Best Deal on Rent: $600 For A Three-Bedroom Apartment

• December 23rd 2011

by Shilpi Paul

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In early 2011, UrbanTurf went on the hunt for the DC resident who had the sweetest deal on rent in the city. We’d been marveling at the city’s ever-increasing rents and were feeling generous, so we created a contest: convince us that you have the best rent in the city, and we’ll buy you dinner at Komi. (In hindsight, UrbanTurf realized that giving away dinner for two at one of the city’s best restaurants made little sense for a person already receiving a great deal on rent. Look for a revised contest in the new year.)

Group house living, splitting costs with a significant other and taking over a lease from a long-standing tenant with a 90’s-era rent were a few ways to get a deal, but our winner won the housing jackpot: three-bedrooms to himself for just $600 a month.

George Krebs, 23, had been bleeding money away in a two-bedroom Logan Circle apartment (coincidentally, the very same unit that our own Mark Wellborn bought last year). At $1,300 a month for one of the bedrooms, the FCC employee was eventually priced out, and began to canvass his network for potential apartment leads. With luck and hustle, he happened upon a woman with a 1,800-square-foot three-bedroom apartment in Cathedral Heights. Her family had recently inherited the unit, and Krebs was offered a bedroom for just $600 a month.

His luck soon got even better. When the move was well underway and her family had filled the apartment with electronics and furniture, the woman found out that she had gotten into a prestigious graduate program in New York City. She left right away but kept the deal with Krebs, leaving him with space and cash to spare.

While Cathedral Heights is not the first place twenty-somethings look for an apartment, the rent, combined with the fact that the building has a pool, a gym, tennis courts, a full staff of doormen, and a dedicated parking lot for residents, make it a truly unbelievable deal. Krebs admitted that he was extremely fortunate to find the apartment and said that he is being as “socially conscious” as possible by hosting regular parties for his friends.

Last we heard, Krebs was still living on the cheap, but had taken on a roommate. A commenter wondered if the attention from winning the contest might backfire. “I wonder if anyone will send this to that girl so she realizes her mistake and jacks up the rent. How would that be for a contest prize?” Sorry if that happened, George!

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/best_deal_on_rent_in_the_city_600_for_a_three-bedroom/4824.