Soon after I got my real estate license, I became fascinated with a monolithic brick building on the corner of Connecticut Avenue and Porter Street NW.   It was the Broadmoor Cooperative, one of the largest buildings in Cleveland Park.   Back then, 1983, there was one old guy who was sort of the real estate king of this lovely old building.

His name was Nelson, and he must have been 200 years old.  He got all of the listings, and he put nothing into the multiple listing service, which was a fairly new thing back then.  If Nelson liked you, he'd call you and let you know when something came on the market.  I loved the building and I made it a point to schmooze this particular colleague.  Call it primitive social media.

We got along really well until one day the old guy goosed one of my clients as we were going up to the sixth floor to see one of his listings.  She bought the unit anyway.

I remember when he gave me my first tour of the building, including a history lesson.  The Broadmoor opened its doors in 1929, right around the time of the stock market crash.  It was luxury living.

Many of the early tenants were members of the old Washington Senators baseball team.  There were a few other Senators, including Huey Long, who is said to have moved in with a gang of pretty scary looking “body guards” (AKA, thugs) who hung out in the lobby.

The apartments have outer slatted doors, which helped with cross ventilation before the advent of air conditioning.  Some of them still have decals dating to World War II reminding owners:  “Please turn out your lights when leaving rooms.  Blackout alarms may occur when you are out.”

And there are little enclaves on the second floor that Nelson described as “courting areas”, used by young women who were much too respectable to invite a gentleman caller up to their apartments.

The building converted to cooperative ownership in 1948.  A 1-bedroom with a solarium cost about $11,500 back then, and recently one sold for $427,000.  It's a favorite building of mine, but alas, not pet friendly.  And I can't live anyplace that would not welcome Willie the Labradoodle!

© 2009 Patricia Kennedy. Unless otherwise noted, the content, both written and in pictures, is the property of Patricia Kennedy . If you would like to use this image, please  email me (housepat@mac.com) with your request. I'll almost certianly say yes, and ask only that you provide a link back to my original content as well as an acknowledgment.  The same thing applies to any other material you see posted here on Active Rain or on any of my other blogs.

Yesterday, Nadia Nejaime, of DC Living Real Estate, wrote her first post on Active Rain. 

Now, Nadia is totally special.  She is so great to work with that I wrote a post about her called The Good Agent, on my pre-Active Rain blog, about how much she impressed me during a recent transaction.  That was almost three years ago.

Nadia is a broker with a law degree, I'm sure she will share a lot of knowledge and wisdom in her blog.  And I'm hoping that she becomes totally addicted and starts to post a lot, because I can't wait to read more of her stuff!

So, go visit Nadia and join me in saying welcome aboard!  And blog on, Nadia!

© 2009 Patricia Kennedy. Unless otherwise noted, the content, both written and in pictures, is the property of Patricia Kennedy . If you would like to use this image, please  email me (housepat@mac.com) with your request. I'll almost certianly say yes, and ask only that you provide a link back to my original content as well as an acknowledgment.  The same thing applies to any other material you see posted here on Active Rain or on any of my other blogs.

This is for all of you young whipper snappers out there who think that anyone over 50 is going to eat your dust because you do social networking!

I'm going to tell you a story with one of those "Respect Your Elders" messages - you can learn from them!  Um, from us!

There was an amazing agent at my old company who had social networking down!

She was a geezer agent.  Her obituary said that she was 79 when she died.  But she had to have been at least 90.  She was a pretty woman who wore Chanel suits to the poshest office in Washington, and she was clueless about how to use a copying machine, let alone a computer, digital camera or any bit of technology other than her very basic cell phone (and all it did was allow her to make and receive calls - no text messages or Email).  And she sold about $50million a year in real estate, because she totally got social networking.

At an office meeting, she gave what was my first training session on social networking.  She went to parties.  Lots of parties.  And she networked.  She was the queen of schmooze, and she would follow up the next day and the next week and the next month, calling people back (she preferred a regular old phone to her primitive cell) and putting together amazing transactions. 

The night before she died, she had ratified a contract on an $8 million dollar property, and I understand she was on both sides of the transaction.

Now, all I'm saying is that we didn't invent social networking.  It didn't begin with Active Rain, Facebook, or Twitter.  And what this lovely old lady  agent taught me was that the most important element of social networking is the social part of it. Oh, and she also taught everyone who watched her about how important it is to follow up.  She, of course, used a telephone rather than Tweets, email or text messages.  I like to use a combination of the three.

It's important to supplement Active Rain, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever else you use with all kinds of social network contact with other human beings, at church, at neighborhood or PTA meetings, the Lions Club, RE Bar Camps, at parties and anyplace else where people who might want to buy or sell houses might hang out - or agents who can refer them to you.  You need to use every bit of the new technology at your fingertips, as well as the old fashioned telephone.

And never ever forget that real estate is a contact sport!  You need to get them off your computer screen, out of your virtual space, and into your automobile. 

Several times during the last week, I've gone through homes that are ugly and/or inhabited by total slobs or compulsive hoarders (albeit of very pretty things). 

