Sunday July 26th

414 Eisner, 20901
9604 Avenel, 20903
9517 Woodstock, 20910
5000 Druid Drive, 20895

The first open house we saw today was 414 Eisner Street, 20901. This was a split level with three bedrooms and two baths. The neighborhood seemed a lot nicer than I thought it would be just from looking on the map.

This house has a terraced, multi-level deck in the back. There is also a grassy area where kids or dogs could play. The kitchen was pretty decent, with Silestone counters, though my husband thought it was too small and noted the lack of a hood over the range. I’m a huge fan of Silestone.

The bedrooms seemed a bit small, in fact the third bedroom seems to be more of a nursery or an office size. Overall this house gives a very nice impression. We liked it, but thought the 399 pricetag was too steep for us. It’s more than I would be willing to invest in that area. When I complain about prices, there are two levels of complaint. One is that overall prices are too high. The other level is when I feel a house is mispriced for today’s market. Some of the houses I saw today had prices that I would not be willing to pay, but I recognize that someone will probably pay that price and the house will sell. In the case of this house I feel that 399 is not only too high compared to historical values, but also that they will not be getting the 399 in today’s market. I suppose a pithy way to say it would be: there are prices that I will not pay and then there are prices that I suspect nobody will pay.

The second house we saw was 9604 Avenel Road, 20903. I keep seeing listings in that immediate area that look nice in the pictures, so I wanted to check out the area. My husband thought that there was no way it could be a decent area, but I think you really have to see for yourself, it seems like things can change from block to block. This house is right off of 650 immediately south of the beltway. For some reason I thought I could continue south on 193 and hit 650, but when we got down to Piney Branch, I realized that it would take me out of the way of the house I wanted to see. My husband pointed out that if we lived here, we could get a tattoo any time we felt like it. Ho ho ho.

The neighborhood of 9604 Avenel was not awful. Many houses are well-kept but the neighborhood is barely hanging on to respectability. The house directly across from 9604 Avenel had an extra car bumper laying in the driveway and another car parked directly on the front lawn. There’s an issue with parking in the neighborhood, most houses don’t have a driveway and people park on both sides of the street.

This house was nicely renovated. Well, I would say that in the sense that overall it had a good effect though my husband pointed out some crappy spots in the flooring and baseboards, it obviously was not a professional job. I really liked the kitchen, in fact I would hold it up as almost my ideal kitchen. It was newly renovated, had a huge refrigerator, and could be closed off to the rest of the house. This “open kitchen” stuff is not for us. My husband says that no “real cook” wants an open kitchen. Who knows, maybe there are some real cooks that enjoy having their whole house smell like blackened salmon, or sautéed onions. But for the way we live there is absolutely no point to an open kitchen. Actually, "real cooks" aside, I think the open kitchen thing is for people with small kids that they want to keep an eye on, or for people who do a lot of informal entertaining. The kitchen was not huge but it was big enough for anything my husband would want to do in there. This is a typical size for the ranch houses we've been looking at lately and was similar to the kitchen I liked last week. I do the cleaning so I don’t need my husband messing up some huge “country kitchen” type of thing.

The upstairs part of the house had everything you’d need, three bedrooms with decent closets, a small room off the kitchen that could be used as a dining room/pantry type of thing, a coat closet and a fireplace. There was oddness about the enclosed porch in the front, which seemed like it would make a better storage area than porch. My husband loved the downstairs. There is a big family room area, tons of storage, a nice bathroom, and three separate rooms that could be used as storage, or a study, or whatever.

The owner is an agent, he bought the house as a foreclosure and fixed it up. We wished him the best of luck. I think that what this guy is doing is adding value and helping clear the market. It’s also helping the neighborhood. The asking price is 319 which probably reflects a reasonable profit from the foreclosure price and renovation costs but nothing too spectacular. I think this house will move fast and someone will really enjoy it.

As we made our way out of the immediate neighborhood, a street was blocked by someone sitting in a car having a conversation with a woman standing in the street. I felt like I was in Philly again.

So, we headed back towards our rented corner of Montgomery County on the beltway, and got off at 97 just to drive around our favorite neighborhood of Forest Glen. We talked about how much we liked that particular area and we think it might be worth it to hold out for that rather than some of these edge-ish neighborhoods. While driving around we went through the EYA renovation of the Forest Glen preserve and saw an open house sign. We stopped in at 9517 Woodstock Court, 20910 and beheld our dream house. This house was moved from, I don’t know, somewhere, and renovated. The original wood moldings and trim is just amazing and the renovation is fantastic. The way the house is situated seems ideal. The style is called "four square" or so I read on the handout. It seems to be an Arts & Crafts style and the details such as light fixtures, reflects that. My husband noted that the quality of the wood in the trim and moldings was such that you probably wouldn't be able to buy it today, you'd have to reclaim it from somewhere. The lower level is all new, with a family room, wine fridge (and kegerator). I particularly loved the way the bathrooms had been done with tile reminiscent of old black and white bathroom tile. That stuff lasts forever. I asked the realtor if this was affiliated with EYA somehow and he said it was not.

As we pulled up, I immediately said “this house must be a million dollars.” My husband guessed 750, I said, seriously at least 850, and my husband then noted that it was an open house and therefore had a good chance of being mispriced, so 750 was likely too low. I should have stuck to my original estimate because this house is listed at over 1 million. As we were driving away my husband started to feel cranky about high real estate prices. I was however not in the mood to be cranky about high prices on this particular day so I didn’t join in although I share his opinion about the outrageousness.

My one criticism is that for a million bucks, I want a shorter street number than 9517. A friend of mine pointed out to me once that shorter street numbers have some ineffably more desirable quality to them. I agree. 9517 is not a great street number.

I think that house will fetch something resembling its asking price and someone will love living there. I don’t think there is room for any kind of appreciation at that price, but hey, not my problem. I reminded my husband that we could have that nice of a house if we wanted to move somewhere other than the DC region. I also said that I’d like to think that one day we could actually buy that house. By the time we buy that house it will likely cost less in real dollars, or we will be getting an even nicer house for our money. We are both hard workers and have no kids, why not?

We went down 547 and saw another sign in the neighborhood that is called “Garrett Park Estates” on the real estate listings. This is in 20895 but it feels like it should be Rockville. The open house was at 5000 Druid drive and the realtor was not particularly interested in engaging with us, which was weird but not unwelcome. This house is listed at 519. Highlight below to read the incredibly rude comment my husband made about this: ”Does it come with a sloppy blowjob?” I said, I think someone should get a blowjob just for viewing that listing, much less buying the house. This is a nicely situated rancher which is rather small. Kitchen is renovated, the rooms are small, and there is only one bathroom upstairs. The lower level is a nicely renovated family room, lots of storage and a full bath. Yawn.

The upshot of today for both of us was that the ice seems to be breaking up a little, but we’re glad we’re not really shopping right now. We are hopeful that things will be better in the spring, but not overly optimistic about that.