Inauguration Rental Report: The $12,000 Townhouse

By RUTH SAMUELSON

Updated 3:20 PM EST, Mon, Nov 24, 2008

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From the Washington City Paper blog Housing Complex

Craigslister: Lydia Goring, 66.

Offering: $12,000 for five-bedroom Mount Vernon Square home for the entire inauguration week.

Other Current Occupants: Goring’s husband, Keith Burd, 55.

Location: Close to the intersection of 4th and M Streets NW.

Date posted: 11/16/2008

Responses: None. Luckily, a friend of a friend got in touch with Goring, offering to pay her asking price.

Why: Goring never considered renting out her home until other people repeatedly brought up the idea. “Thank goodness none of my friends called me and said they wanted to come,” she says. At 5,600 square feet, her house is plenty spacious with six bedrooms, though one will be locked as a storage space during the rental week. Her home is also a little more than a block from the brand new Safeway, two blocks from the Mount Vernon Square Metro, walking distance from the Chinatown area, Penn Quarter, and the National Mall. Plus Goring could use the cash at the moment. “I’m retired,” she explains. “I have a few other properties. I had a major plumbing problem in one of the houses, and had to dig up the whole backyard,” she says. That entire job should eat up roughly $9,000 of Goring’s rental payment. As for the leftover thousands, Goring says “You also have to spend money to make it nice for people.” She’s expecting eight guests, and believes her one pitifully rounded screen TV is not going to cut it. So she’s planning on buying two new flat screens (she wanted one anyway.) “You’re not going to be able to go downtown and see everything, and sometimes you just might want to stay here and see it on television—that’s going to be the best view.”