Kearney’s Grocery Building Sells After 40 Days in Truxton Circle

Good Deal or Not Revisited (GDoN-R) is a weekly post that reviews the settled sales data of a recent individual real estate transaction in the District of Columbia. Each post is intended as a case study and a snapshot of the real estate market at a particular moment in time. GDoN-R generally posts on Friday in the late morning.

GDoN-R has been written exclusively for PoPville since 2009 by Suzanne Des Marais. Suzanne is a practicing Realtor with Compass. Unless specifically noted, neither she nor the company that she is affiliated with represented any of the parties or were directly involved in the transaction reported below. Unless otherwise noted, the source of information is MRIS (Metropolitan Regional Information Systems), which is the local multiple listing system and/or Smartcharts by Showingtime. Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Featured Property: 90 O St NW
Legal Subdivision: Old City #2
Advertised Subdivision per Listing: Old City #2
Bedrooms: 3 Baths: 1 Parking: Street Ownership: Fee Simple
Original List Price: $850,000. List Price at Contract: $850,000.
List Date: 7/10/2017 Days on Market: 40
Settled Sales Price: $750,000.
Seller Subsidy: $0. (listing data said $100k, but spoke to listing agent who verbally confirmed it was an error)
Settlement Date: 10/05/2017
Transaction type: Standard

Original GDoN post can be seen: here.

The original listing can be seen here: here.

The original GDoN post for this property had no comments, which is unusual. Understandable, though, as it’s kind of an outlier listing. I call these “Resi-mercial” deals, which are sales that are too small for the commercial agents, and small enough for potential residential use. They tend to be listed by primarily residential agents.

These types of properties are a huge challenge to price properly. There are very few comparable settled sales and even when there are, the data for these sales might not have been entered into the residential multiple listing service. The other reason they are difficult to valuate is that the property is really worth the potential of the end use, which largely relies on lot size and zoning codes.

Because these deals often involve commercial zoning, they can be a challenge for non-investor/developers to finance. Developers often like the zoning for these buildings because it tends to be more flexible regarding height restrictions and number of units than straight residential (again, in relation to specific zoning codes and lot size). In other words, it can be complicated.

The listing agent for this transaction was Lawrence Garrison with Exit First Realty. Nancy Alert with Keller Williams Realty represented the Purchaser.