DCist reports that the membership of Shiloh Baptist Church voted last Wednesday to move forward with plans to sell its properties at the corner of Eighth and Q Streets, Northwest (1543 8th Street and 1600 Eighth Street, Northwest, to be exact). The intent is that revenue from the sales will generate enough capital to begin renovation of its properties in the 1500 block of Ninth Street, Northwest.
This could potentially be a great thing for everyone -- church and neighborhood. Hopefully the intent to sell is sincere and the prices will be reasonable given the properties' conditions and the current market.
3 comments:
What do you think is a reasonable price for the properties?
According to the Real Property Database:
1. 1543 8th Street is a 2 story end unit row house. It has 1,480 square feet of living area, including 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. It was built in 1900 and has hardwood floors and radiant heat. Its proposed assessment for 2010 is $379,680.
2. 1600 8th Street is a 3 story end unit row house with 2,601 suare feet of livable space. It has 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, wood floors, and radiant heat. Its proposed tax assessment for 2010 is $437,210.
Hopefully the intent really is to sell in order to develop the 9th St. properties and provide more services for seniors. However, we all know that a favorite game of slumlords is to put vacant property up for sale in order to skirt the higher rate for 12 months, plus how ever much time it then takes for the community to shout at DCRA/OTR loud enough so they resume taxing the property at the appropriate rate.
Who knows though, maybe the 10% class rate is actually working as intended on these properties, making it untenable to try and sit on them any longer.
I think the prices they list at will be telling as to what Shiloh's intentions are; much above the property database assessments and they're just trying to get out of paying vacant property taxes (again).
I don't know what a reasonable price would be, but I'd bet it would also cost well north of $200K to really fix either of those properties up.
Wow! Let's keep our fingers crossed. Unfortunately for Shiloh, the market for shell buildings is pretty depressed right now. They could probably get $300k for each, I'd imagine.
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