Condo Living: Days of the Condo Hunt

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LIFE'S DEFINITELY NOT CHEAP IN D.C., especially when it comes to buying real estate here. In the big city — and its suburbs — there are tough-broad real estate agents, hard-nosed sellers and more potential pitfalls than any Sam Spade could uncover in an investigation. So, if you're a greenhorn looking to score your first pad, how can you survive the real estate jungle without taking a powder financially and emotionally? Just listen to my tale, dollface.

What give me the right to talk to you this way? My husband, Mike, and I recently swam through the muddy undertow of the D.C. condo market — and lived to tell about it.

Both in our early 30s, we moved to the area last year, never intending to rent long-term. We found a one-bedroom basement apartment right behind Union Station on Capitol Hill, planning to use our first year to explore the District and suss out a 'hood where we'd like to settle.

Then the phone calls started. Nameless creditors kept leaving our absentee landlord voice messages about "a personal business matter" and offering to help in loan consolidation. Our place was perfectly situated — right next to a Metro station and just around the corner from our church — but the calls, along with the dungeon-like-feel of the place, injected urgency into our search for more permanent digs.

Fans of the Hill who'd grown to love the convenience of a five-minute walk to church, we quickly decided we'd like to stay in the area. We visited a model condo and took a hard-hat tour at Senate Square, a complex under construction just two blocks from our rental. The only hiccup: Our chosen unit wouldn't be ready until November, and the creditors' calls back at the apartment had us wondering whether foreclosure wasn't imminent.

Our landlord wanted to sell our apartment, but he hadn't had any bites since listing it in July. We were confident he'd let us stay in the place on a month-to-month basis until he got a buyer — or until the creditors tossed us out, whichever happened first.

Then the summons came for our errant landlord, who, it seemed, hadn't been paying the monthly condo fees on our pad. Just about the same time our new, two-bedroom flat at Senate Square was due to deliver, our landlord was due to appear in court.

Sounds like perfect timing, right? Wrong. Our rental was going to be seized by the primary lender at the end of September. So, staying until November suddenly wasn't an option.

With visions of our belongings sitting on the curb tormenting us, we started to wonder why our contract with Senate Square hadn't been ratified yet. The agent for the developer had told us it would be three weeks, due to the developer's refinancing. We were well into week four.

Contracts frequently take a while to ratify, but our Realtor, Long & Foster's Joan Caton Cromwell, smelled a rat when she got an e-mail from the developer's agent saying the developer had been in town, but didn't have time to sign contracts. "In selling condos, you want to get the contract ratified, and you want the clock to start ticking on the condo review, period," Cromwell says. She poked around, learning that the complex was possibly going to be used for rentals instead of condos. (In real estate-speak, that's known as a reversion.)

Everyone we talked to at the Senate Square office, including the developer's agent, could neither confirm nor deny anything. With our rental going on the block, we didn't have time to wait. Fortunately, without a ratified contract, we could walk away. Which we did. We were "in a unique situation," says Cromwell. With a ratified contract, things get stickier. If a ratified deal may be falling through — going rental — the developer can walk away, but the contract tends to put tougher restrictions on the buyer.

This made me even happier we had an agent. Having a pro working with you like we did means he or she can check the contract for the pertinent language and has a better chance of extracting a buyer from a bad sale.

With our inevitable eviction looming and Cromwell's help, we moved fast. Cromwell made a few calls to a couple of other complexes around the District to see which complexes might fit into our price range.

In mid-August, we toured the Whitman, a recently completed 185-unit complex — and the only property that offered condos within our price range. During an open house, the amenities (fitness center, 360-degree rooftop terrace, 24-hour concierge) made us swoon. We also loved the natural light in the two-bedroom unit we chose and the charm of the surrounding Shaw neighborhood. We drew up a new contract immediately (we were promised it would be ratified over the weekend) and agreed to settle by the end of the month in order to keep the negotiated price.

Over Labor Day weekend, we moved into our sparkling new flat in Mt. Vernon Square. And somehow, the streets outside look neither rough nor tough anymore. It seemed like, despite our tangled tale, Mike and I had sleuthed out a perfect nest.

Written by Sara Kruger for Express
Photos by Lawrence Luk/Express