Yes, I like the post too. I think it's positive, considering all the negative ones that have been written to disparage the area. On another note, does anyone know what is happening on Bladensburg near J. Valentine's? The huge ugly building over there is being worked on. Half of it is actually gone. What project is this? Does anyone know of any other plans to give this part of Ward 5 a facelift?
This posting doesn't have much to do with the post, but I have been reading this blog for the past week and it has helped arouse my interest in Trinidad. My question for the blog master as well as the loyal readers, how IN THE WORLD do you all afford to live in DC? I'm sure the property taxes are painful as well as getting hammered with the 8.5% income tax. I realize its convenient, but man! If you have an income of 60K, own a home assessed at $380K, that's like almost 12% coming out of your paycheck per year.
In DC, most people who own homes assessed at 380k have incomes far in excess of 60k.
Rent for renovated rowhouses on my block hovers just north of 2k. A couple people split on of those babies, and then you can live in So/Flo on 60k a year.
I guess the answer is that if you want to be a homeowner here, you need to forego some of the hobbies or luxuries you'd like to have in exchange for living here. You will also have an outrageous tax bill that far exceeds the value of the city services you get in return. The city's property tax is not bad compared to MD/VA, but the income taxes are insane.
If you can make it work, I think this area is a good investment and I'd rather live here (although I live in the so-called SoFlo neighborhood, not Trinidad) than Columbia Heights or Petworth. And while I can say that I have a lot of quality neighbors, there are also plenty of lowlifes that litter, piss wherever, and steal if they can. But putting up with that for the time being is the tradeoff for owning a place that most likely will be in a pretty good neighborhood in 5 years or so.
The people I know use one or more of the following approaches: * They bought early (before prices jumped) * Interest only mortgages (decent option if you save and invest). * Rent part of the house. * Double income, no kids. * Trade up: buy something cheaper and after appreciation sell and buy in D.C. * Trade down: bought something in a more expensive area, often as IO, cashed out and bought in D.C. * Primary house financed via rental and you take the tax loss on the rental. * High income: some people make enough to afford it as is. * New Hybrids: there are some new mortgages combining I.O. and investment in one package, I haven't looked into this yet my rate is too low to next year.
I would strongly recommend talking to Nations Home Funding. This link has several ideas.
it's not that hard, actually. i bought a house for $235 or so in the nineties with a salary of $58k.
i spent a year and a half FOCUSED on saving for the place.
i didn't buy clothes, i didn't eat out, i brought lunch to work... basically i ate ramen and started running everyday as a hobby to keep me busy.
i saved enough, believe it or not, to just barely afford the joint (yes, a tiny rowhouse in georgetown). cashed out in 2004, for a very decent sum and here i am.
where there's a will, there's a way.
most of my friends from the burbs want to do the same thing, but don't have the discipline.
Me and 3 other ladies found out about a secret that literally rocked the block I bought on. I bought an 800 sq. ft 2br and one bath for $171,000 in December 2006. There are some others on the block too that have not sold, but if you are interested, let me know and email me at dcinquiry@hotmail.com. These are very nice and the block has come along nicely. within the time I haave owned there. If you are more interested in owning a decent piece of DC instead of who your short-term neighbors are, email me. No offense...
We bought our first house on the hill on one salary 15 years ago. Now we think every now and then about moving to the burbs (kids..schools...) but there are very few places that I would want to live outside of Capitol Hill. We've looked into places like Annapolis and Old Town Alexandria, and if you think the property taxes are bad here, check out Annapolis! For a similar assessed home the taxes are more than double what we pay in DC. Income tax isn't even that much less. I can't remember what the real estate tax was in Alex, but when you add in the add'l property taxes for cars, I think you're still not doing all that much better. Frankly, for being able to walk to my bank, store, the museums, Eastern Market, Union Station, my kids schools and my husband has a reverse commute, I kind of think DC is a bargain. But maybe I'm just saying that because we bought a long time ago. I don't think we'd be able to afford our house now if we were buying for the first time.
