The Bed and Breakfast Fire Sale?

• June 2, 2010

by Mark Wellborn

DC Guesthouse

Either the bed and breakfast business is struggling in DC or B&B owners are recognizing that now is a good time to sell.

UrbanTurf currently counts three bed and breakfasts on the market within the city limits: The 10-bedroom Bloomingdale Inn at 2415 1st Street NW is listed for $1.3 million; the 12-bedroom Kalorama Guest House at 2850 27th Street NW is listed for $1.495 million; and the 12-bedroom DC Guesthouse at 1337 10th Street NW is for sale for $4 million. The latter two properties went on the market in the past ten days.

While it may just be a coincidence that these properties are all on the market at the same time, they represent a solid chunk of the 20 or so bed and breakfasts that operate across the city.

“I don’t necessarily think that business is bad,” Suzanne Des Marais of Urban Pace told UrbanTurf. “But the property tends to be worth more than the business, so it is not that surprising that people are trying to sell.” Despite that perspective, Des Marais, who is listing The Bloomingdale Inn, says that it has been filled to capacity lately.

The Bloomingdale Inn

The more plausible reason for the rush of boutique lodging listings could be that the owners of these properties are opportunistically hopping into the market just as the multi-family market is picking up. The three properties above are well-located and large enough to be split up into small condo projects by a savvy developer.

“Developers are buying again,” Des Marais said. “So that may be where the impetus is coming from to put them on the market.”

Of course, the obvious reason may just be the enormous return on investment that some of these properties offer: 1337 10th Street NW was purchased in 1999 for $392,000; it is now listed for ten times that amount.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/the_bed_and_breakfast_fire_sale/2127