The Two Things We Raise Before Price
The tax classification. Because it is running, because most owners have not been told, and because the bill arrives months late. A property reclassified as vacant is taxed at nearly six times the residential rate and at twelve times if it is classed blighted. Whether an exemption applies is a question with a real answer, and it is worth more to some owners than the sale itself.
The tenant notice. Because the obligation sits on the owner rather than the buyer, and because receiving an offer can trigger it. We would rather flag that in the same email as our figure than have you discover it later.
Neither is advice. Both are pointers to somebody who can advise: the Department of Buildings for the first, a lawyer for the second.
What We Buy
Fire-damaged property across all eight wards, in any condition from smoke to bare party walls. Attached, semi-detached and detached. Single-family, houses with a lower unit, two-to-four unit buildings and larger. Claims open, settled, denied and uninsured. Owner-occupied, tenanted, vacant and inherited. Properties already classed vacant or blighted.
Where we decline it is geography. Outside the District — in Prince George's, Montgomery, Arlington or Alexandria — different rules apply and we are the wrong buyer. We will say so rather than take the enquiry and waste your fortnight.
How the Number Is Built
Finished value of a property on that lot, less the cost of getting there, less carrying cost including the tax class for the months it runs, less both conveyance taxes, less margin.
Two lines make DC offers differ, and both are local. Whether the buyer has priced the vacant classification for the period between contract and settlement. And whether they have understood that on an attached property a clearance is a party wall job rather than a demolition, which makes a surviving masonry shell worth far more here than the construction saving alone suggests.
Why Do Offers on the Same DC Property Vary So Much?
Where Our Interests Diverge From Yours
We are the buyer. Not an adviser, not neutral. We benefit if you accept less and if you decide quickly.
The place that second point genuinely aligns with your interest is the tax clock, and we are conscious that makes it a convenient thing for us to emphasise. So treat it the way you should treat everything here: check it. The rates are published by the Office of Tax and Revenue, the classification is administered by the Department of Buildings, and both will confirm your position without us involved.
We are also not brokers, not public adjusters, not contractors, not contract assigners and not lawyers. On a District fire file that last one matters more than usual, because the tenant law is where the real exposure sits and it is not something a buyer should be advising you on.
When to Stop Talking to Buyers, Including Us
When an exemption is available and nobody has applied. Deal with the classification first. It costs little, it does not commit you to anything, and on a modest property it can be worth more than the spread between offers.
When the tenancy position is unresolved. Establishing it costs a conversation with a lawyer. Leaving it unresolved costs you a discount from every buyer who has thought about it and a renegotiation from every buyer who has not.
When the shell survived and you can fund the repair. Restoring under permit produces a better number and restores the lower tax classification while the work runs. That double effect makes repair win more often in the District than anywhere else we work, and our written figure says so when it does.
Why Point Me Away From a Sale?
Reaching Us
Send an address through any form on this site. Before you deal with us, ask us the two questions on our page about how to tell local cash buyers apart. They are the same questions we would want asked of anyone buying our property.