There are a few eternal truths about life in the Washington area. Among them: Touring the monuments is much cooler, in all respects, after sunset; the Orange Line is experiencing slight delays; and you have to pay a lot for a home, especially if you want to live in one of the closer-in suburbs.
You can ponder your own list of eternal truths during your next Metro delay. Here, we’re going to take the occasional close-up look at that third one: expensive housing. In particular, we’re going to examine the options available to people who provide vital community services — the teachers, firefighters, police officers, Metro drivers (and perhaps the occasional tour guide).
From the outside, it looks the same as any other house in the District’s Northeast neighborhood of Eckington. Which is just fine, unless you’re trying to sell the place.
Tia Butler, the owner, had made improvements over the five years she owned the three-bedroom, one-bathroom rowhouse, including ripping out a chain-link fence and replacing a crumbling concrete retaining wall with brick. Attempts at gardening, however, weren’t so successful. She said of the lone bush out front: “It once had a mate.”
Do you wonder where young adults can find an affordable place to live around here? How about someplace for a nanny or your aging grandmother?
If you don’t want to move out of your neighborhood, what will your options be when you’re rattling around in a house that’s too big, with stairs that are too challenging and costs that are too high?
On the banks of Lake d’Evereux, Greg Nichols stood with his three children, baiting a hook and enjoying the serenity of the lake, while Peter, 5, Phoebe, 3, and James, 7, looked at the catfish in the bucket.
“Everybody caught one fish, and Peter caught two,” Nichols said. “We try to come down here when we can.”
Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando helped make Hoboken, N.J., famous. Now designer Michael Graves and builder Robert Toll are making the waterfront town across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan a haven for the rich and famous.
Hoboken, a city with working-class roots, long served as a refuge of junior Wall Street analysts. Its newer residents include Gov. Jon S. Corzine and New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, as builders convert apartments into luxury condominiums with fitness clubs, doormen, and shuttles to New York City-bound trains and ferries.
NEW YORK — If you’ve ever seen those infomercials promising untold riches just waiting to be tapped in the real estate market, Wesley Barney has a message for you: It’s not quite that easy.
Some 18 years ago, Barney saw those commercials, too. According to the ads, a person could make a small fortune buying and selling real estate in foreclosure — property seized by a bank because the owner couldn’t pay the mortgage or property taxes.
Terry gets free meals and maid service, but the year-old pit bull mix spends his days in a concrete-floor pen.
He was dropped off at the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria because his owners were moving — a top reason that pets are left at shelters. In a recent renter survey by Apartments.com, more than one-third of respondents said they found it difficult to find an apartment that allowed pets.
Q: My husband and I are in the market for our first house. We think this is a good time to buy, especially when mortgage interest rates are still quite comfortable. We know that once we find a house we like, we have to enter into a contract with the seller. Who prepares this contract? What kinds of real estate professionals should we work with, and when do we get them involved in the transaction?
A: Those are excellent questions. Often, those of us in the real estate business tend to forget that many people — especially first-time home buyers — have no real understanding of the process.
Q: I have recently heard advertisements for mortgages with the disclaimer that the “payment rate is not the interest rate.” How does that work?
A: The interest rate is the rate used to calculate the amount of interest the borrower owes the lender each month. The payment rate is the rate used to calculate the amount of the payment the borrower is obliged to make each month. On most mortgages, they are the same, which is why it may be confusing when they are different.