All three houses had "good bones", built before 1920 and with no improvements made in 40 or more years.  One looked like Granny's house and had been hastily empied out after Granny went either to heaven or a nursing home - then nothing else was done.  The other looks like a young family bought an old fixxer upper, had a bunch of children, and forgot to fix up  - or to clean up.  The third was very dated, but had a whole lot of glitzy furniture and oriental rugs, art work on every square inch of wall space, and several rooms crammed with so much stuff that I thought an E-Bay addict must live there. 

One house smelled like an all night poker game (tobacco) and the other reeked of wet basement.  E-Bay Addict house actually did pass the "Sniff Test".

And all of these homes were on the market well over $1million dollars.  They were not all that bad.  All of them had lots of potential.  But the idea of preparing these homes for the market seems to have escaped the agents and the owners.

Two of the agents are total professionals who are known for whipping their sellers and their homes into shape, and I imagine they were following orders from their sellers.  The third agent is someone I don't know. 

So now it will be interesting to track what happens.  Will someone snap them up?  Will they languish on the market. 

Hmmmmm.  Think I'll sign off and call my friend Henry.  He might be looking for a project to take on.

© 2009 Patricia Kennedy. Unless otherwise noted, the content, both written and in pictures, is the property of Patricia Kennedy . If you would like to use this image, please  email me (housepat@mac.com) with your request. I'll almost certianly say yes, and ask only that you provide a link back to my original content as well as an acknowledgment.  The same thing applies to any other material you see posted here on Active Rain or on any of my other blogs.

Whether it's Craig's List, your local paper's classifieds or the Multiple Listing Service information, there is a special language to real estate. 

So as you head out to tomorrow's Open Houses, here are some tips to use your time wisely.  When the description starts out with the bold print, the not bold print is what it really means:

Bring Your Imagination: the place has not been staged and looks like ordinary people live there.

Bring Your Decorator: Martha Stewart would not approve.  It has carnivorous wallpaper, shag wall-to-wall, and cat claw marks on the grasscloth.

Bring Your Architect:  the back half of the house is about to cave in.

Room for Expansion:  the place is tiny.

Adorable: the place is really tiny.

Olde World Charm: it has prehistoric electrical and bathrooms.

Original Owner: the kitchen was absolute state of the art in 1940, the year the house was built.

Georgetown Garden: the back yard is the size of an oriental prayer rug.

Indoor Pool:  wet basement.

Nicest House in the Neighborhood:  it's over-improved.

Urban View:  refers to a condo with all windows facing a brick wall.

Or, you could work with a buyer broker who really knows the market where you are looking and who can take you to the good stuff, eliminating the wrecks that are ugly, overpriced or smell like kitty litter.

Cleveland Park is a neighborhood of great architectural diversity.  There are small row houses that sell in the high $600's and historic mansions with price tags in the $4.5 million range.  Some are on tiny lots, with just enough room for the house and a postage stamp garden.  Others have expansive lawns and gardens.  And so far this year, the demand has been for the smaller homes at a relatively low price point.

The list of homes currently for sale includes two in excess of $4,000,000.  And they are bringing the averages up.  The highest selling price year to date is lower than that, at $2,407,000.

Here are the figures:

Currently For Sale:  15 homes (current asking price)
Low:   $715,000
High:  $4,500,000
Average: $1,993,467

Under Contract:  8 homes (asking price at contract)
Low:  $699,000
High:  $2,950,000
Average:  $1,343,438

Sold since 1/1/2009 15 homes sold (asking price at contract)
Low:  $863,000 (selling price)
High: $2,407,000
Average:  $1,122,800

Average original asking price for sold properties: $1,219,190

There have been a bunch of times when I've included a homeowner's warranty to get a transaction done.  And I'm constantly amazed at what I'm finding in the fine print!

Now, I am one of those nutty people who actually read fine print, at least some of the time.  Most people do not.  But if you are either purchasing a warranty as part of a listing agreement or including one as part of a sales contract, here are some important questions you should be able to answer:

• How much are service call deductibles?  If the dishwasher is acting weird, how much will you have to pay out of pocket for someone to show up and determine whether it should be repaired or replaced?
• What does the agreement say about pre-existing conditions?  If the dishwasher is really, really old and past it's prime and breaks down the first time you turn it on, is it covered at all?
• What about stuff like the Jacuzzi in the master bath, or the ice maker in the fridge?  And the septic system?  Sometimes a lot of items that are typically problematic are excluded altogether, unless you pay a bunch extra.
• What about structural elements of the home?  A few warranty companies, for example, will include the roof.  Most do not.
  
• If you are the seller, does it cover items that show up on the buyer's home inspector's report?  And does it cover your heat and central air conditioning systems?  Some leave these items out of the seller's coverage.

I've found that many of my buyers break things that were operating well at settlement, just because they don't quite understand how to use the systems or appliances in their new homes.  And for this reason alone, a home owner's warranty can provide some additional peace of mind for today's somewhat edgy buyers.

Some of the major warranty providers in this area (and I'm not advocating any of these companies) are American Home Shield,  Nationwide Home Warranty, Choice Home Warranty, and Home Warranties of America.

And, while a warranty can be a good idea, it's also a good idea to do some serious comparative shopping.