Thanks a lot for your feedback! Its obvious you all love your neighborhood and I appreciate the advice from thon202, arclight, 644l, and poo poo (you're my new favorite on name alone...hehehe)as well as everyone else.
I've had some experience working on houses, so I was lucky. My wife and I bought our house for about 150k under market because it was a crack house. Well, heroin house I think if you want to get technical. I literally had to clean rotten old food out of the refrigerator when I moved in.
I acted as my own general contractor and had the place gutted, new wiring and plumbing put in, new walls, etc., painted inside and moved in.
Now my wife may be getting a little anxious this year later, as I am still working on the place myself every weekend. But it's clean and safe, and when I got an appraisal last month it's all been worth it.
I realize not everyone has the ability, time or discipline to make this work, but I enjoy working with my hands.
i forgot to mention that both houses that i've purchased were pretty much .... run down. not as bad as gleb's, but i did have to do most of the improvements myself - AND, i had never really used tools at all.
thank god for the internet!
i learned to really appreciate the experience though. it's amazing to actually 'produce' something. like a real home out of a "dump".
one thing for sure, sweat equity is totally worth it!
Since it hasn't been offered previously, I'll offer another profile for DC home owner. We bought three years ago. My wife and I are both attorneys who work at large law firms. Starting salaries at large law firms are around 145k and go up 10-20k per year (if you hit your target for billable hours), so we could afford to buy. Pretty conventional, but there it is.
Does anyone know if there are any organizations working to improve the area that put on workshops about such topics? I rent in the area now and have thought recently about how reasonable it would be to attempt to buy. This would be helpful to people like myself and "Potential Trinadadian."
umm, as the fiancee of the bouncer lady on that night and the normal bouncer lady, I'd like to say the reason she got discounted was because the show was half over. I guess that's the protective fiancee in me coming out. She didn't get in by hitting on the bouncer, so don't try it ;)
I was the "bouncer-lady" for that night at the Palace, and it was a dude. He was actually really nice and patient. (So there, fiancee :-P). That show was OVER packed well before the start time and that guy, David, waited outside for over 40 minutes just to get in. So I'm happy that he actually wrote a nice review of Palace, since there were a ton of grumpy folks waiting in the 50-person-long line. But yeah, the rest of the folks got in for half price after the manager gave me the go ahead, I just let him think that he was special. ;-)
Another homeowning perspective - I purchased a row house between 16th and 17th St. just below Benning/H St. for $280 in April 07. I wanted a fixer-upper but couldn't find anything where the price/quality equation worked. For example, there was a house asking 300k on Isherwood that had holes in the roof and ceiling. A few houses in Trinidad were $250 but completely gutted (e.g., exposed electrical, no walls, etc.). With the current market, I think many people bought to fix and flip, paid too much, and are not moving on their price because they want to break even.
I'm not a lawyer, but make $120k, single, and have very low expenses (e.g., no cable, no TV, no kids, don't party much, etc.).
The take home message from all of these is that good deals exist, you just have to take the time to hunt them out. As the area gets more popular, those deals will become increasingly rare.
You can absolutely still get a modest sized house in some parts of Trinidad, or in Carver Terrace for under 250k. You might not get a big backyard, or offstreet parking, but you will a place to live and call your own. I've got a friend who will probably list his place on Queen Street near Bladensburg Road very soon, and I don't know the exact price, but I think it will be less than 250k. It's definitely a matter of exactly where you want to live.
OH MY GOODNESS bouncer lady!!! All this time I thought I was special, that we really hit it off and all ... damn, the disappointment on this end :-) Haha thanks for remembering my name, yours was definitely worthy of honor ;-) palace deserves a nice review because it's a fun place...
23 comments:
Great post and very well written.
haha good one, anonymous! :)
I like: "The Palace of Wonders is a recent addition to" - if you call at least a year and a half ago (longer?) recent...
Yes, I like the post too. I think it's positive, considering all the negative ones that have been written to disparage the area. On another note, does anyone know what is happening on Bladensburg near J. Valentine's? The huge ugly building over there is being worked on. Half of it is actually gone. What project is this? Does anyone know of any other plans to give this part of Ward 5 a facelift?
