement, dominant or servient.

my neighbor and i have never agreed on anything to do with our shared 6' x 50'.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The yellow house was a historically significant site (see “shotgun house”) that was rebuilt using repurposed materials from the original. The footprint is the same as the original. 1231 is a bad new build crammed in.

So 1231 can’t add the front addition like the yellow house? I’m put off that 1231’s front yard provides the views for the yellow house front room.

1231 and 1229 (the yellow house) form a two unit condo and were built at the same time by the same developer.

[Anonymous]

Lots of rowhouses on the Hill are 20 feet (or wider). in a 20 foot wide kitchen you can have countertop (24)+space between that and island (48)+wide island (36) and still have 8 feet for a full sized table in a kitchen. And that's with a monstrous 48 between the island and countertop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of rowhouses on the Hill are 20 feet (or wider). in a 20 foot wide kitchen you can have countertop (24)+space between that and island (48)+wide island (36) and still have 8 feet for a full sized table in a kitchen. And that's with a monstrous 48 between the island and countertop.

I love 4 ft of space defined as monstrous

That said, a lot of rowhouses that are 20ft wide on the facade actually have narrower kitchens, because the kitchen is in the dogleg addition. Our house is 14 ft wide from the street, and the kitchen narrows to 11 ft! 20 ft would indeed be monstrous ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of rowhouses on the Hill are 20 feet (or wider). in a 20 foot wide kitchen you can have countertop (24)+space between that and island (48)+wide island (36) and still have 8 feet for a full sized table in a kitchen. And that's with a monstrous 48 between the island and countertop.

I love 4 ft of space defined as monstrous

That said, a lot of rowhouses that are 20ft wide on the facade actually have narrower kitchens, because the kitchen is in the dogleg addition. Our house is 14 ft wide from the street, and the kitchen narrows to 11 ft! 20 ft would indeed be monstrous ...

Anything more than 4' between island and countertop across creates usability issues. That has nothing to do with how big your kitchen is. Even if you had a 6000 square foot mcmansion this would still be true. So, yeah, that's about the maximum anyone who actually cooks would want. (Yes, if you need it wheelchair accessible then you need more, but don't be that guy who replies to point that out.)

A couple of other notes. Your house is narrow, even by Hill standards. Also, that small of a dogleg is actually no longer permitted for fire code reasons. So if you renovated/added on you'd have to fill it in.