Deal of the Week: The One That (Just) Got Away

• January 4th 2011

by Mark Wellborn

Sometimes all it takes is a nice holiday break for a home buyer to make up their mind as to whether or not they want to put an offer in on a home. As we were writing up this week’s Deal of the Week yesterday (a nice little two-bedroom home near Eastern Market) we learned that the house had gone under contract hours earlier. It is usually our practice to start hunting for another property when this happens, but in this case, we decided to still feature it for a couple reasons.

The first is that the 1,172 square-foot property had a few attributes that we felt made it stand out as an exceptional deal, namely a 50-foot backyard and patio that we believe makes this home more valuable than the list price lets on. The second is the effect that a price reduction can have on reigniting interest in a home. Originally listed on Halloween for $514,500, the price was reduced on the last day of November by $16K, hitting the sweet spot just south of $500,000 to make it deal-worthy.

More details and photos below. For the full listing, click here.

• Address: 608 D Street SE (map)
• Price: $498,500
• Bedrooms: Two
• Bathrooms: One
• Square Footage: 1,172

Here are some monthly payment calculations based on a 20 percent down payment and a 30-year fixed rate mortgage at 4.7 percent.

• Loan Amount: $398,800
• Principal and Interest: $2,068
• Property Taxes: Approx. $371/month
• Total Monthly Payments: $2,439

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/deal_of_the_week_the_one_that_just_got_away/2800.