Not a half-bad review...if you ignore the "Damn these gentrifying hipsters other than me" subtext.
This posting doesn't have much to do with the post, but I have been reading this blog for the past week and it has helped arouse my interest in Trinidad. My question for the blog master as well as the loyal readers, how IN THE WORLD do you all afford to live in DC? I'm sure the property taxes are painful as well as getting hammered with the 8.5% income tax. I realize its convenient, but man! If you have an income of 60K, own a home assessed at $380K, that's like almost 12% coming out of your paycheck per year.
Break it down for me, please!
Potential Trinidadian
In DC, most people who own homes assessed at 380k have incomes far in excess of 60k.
Rent for renovated rowhouses on my block hovers just north of 2k. A couple people split on of those babies, and then you can live in So/Flo on 60k a year.
Potential Trinidadian:
I guess the answer is that if you want to be a homeowner here, you need to forego some of the hobbies or luxuries you'd like to have in exchange for living here. You will also have an outrageous tax bill that far exceeds the value of the city services you get in return. The city's property tax is not bad compared to MD/VA, but the income taxes are insane.
If you can make it work, I think this area is a good investment and I'd rather live here (although I live in the so-called SoFlo neighborhood, not Trinidad) than Columbia Heights or Petworth. And while I can say that I have a lot of quality neighbors, there are also plenty of lowlifes that litter, piss wherever, and steal if they can. But putting up with that for the time being is the tradeoff for owning a place that most likely will be in a pretty good neighborhood in 5 years or so.
The people I know use one or more of the following approaches:
* They bought early (before prices jumped)
* Interest only mortgages (decent option if you save and invest).
* Rent part of the house.
* Double income, no kids.
* Trade up: buy something cheaper and after appreciation sell and buy in D.C.
* Trade down: bought something in a more expensive area, often as IO, cashed out and bought in D.C.
* Primary house financed via rental and you take the tax loss on the rental.
* High income: some people make enough to afford it as is.
* New Hybrids: there are some new mortgages combining I.O. and investment in one package, I haven't looked into this yet my rate is too low to next year.
I would strongly recommend talking to Nations Home Funding. This link has several ideas.
http://www.nationshomefunding.com/page.php?mode=publicview&pageID=8
Arrgghh. Typo in link.
Nation's Home Funding. I'd recommend taking a serious look, run the numbers yourself, and see if it works for you.
it's not that hard, actually.
i bought a house for $235 or so in the nineties with a salary of $58k.
i spent a year and a half FOCUSED on saving for the place.
i didn't buy clothes, i didn't eat out, i brought lunch to work... basically i ate ramen and started running everyday as a hobby to keep me busy.
i saved enough, believe it or not, to just barely afford the joint (yes, a tiny rowhouse in georgetown). cashed out in 2004, for a very decent sum and here i am.
where there's a will, there's a way.
most of my friends from the burbs want to do the same thing, but don't have the discipline.
just focus and go for it!
Potential Trinidadian:
Me and 3 other ladies found out about a secret that literally rocked the block I bought on. I bought an 800 sq. ft 2br and one bath for $171,000 in December 2006. There are some others on the block too that have not sold, but if you are interested, let me know and email me at dcinquiry@hotmail.com. These are very nice and the block has come along nicely. within the time I haave owned there. If you are more interested in owning a decent piece of DC instead of who your short-term neighbors are, email me. No offense...
We bought our first house on the hill on one salary 15 years ago. Now we think every now and then about moving to the burbs (kids..schools...) but there are very few places that I would want to live outside of Capitol Hill. We've looked into places like Annapolis and Old Town Alexandria, and if you think the property taxes are bad here, check out Annapolis! For a similar assessed home the taxes are more than double what we pay in DC. Income tax isn't even that much less. I can't remember what the real estate tax was in Alex, but when you add in the add'l property taxes for cars, I think you're still not doing all that much better. Frankly, for being able to walk to my bank, store, the museums, Eastern Market, Union Station, my kids schools and my husband has a reverse commute, I kind of think DC is a bargain. But maybe I'm just saying that because we bought a long time ago. I don't think we'd be able to afford our house now if we were buying for the first time.
