Introducing a new listing in Bethesda: First open Sunday, April 12th from 1-4. Sensational and sleek two-bedroom condominium in Sumner Village. This
is not your average unit! Wide open floor plan with verdant views and a balcony overlooking the grounds. Renovated from top-to bottom in 2012, this bright and airy unit features a wood-burning fireplace, new hardwood flooring, a new kitchen and two renovated full baths.
The unit comes with two separately deeded, covered tandem parking spaces. The Sumner Village apartments were developed between 1972-1977 and sit on a 28-acre tract of wooded land with pool and tennis courts, adjacent to the Capital Crescent Trail. The tranquil setting provides privacy along with access to numerous shops and businesses located in “The Shops at Sumner Place”.
Bethesda Chevy Chase Real Estate Stats
As of this posting (January 13, 2015) there are 196 active listings within the Bethesda Chevy Chase marketplace (zip codes 20812, 20814, 20815, 20816, 20817 & 20818). The median asking price for a single family or townhome is $1,595,000. The median days on market is 109. When you average the numbers they both go up. The average asking price for a Bethesda Chevy Chase listing is $1,749,006 and the average days on market is 134.
The least expensive house to be had currently in BCC is located at 8318 Brook Lane, listed at $550,000.
The most expensive listings share an asking price of $7,200,000 and are located at 7700 Oldchester Road and 6801 Hillmead.
Of course, we would be happy to show you any of these properties!
When Should I Lower the Price of My Home?
If you have to ask, the answer is NOW! Sellers- the local DC market remains strong. Inventory is low. If your house has been sitting for two weeks or more, lower your price. Failure to do so can result in a house that is stigmatized. Buyers see the days on market and wonder what’s wrong with your house. You could have a perfectly nice house, in great condition. Price it too high and you’ll be a disappointment to those looking to buy AND you’ll miss your target audience (assuming they can’t afford your inflated asking price).
Here’s the scary part. By the time you do get around to lowering your price, the damage may well have been done. You’ve missed out on taking advantage of the flurry of activity that occurs when a listing is new (and priced correctly). Nope, you’ve wasted that on a crowd that won’t be buying your overpriced home. You can’t get that back.
Ironically, when a house is overpriced and manages to get an offer, often it’s the best offer that house will receive. On more than one occasion I have seen sellers turn down a reasonable offer, only to accept a lower price at a later date, after their listing has languished.
Don’t be that seller!
1912 Brentwood Beauty Beckons
Cati is jealous. She’s been scoping out the only known Aladdin “Brentwood” in the District for about 4+ years now, and THE WEEKEND that it hits the market, yup, she’s out of town. Poor thing. Her trusty sidekick had to step in and take a peek.
And what a peek. This particular Brentwood was built in 1912* (according to the public records, that is). It’s one of the earliest kit homes here, and it hasn’t changed hands since 1923. Time capsule doesn’t begin to describe it. Click on the link- you’ll find pages from an Aladdin Brentwood- 1917– catalog – I don’t have access to the 1912 one just yet. It’s pretty near perfect. Certainly some modifications have been made over the last hundred years- though some of the alterations might be original? If you would like to learn more about kit houses (aka catalog houses), click here.
The pictures really do the talking. If you get a chance to take a look, it’s open this Sunday, September 28 from 1-3 pm. It’s listed with Long and Foster, though we would be happy to take you in for a look. Of course!
*April 2018 Correction: The home actually was built a few years later than the tax record claims. The now accessible historic building permit was issued on June 2, 1915. We have have to assume that the home was constructed either later that year or in 1916. – Cati
NEW: Private Green Island In The Middle Of The City
Open Sunday, August 31st, from 2-5 pm. Offered at $650,000
Top floor unit in converted Dupont Circle Mansion, 2 bedrooms, 2 full baths, 4 exposures, skylights, long balcony AND large private roof deck! Easy walk to just about everything, including 2 Metro stations.
Open Sunday, August 31st, from 2-5 pm. Offered at $650,000.
Murphy’s Law For Air Conditioners
Last Wednesday was the hottest day of the century in DC.
Okay, that might not be true, but it sure seemed that way. My AC stopped working in the afternoon, when the outside temperature read in the 90s. By the time the realization set in that it was indeed just luke warm wind coming out of the vents and that reprogramming and restarting the system wouldn’t change that fact, it was after hours. Of course.
By nightfall, we had about a million degrees in the upstairs bedrooms. Opening the windows added insult to injury because the humidity must have been close to 100 percent.
Our CAC is less than two years old and overall quite fancy; it shouldn’t have just failed on us.
Diego, the lovely tech who showed up on Thursday–after the weather had suddenly turned dry and cool–took about two seconds to diagnose the problem. The “capacitator,” a 10-dollar part that kickstarts the compressor, had blown out. Who would have known. But it’s a very common thing to happen, Diego assured me. (If you’re either very handy or willing to risk your life, you can even learn how to fix this yourself.) And of course, it always happens when you need it the least, because that’s when those air conditioner parts tend to overheat.
Truth be told, I felt grateful that it wasn’t one of those third-world power outages this time. Miserable or not, we still had ice and fans to work with! (For a really nifty list with 24 suggestions on how to survive such nights, check out the Greatist here.)
