“While it is a bit of a sport in DC to argue neighborhood identity, from a real estate perspective this type of location presents a huge marketing challenge.”

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 Bright MLS, which is the local multiple listing system and/or Smartcharts by Showingtime. Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Featured Property: 18 Rhode Island Ave, NE
Legal Subdivision: Brookland
Advertised Subdivision per Listing: Brookland
Bedrooms: 4 Baths: 2.5 Parking: Concrete Driveway Ownership: Fee Simple
Original List Price: $799,900. List Price at Contract: $799,900.
List Date: 7/14/2018
Days on Market: 8
Settled Sales Price: $810,000.
Seller Subsidy: $0.
Settlement Date: 9/04/2018
Transaction type: Standard

Original GDoN post can be seen: here.

The original listing can be seen here: here.

Located 1 block into the NE quadrant, below Prospect Hill Cemetery, this large Victorian with three levels above grade, a basement, and parking, presents a bit of a quandary in terms of neighborhood identity. Although the legal subdivision is Brookland, this location is many blocks west of the large lots and single family houses generally associated with that NE neighborhood.

One block west, across North Capitol Street, is clearly identifiable as Bloomingdale. Literally across the street, to the south, from the other side of Rhode Island Avenue, is the Eckington neighborhood. The Stronghold neighborhood, per the Wikipedia entry, is just above, but has a south border of either Bryant or Franklin St NE.

While it is a bit of a sport in DC to argue neighborhood identity, from a real estate perspective this type of location presents a huge marketing challenge.

When listing a property, there are two subdivisions that may show up in the search features. One is the legal subdivision, which is populated from the tax record. Most commonly used by search engines, however, is the advertised subdivision, which is what the seller’s agent decides the neighborhood is. Note that many agents defer to the legal subdivision, which could be something ambiguous like Old City #2.

Because that advertised subdivision is how most buyers and buyer agents will find that property via either a consumer-facing site like Redfin or Realtor.com, or the multiple listing service, this identification can definitely affect how many potential buyers find that property.

Listings in these types of locations can sometimes end up being over looked, despite being very, very close to someone’s target destination. To avoid missing active listings like this if you are looking in a particular location, make sure your agent is setting up your auto alerts via a map feature and not by the subdivision names.

The listing agent for this transaction was Teresa Mueller with Compass (per disclosure above, the same brokerage the writer is affiliated with.) Michael DeAngelis, with Keller Williams Capital Properties, represented the Purchaser.