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The Deal of the Year: The Beautiful Foreclosure

  • December 20th 2011

by Shilpi Paul

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The Deal of the Year: The Beautiful Foreclosure: Figure 1
146 U Street NW

Deal of the Week is one of our more popular features here at UrbanTurf, and also one that arouses the most debate for the fairly obvious reason that a deal to one person is not necessarily a bargain to someone else. For this reason, picking a Deal of the Year is not the easiest of tasks.

And usually, UrbanTurf’s top bargain of the year comes from one of the many Deal of the Weeks that we have featured in the past 12 months. This year, however, a foreclosure that garnered our attention back in late September for This Week’s Find stood out from the competition.

The Deal of the Year: The Beautiful Foreclosure: Figure 2
Living Room

The term “foreclosure” usually conjures up images of distressed buildings that are lucky to find a buyer. So when UrbanTurf saw this bank-owned home in LeDroit Park, we were struck. The four-bedroom row house needed some minor work, like base molding and appliances, but had been renovated extensively by a previous owner and had a new kitchen, bathroom and a finished basement. At $499,000, it was priced well below comparable homes in the area.

In fact, the listing was priced so low (comps ran closer to $550,000-$600,000) that it caught the attention of some commenters. “Will be gone SO QUICK,” said one commenter. “Low ball listing attempting to spark a bidding war,” said another.

The commenters were right. The house actually ended up being not quite the deal that was advertised after all; it went under contract within a week and sold in late November for $553,146. To many, however, that would still be a bargain.

More details and photos below.

The Deal of the Year: The Beautiful Foreclosure: Figure 3

The Deal of the Year: The Beautiful Foreclosure: Figure 4

The Deal of the Year: The Beautiful Foreclosure: Figure 5

The Deal of the Year: The Beautiful Foreclosure: Figure 6

  • Address: 146 U Street NW (map)
  • Listing Price: $499,000
  • Sales Price: $553,146
  • Bedrooms: Four
  • Bathrooms: 3.5
  • Square Footage: 1,696

Previous Best Of 2011 entries:

See other articles related to: best of 2011, deal of the week

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.production.logicbrush.com/articles/blog/the_best_deal_of_the_year_the_beautiful_foreclosure/4797.

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