Price Pick of the Week

2113 S St. NW

Original Listing Price: $2.995 million (Dec. 3, 2007)
Current Listing Price: $2.695 million (May 13, 2008)
Slash Rate: 10 percent
Square Feet: 6,600

This five-bedroom “grand stone manse” in “stately, pristine Kalorama” has “soaring” 10-foot-plus ceilings a “sumptuous master suite,” a Jacuzzi tub and steam shower, a roof deck, and wet bar. In the last 11 years, it has sold three other times, jumping dramatically in price each round. The town house was sold for $475,000 in July 1997; three years later, it went for $1.151 million (up from the listing price of $975,000). In January ’06, it jumped again, to $1,999,900. Well, bad market be damned, the newest owners—investors from New York, according to agent David Bediz of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Dupont Circle—opted for another staggering increase, listing it at roughly $1 million more than the last sale. Now, the original agent is no longer working the property. Bediz, who took over the property last week, says he began to sense the descent of the D.C. market on Labor Day 2005, and he’s still constantly reassessing the impact. These days, he says, “the best moving properties are ones in desirable neighborhoods.” That means: Cleveland Park, Chevy Chase, Woodley Park, U Street, that general vicinity, and not Shaw, LeDroit Park, Michigan Park, Woodbridge, and Brookland, which produced the “steals” of yesteryear. In boom-time, the home probably would have sold in three weeks to a month and a half, guesses Bediz, but at least it’s in a neighborhood that still sees some closing action.

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