Need DC Rowhouse Redevelopment Cost Info

[Muju Hussain]

Any DC developers here who have flipped DC rowhouses in NE DC or Petworth DC, who'd be willing to share how much they've spent on a decent flip. Most of the rowhouses in Petworth are in the high $500k range with the ARV of $800k to $900k. Even though wholesalers say the construction cost to be $120k to $150k range, they don't sound about right. I've got one estimate from a GC, and to my surprise, the estimate came in at roughly $260k for a roughly 1400SF rowhouse (above-grade and below-grade SF) ($185/SF). Obviously, the rowhouse needed a full gut job, and they were asking $550k for the property, but at that construction price, the deal wasn't making any sense especially when there was a hard money lender involved. So, I just wanted to see how much money the developers in DC are spending on redeveloping rowhouses, so I can use this estimate to run my analysis. Any insight is much appreciated. Thanks!

[Mark Cruse]

Hey, if you all feel that is good pricing then more power to you. People in my network can take any single family row house and gut and rehab for 150k to 175k. At the most if we push it to the very high end with top of the line finishes in luxury we push to 250k. I recently did a full gut in a small Deanwood  property with no basement for 70k. We recently did a beyond full gut 6 unit condo conversion for about mid 500k. We even had a variance to build a rear addition. If you acquire a row house for maybe 500k how in the hell can you profit with putting 400k in it considering the costs of the money, holding costs, vacant taxes, regular taxes, inspections and drawn out extended periods at DCRA etc? Seems like you would be under water every time.