1914 Ventura Ave, 20902
11603 Gilsan Street, 20902
612 Kenbrook Street, 20902
512 Dennis Ave, 20901
508 Dennis Ave, 20901

The first open house we went to, Ventura Ave, we stumbled on after failing to find the open houses listed for 12100 Berry Street and 11508 Alma Street. I don’t know if Trulia had it wrong or what, but these houses didn’t have a sign indicating an open house and there didn’t seem to be any activity at the house when we went by. I went back and checked whether these listings were one of the oxymoronic “open” “by appointment” variety, but they weren’t. As we were driving around looking for Berry Street, we observed that the neighborhood was really crappy. The asking price for Berry Street is 330, which seems too high. We remarked that pricing is still way off if you figure prices that the person with the income to buy that house in a conservative financing environment would be educated with a higher income, yet that person is expected to buy a house in a neighborhood that is obviously a very run-down blue collar area. Do we really expect that every single neighborhood in Montgomery County is going to experience a major demographic shift? I doubt it. However at this point in time 330 appears to be almost rock bottom so people will still make out like bandits if they can sell one of these for that price. The price point at least gets some people looking at the house if not making offers. Who knows, I don’t check out the comps on these houses so I don’t know how realistic they are.

We saw signs for 1914 Ventura so we stopped by. This area seems nicer than the area that Berry Street is in, though I didn’t get the feeling its respectability was rock-solid. The asking price for the Ventura house is 440. Maybe it was our imagination but husband and I felt as though the realtor seemed abashed at this. Indeed, it probably was our imagination. This house has an addition on the back which is over a 2 car garage. The yard is huge and sunny. The addition really makes the house and you can see that in the listing photos. The basement has a lot of space, it smelled slightly musty, but not pathologically so. You could get a lot of use out of it as is, depending on how you feel about basements. My husband likes them. The kitchen was old and needed to be remodeled, but did have the separation thing that my husband likes (non-open layout preventing the entire house from smelling like blackened salmon and Brussels sprouts.) I felt that I would want to remodel such a kitchen right away but my husband felt he could live with it.
We drove on and passed the Alma street house, but did not stop for aforementioned reasons.

We then started heading south on Arcola avenue towards the house on Kenbrook drive. Along the way we noticed signs leading to the house on Gilsan street, so we followed them to see if there were anything interesting. Gilsan street is a FSBO and the couple who owned it were at home to show us the house, which was pretty remarkable. The first thing we looked at was the yard, since one of the owners (I’ll call him Mr. Gilsan) was eager to show it to us. Mr. Gilsan has fig trees and a herb garden, and according to my husband he seems to know what he’s doing. The yard is landscaped to not have grass, which is just A-OK with my husband.

The interior is mostly renovated and it’s a great example of these mid-century houses common to this area. The living room is elevated with skylights and a fireplace. It has a perfect mid-century chic vibe to it. The kitchen was totally redone by Mr. Gilsan and is a fully-func tional kosher kitchen, with two dishwashers and other extra appliances. The cabinets were tall and went to the ceiling. There were huge slide-out pantry drawers, basically an incredible amount of storage. I’m not one to go nuts over granite countertops but these were a particularly attractive stone. This was by far the best kitchen we’ve seen or will expect to see. Like the other rooms on the main floor, it had high ceilings and skylights.

The house had three bedrooms and 2 bathrooms upstairs. Like a lot of do-it-yourself renovations, it has some oddities that you probably wouldn’t see in a professional renovation. One thing I noticed was that the wood floors were mismatched through the house. That might not bother some people.

There is a fully functional downstairs apartment. We’d use such a thing for extra storage, maybe for a freezer chest or extra pantry space, not that you’d need it. It had a large main room and an attractive room that could have been used as a bedroom, with another fireplace. Mr. and Mrs. Gilsan showed us the house very eagerly. Some people probably wouldn’t want to interact with an owner during a sale, but is that necessarily a good thing? I doubt that Mr. and Mrs. Gilsan would be getting any negative feedback on their house because they are, well, just adorable. No way would I ever have the heart to tell them that 595 is way beyond what we’d want to pay for that house. So there may be a lesson in that, if you are doing a FSBO, get help with the pricing because you won’t know if you make a mistake, at least if you are a nice, eager older couple that nobody would ever want to offend. Of course maybe they are willing to hold out for their price and don’t care how long it takes. Their business entirely, I suppose. If the house had been priced attractively we probably would have bought the darn thing then and there. Such were the charms of the Gilsans and their house.

We then went to 612 Kenbrook, which is in the same general neighborhood as the Gilsans, offers a similar square footage and is priced at 349,956. Once again a mid-century split-level. This house has a lovely sunroom. It isn’t as updated as the previous house but it is still move-in condtion. This house seemed to have a good vibe. The agent was very enthusiastic, saying, “You like this house, you buy it. This is the price, we can negotiate” almost as though she thought I had 350,000 dollars in my purse right at that moment. I thought it was cute but this kind of thing mightily irritates my husband. I’ve watched some overly enthusiastic salespeople lose out on moving 500 dollars worth of le Creuset or the like just by annoying the crap out of this guy. It always amazes me that they can’t seem to read a customer to see that they are obviously getting irritated at the pestering. It seems to be a newer phenomenon. Maybe I used to look less prosperous or something, but I remember the days you could go to the mall without having salespeople practically grabbing your ankle and crying as you walk down the store aisles.

We then headed south towards 512 Dennis in 20901. Viewed from the street it almost looks like a double-wide, but when you step in you see that there’s much more to it. I actually kind of like that. I shouldn’t compare it to a trailer because it is mostly brick. Just the dimensions of the part you see from the street are similar. This is another mid-century house featuring skylights and that mid-century chic feel. Yes, even I am calling it “mid-century” now instead of “the ‘50s and ‘60s.” I resisted but at some point gave in. This house has laminate flooring and a totally open kitchen on the first floor. The kitchen is actually kind of dated with formica counters and older appliances, but you might not even notice with the overall vibe of the house. For me it would be too open and too close to the living room, the whole deal is even smaller than what we have in our apartment. Still, the white-painted exposed brick with the cathedral ceilings looks great. The first floor has three carpeted bedrooms that are well-situated to get lots of light. 1 and ½ baths. A narrow spiral staircase leads to the lower level, which has a bedroom and a spa bath (albeit with dated tile.) There is a very light room with a stone floor which leads to…the pool! I don’t know if this was intentional, but I reflected that it’s smart to be marketing this property in August. I wanted to jump in the pool right then and there. Even though it probably needed a coat of paint. My husband said this house will probably sell very quickly.

We then mosied over to 508 Dennis, but didn’t hang around because it SMELLED OMG FUNKY. My husband thought it was just a paint smell, but I think it smelled much worse than paint. I wanted to leave immediately. Can’t say much else about this house as it’s all a blur.

Footnote: looked up the Gilsan house, it was assessed for 443 in 2009, highest comp in the area is 450. Poor Mr. and Mrs. Gilsan! I hope they didn't leverage themselves up during the boom. Even if I wanted to pay their price, it would not be possible to get financing.

Open House "by appointment"?

Isn't that an oxymoron?