DCRA's PIVS- good for property info

[M Marie M.]

I want to let y'all who are looking at property in the District of Columbia to take a peek at the Dept of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs' Property Information Verification System, or PIVS ( http://pivs.dcra.dc.gov/PIVS/Search.aspx ). I love it.

What does it do? Let me show you.

I'm going to use 2902 South Dakota Ave NE as an example. I honestly know nothing about this property, except it is advertised as a fixer upper.

From the search screen I put in 2902 in the St. No. box and SOUTH DAKOTA in the St. Name field and hit "Find".

One of the first things I see in red is -  ›› PIVS found Property Conditions on this property. Please see below for details.

There is something about the soil being unstable.

On the menu on the left I hit "Issued Permits". This would show me if there were any building permits in the last 2 decades or so. None here.

Maps. Nothing.

Photo. There is a photo from 2004 showing the house.

Owners. This brings up some the info I'd normally go to the tax assessment database for to see the primary owner and when hitting "Show Detail" I see if there is another owner, when it last sold (if sold after the 90s), tax rate, tax class, and owner's mailing address. I still go to the tax database to see if the owner is getting a senior citizen or homestead  discount. Senior Citizen tax benefits hint that the owner might be dead so I also check the Social Security Death Index (Ancestry.com, subscriber service).

CAMA. Gives some general physical characteristics, date built, how many rooms, ect.

Residential Cases. Now things get interesting. I see 3 cases, all for some form of neglect. One for weeds and two stating it was a vacant property in 2008 & 2009. In 2009 it was determined to be occupied.

Commercial Inspections. Nothing. If there were any city or 3rd party inspections for construction, it would be here.

Occupancy. Nothing either.

BBL. Nothing either. Matters if it is a multifamily.

Okay. I should have made this a blog post....