Inaugural Rents Go Bust

One of the biggest hits to my blog was when I posted about renting your home for the inaugural. I must have gotten like 70 hits in one day.

It seems that people who acted quickly and got renters and did make a killing. But the market it seems has dried up. Here are two stories in the Post about. One about the market in Virgina. The other about DC.

From the Post:

Across the Washington region, homeowners' dreams of a quick and easy payday are evaporating as the days tick down to President-elect Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony Jan. 20: The inaugural housing market has gone bust in record time.

Those who listed their properties within a week or two of Obama's Nov. 4 election victory were able to score deals, but those who jumped on the bandwagon after that have largely been left without offers.

The reason I think is pretty simple. At first the estimates of the number of people were fantastic. Five million people were going to descend on Washington. I think that scared many people away. Also the prices people were asking were just nuts. $2,000 for the week or even more. Then there were all the stories about how all the hotel rooms were booked to like West Virginia. Turns out in a headline I saw just today that there are rooms available. Now I will admit I did not read the story and see how much the rooms were going for.

I thought it was crazy what people were asking for places. It was even crazier that people would pay it. Good to see some common sense finally took hold.