Thanks a lot for your feedback! Its obvious you all love your neighborhood and I appreciate the advice from thon202, arclight, 644l, and poo poo (you're my new favorite on name alone...hehehe)as well as everyone else.
Thanks again.
I've had some experience working on houses, so I was lucky. My wife and I bought our house for about 150k under market because it was a crack house. Well, heroin house I think if you want to get technical. I literally had to clean rotten old food out of the refrigerator when I moved in.
I acted as my own general contractor and had the place gutted, new wiring and plumbing put in, new walls, etc., painted inside and moved in.
Now my wife may be getting a little anxious this year later, as I am still working on the place myself every weekend. But it's clean and safe, and when I got an appraisal last month it's all been worth it.
I realize not everyone has the ability, time or discipline to make this work, but I enjoy working with my hands.
oops.
i forgot to mention that both houses that i've purchased were pretty much .... run down. not as bad as gleb's, but i did have to do most of the improvements myself - AND, i had never really used tools at all.
thank god for the internet!
i learned to really appreciate the experience though. it's amazing to actually 'produce' something. like a real home out of a "dump".
one thing for sure, sweat equity is totally worth it!
Since it hasn't been offered previously, I'll offer another profile for DC home owner. We bought three years ago. My wife and I are both attorneys who work at large law firms. Starting salaries at large law firms are around 145k and go up 10-20k per year (if you hit your target for billable hours), so we could afford to buy. Pretty conventional, but there it is.
Does anyone know if there are any organizations working to improve the area that put on workshops about such topics? I rent in the area now and have thought recently about how reasonable it would be to attempt to buy. This would be helpful to people like myself and "Potential Trinadadian."
umm, as the fiancee of the bouncer lady on that night and the normal bouncer lady, I'd like to say the reason she got discounted was because the show was half over. I guess that's the protective fiancee in me coming out. She didn't get in by hitting on the bouncer, so don't try it ;)
I was the "bouncer-lady" for that night at the Palace, and it was a dude. He was actually really nice and patient. (So there, fiancee :-P). That show was OVER packed well before the start time and that guy, David, waited outside for over 40 minutes just to get in. So I'm happy that he actually wrote a nice review of Palace, since there were a ton of grumpy folks waiting in the 50-person-long line. But yeah, the rest of the folks got in for half price after the manager gave me the go ahead, I just let him think that he was special. ;-)
Another homeowning perspective - I purchased a row house between 16th and 17th St. just below Benning/H St. for $280 in April 07. I wanted a fixer-upper but couldn't find anything where the price/quality equation worked. For example, there was a house asking 300k on Isherwood that had holes in the roof and ceiling. A few houses in Trinidad were $250 but completely gutted (e.g., exposed electrical, no walls, etc.). With the current market, I think many people bought to fix and flip, paid too much, and are not moving on their price because they want to break even.
I'm not a lawyer, but make $120k, single, and have very low expenses (e.g., no cable, no TV, no kids, don't party much, etc.).
The take home message from all of these is that good deals exist, you just have to take the time to hunt them out. As the area gets more popular, those deals will become increasingly rare.
Good luck!
You can absolutely still get a modest sized house in some parts of Trinidad, or in Carver Terrace for under 250k. You might not get a big backyard, or offstreet parking, but you will a place to live and call your own. I've got a friend who will probably list his place on Queen Street near Bladensburg Road very soon, and I don't know the exact price, but I think it will be less than 250k. It's definitely a matter of exactly where you want to live.
Wait a minute! Don't you all know the "DC Real Estate Market" is tanking?
If you wait a year, you'll be able to buy a three-bedroom on capitol hill for $100k.
I know, cause I read it on a blog! :)
OH MY GOODNESS bouncer lady!!! All this time I thought I was special, that we really hit it off and all ... damn, the disappointment on this end :-) Haha thanks for remembering my name, yours was definitely worthy of honor ;-) palace deserves a nice review because it's a fun place...
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