All Forum Posts by: M Marie M.

Welcome to BP @Valeria V.. I have seen the power of good staging, though I have not used the service myself. 

With small houses, the kind I like looking at and living in, a stager puts in the kind of furnishings and decor that make it seem comfortable and not cramped.  There are professional stagers in the DMV because it's a lot of furniture to deal with for an occasional stager, if the property is empty or the current furniture is all wrong.

There were a lot of great tips about gutters and grading.

You should figure out the source of the water. It may be a $4000 fix or a $40 fix. I had/have basement problems and my main problem is having the lowest point that the water running downhill hits. Cleaning out the gutters and making sure the water ran away from the house cut down on the number of times I had water get into the basement. Sump pump and several french drains further helped. But then the exterior basement door failed during a heavy downpour.....

Part of me is wondering if a dehumidifier would help. The tenant would have to pay the electricity it uses, but it does suck up the moisture that basements seem to attract if you set it at 55-65%.

I need to sign up but I do intend to attend.

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....

@Jeremy S. I'm curious about your mother's relationship with her father who died with "a lot of money". Did he spend a lot of time at work or out on the road making money? Does she see wealth as equaling neglecting family relationships?

Anyway, don't spend too much time bothering people with information or education they aren't going to hear or even absorb. Plant the seed of an idea but don't get too bummed out if nothing takes root. Do spend time with people off line (& on-line) who you can learn from (& vis versa) and have something to teach you (and vis versa).

Welcome to BP.

It shouldn't be too hard to find a townhouse or other home with a legal basement, it just might cost you that's all.  There are tons of places with no so legal basements for rent, I call those places for "roommates", roommates with separate entrances and their own kitchen.

 Washington, DC as in District of Columbia, as opposed to the Washington DC metro area (incl. NoVa) ,is doing quite well.  Well at least west of the river (Anacostia River).

My sister in law in Silicon Valley prepaid for a full year for a place that I believe was beyond her financial means, using her mother's (my MIL) money when MIL was pulled out of the nursing home she was staying. It was in the neighborhood of 35K.

Good job. I'm glad the pastor was able to offload property and hopefully the new owner can do something useful with it.

I do like what you've done and it looks wonderful even if there isn't any great staging (the couch).

I take it you were the GC since you mention a bunch of subs. Going forward do you think you'd work with a GC or continue wrangling subs (the good the bad and indifferent) for jobs where you change the layout?