A Regal Affair In Takoma Park, The “Americus” Way In Rockville
After the recent long stretch without notable historic kit houses hitting our market area, there were a bunch in recent weeks that caught our eyes. The first one here was not a Sears product: It’s a 1925 “Regal” by the Lewis Manufacturing Company of Bay City, MI. (There’s only one other “Regal” we’re aware of, and that one can be found in Chevy Chase, DC.) Lewis had a large local sales office in DC in the early and mid-1920s and sold many of their kits to developers. The new owners would never know!
This “Regal” is right in the Takoma Park MD “downtown” area and — after just a week — already under contract. It was completely renovated, and while not so much in reverence to every kit house detail (judging from old pictures, much of those might have been lost before the contractor took over), so still respectfully and beautifully. One of the upstairs bedrooms gave way to a second full bath.
You can see the 1922 catalog page here. (For the full pdf, click on the link on the page that opens.)
A couple of other kit houses are on the market in neighborhoods that are a little further from our base:
A 1925 Sears “Conway” is on the market in Cheverly. At $440,000 and less than 2 miles from the District line, this is another nice renovation, if not a restoration, that saves one of the historic kit houses. (Photos and virtual tour courtesy of MRIS.) In the front part of the house, it retains many of the original detail, while the moderate addition adds a bright family room and some space. A lovely contrast to the more soul-less Conway addition we recently saw in Glen Echo.
In downtown Rockville, another, somewhat bigger Sears house came on the market a couple of weeks ago, a 1924 “Americus” in walking distance to the Town Center and Metro station. It’s also been expanded, though not recently, and has a fabulous backyard,. At $679,900, however, in need of some work all over and with only the one original bath, it seems priced more for the potential. You can see some pictures here. (Photos courtesy of MRIS.)
For those of you who are interested, I will post 1920s catalog images for these two houses in the next couple of days, but for now, just let us know if you want to find out more (or even see one of them).
A Toast to Real Estate
It might not seem like real estate and wine making have much in common, but in my small little world, they do! Donna Evers not only owns and operates Evers & Company Real Estate, but she also is a successful Virginia wine maker. As owner of Twin Oaks Tavern Winery in Bluemont, VA, Donna has been making wines since 2002.
Just this week I talked my 15-year-old son into accompanying me to help bottle the wine. To sum it up, Donna hired a bottling truck (for lack of a better word). Within the truck, bottles are funneled along a conveyer belt, washed, dried, filled, corked, capped and labeled. Then, a la Lucy style (imagine Lucille Ball working at the chocolate factory) the bottles get quickly placed into cases, sealed up, and carried into the old stone farm house for storage. T’is a beautiful thing!
Here are a few photos of our day at the Winery. My job was to load the bottles onto the truck and get them ready for placement on the conveyer belt. Malcolm got to carry the bottles from the driveway to the truck (the much harder job). And we both got a chance to load the bottles from the conveyer belt into cases.
If you’re looking for a fun day trip, I highly recommend a trip to Twin Oaks Tavern. Their tasting room is open most days from 12-6 (open Thursday – Monday), and there’s live music on the weekends. It’s an easy 1-hour drive from Bethesda, and even closer if you’re traveling from DC. Enjoy!
A Sweet Longing For Sun
You’d think that there should be palm trees around them when you see these homes. But no — this is DC, and there’s no such thing in our yards, at least not year-round. But we love to dream, and apparently we already did some 100 years ago. While the housing stock in DC is generally rather conservative, you can also find the traces of some quirky trends. The “Spanish” style, most popular in the 1910s and 1920s, is one of those. It was applied to homes of all sizes , from little 2-bedroom houses to mansions. Enjoy!
Where The Phone Went
The Sears “Barrington” was not a very rare or unusual model. In fact, the style was so popular in the late 1920s that several other companies, including Montgomery Wards, offered similar-looking mail-order houses. This 1930 Sears “Barrington,” however, is just like we want to see them. We have so often complained about renovations that strip those dear old homes of their charm and character, add generic additions, or “modernize” in a way that violates the style of the house.
This house, however, which just hit the market (listed with our very own office for $1,049,000 ) is an absolutely beautiful example of how it can be done right. While there is a two-story addition in the back, it’s not out of proportion to the rest of the home. The whole design was inspired by the original part of the house, even the new window moldings are crafted to match the old ones in the front.
Just as nice is the fact that much of the historic Sears mail-order detail was preserved, even some quirky things that have long disappeared from our lifestyle. Take the built-in phone booth in the entry hall, for instance. According to the 1930 Sears catalog, it was supposed to “solve the problem” of “where will we place our phone?” That probably won’t be necessary for 2014 cordless handsets, but a great touch to respect it as part of the home’s integrity.
A similarly authentic piece is the corner cabinet in the dining room that came shipped with the houses neatly packed 1,000s of pieces as well. The catalog image (below) even shows the same lead glass panes.
Kitchen and baths are new, but they, too, work with the essence of the style. It certainly can be done, but it’s not usually what we get to see! And some changes to the layout might actually be practical improvements, like an arched break-through from the hall to the kitchen. Beats carrying groceries through the living room, at least in my book.
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The main stairs still sport the unique Sears-invented plinth blocks for the lay builder. There’s no doubt about the authenticity of this one!
You can see a Virtual Tour of the whole house here. And as always, if you’d like to see this historic kit house in person, just let us know and we’ll get you in!
Do you think you live in a kit house? We’d love to hear about it: