Buyer's Market 5310 5th St. NW

Price Pick of the Week
5310 5th Street NW

Original listing price: $549,000 (Sept. 14, 2006)
Current listing price: $429,000 (June 13, 2008)
Slash rate: 22 percent
Square footage: 1,524

This three-bedroom/two-bath Petworth rowhouse has been “completely renovated with superb workmanship & quality appliances” and was recently “reduced for a quick sale!” To sweeten the deal the owner—who bought the house on March 17, 2006, for $260,000—has offered to pay $10,000 of the buyers’ closing costs. Check that against the state of affairs in April 2007, when the owner, an investor known to flip homes, rejected an offer of $495,000, according to his real estate agent Willie Parker with Coldwell Banker Residential Broker in Georgetown. “I begged the owner,” Parker says. “The property was gutted and beautiful renovated. He just got caught up in the market.” Parker says he listed properties renovated by the investor in Woodbridge and Petworth. Last year, he helped sell one project down the road from this Petworth gem, at 3925 5th Street NW. That transaction was relatively easy: The house, originally listed in June 2007 at $699,000, sat on the market for about three months and went under contract for $639,000. Aah, the good old days.

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