Washingtonians can buy a brick wall, in the coveted Georgetown neighborhood, for 50 grand. The listing for this hot piece of real estate verbatim states:
Own a piece of Georgetown. This wall located at 30 and M NW. The opportunities are limitless.
This is not a joke, but it is spite. The Georgetown wall officially went on sale on July 12 with a listing published to Matrix by realtor Rober Morris of Keller Williams Capital Properties. The active listing notes this wall guarantees “zero” acres but sky-high opportunities.
Literally, because the only proper thing one can do is flip this brick wall into Georgetown’s premiere outdoor rock-climbing wall. Right?
The wall might not be completely obsolete after all. The owner, Allan Berger, says that 12 people already showed interest in the wall for advertising purposes but 11 of them backed out when they realized the amount of red tape it would take to have advertisements approved by the local government.
While the listing has become somewhat of a joke in D.C., the history of complications with the infamous Georgetown Wall are more serious than some realize. Allan Berger inherited the wall from his father who did purchase the wall as a joke according to Berger simply to “own property in Georgetown.” Average real estate prices in Georgetown hover at $2 million.
The wall’s neighbor, Daniela Walls whose apartment shares 1 foot of the 24-inch-thick wall noted structural and water issues in her building stemming from the deteriorating quality of Berger’s 12 inches of the wall. Walls had offered Berger $600(a tax-assessed value) for the wall so she could have the wall repaired to halt the leaking into her home in 2020. The city fined Berger for improper upkeep of the wall and failure to meet structural engineering standards.
Walls action and offer for “The Wall” as it is now known is what prompted Berger to list his wall for an “arbitrary” price of $50,000. The good news is if you can’t purchase the wall, the listing notes “leases are considered.” The bad news is, you’d be leasing a 22 square-foot wall.