Category Archives: Real Estate

The other day, GM asked whether you’d be willing to live in a murder scene to save a few hundred thousand dollars. Inspired by another Georgetown listing, GM is back today to ask a different question: is Prospect Street really that bad?

The house at 3344 Prospect St. just went on sale. It’s a beautiful 4 bedroom/3 bathroom house with updated finishes throughout. And it seems well under-priced at just $1.399 million. Yes that sounds crazy to say something almost a million and a half is under-priced, but homes of its quality in other parts of Georgetown would likely sell much closer to $2 million.

And in fact the listing itself demonstrates how much it’s under-priced. The description states: “Entry level can be rented out, currently receives $2,300/month and main house receives $8,500/month.” In other words, this house produces $10,800 a month in income. Continue reading →

The former home of Viola Drath, 3206 Q St., is now for sale for $995k. It’s a stately three bed room Victorian on a beautiful street.

It’s also the scene of her murder.

As you can see from the online tour, the interior appears to have been spruced up considerably. GM heard that when the house was occupied by Drath and her fabulist husband (and likely murderer), the interior was frighteningly dark and creepy. It looks like they addressed that particular problem.

But it is still and always will be the scene of a gruesome murder. Would you buy the house, knowing that? Continue reading →

Want to be a Georgetown land-owner? Got $5,000? That’s all you need to buy a slice of Georgetown land. Emphasis on the word “slice”.

For some reason, a tiny 22 square foot lot tucked between the Sun Trust Bank and the townhouse next door is for sale for $5,000.

The zoning map is unclear whether the land is occupied by the parking lot or the town-house. Either way, it seems like you’d be buying your way into a lawsuit.

But maybe you can work something out with whoever is occupying the land and build an extremely tiny house. Or a spacious dog house. It’s up to you.

It’s been a while since GM did any deep analysis of Georgetown’s real estate market. But he’s been noticing the prices getting a little out of control recently, so he decided to see whether the stats backed up that observation. And they certainly do.

GM compared the first six months of this year to the first six months of last year (to capture to same annual cycles). And even considering that June isn’t even over yet, volume is up. Price is up too.

From January 1, 2012 to June 30, 2012, there were 94 properties sold in Georgetown. The average price was $1.39 million. But average prices for real estate, especially in Georgetown, can be easily skewed by a few extremely expensive homes. Looking instead to the far more meaningful median number, that was $1.01 million. Even more informative is that the average price per square foot was $689 (the median was only a shade lower at $670). Continue reading →

As GM let you know a couple weeks ago, two of the massive Cooke’s Row houses on Q St. just west of 30th are for sale. That includes the home at 3023 Q St. that was the residence of Henry Cooke himself, the first governor of DC.

And if you can’t pony up the $5 million it’s listed for, don’t worry. It still can be yours temporarily if you can come up with $14,000 $16,000 a month in rent.

Continue reading →

Yet another one of the landmark Cooke’s Row houses is for sale. These houses are a group of seven houses on the north side of Q St. just west of 30th St. They were built in 1868 by Henry Cooke, the first governor of the territory of DC (we were a territory briefly until Cooke’s successor, the infamous Alexander “Boss” Shepard, drove us into bankruptcy with lavish public works projects. We didn’t get home rule back until 1972).

Right now two of the homes are for sale. The first is 3023 Q St., which was occupied by Cooke himself:

These homes are quite large and exquisitely detailed in the then popular Second Empire style (although they also display some elements of Italianate style). Continue reading →