Shunning the Tired Home

He added: "What we are selling there is the view of the Potomac River. From the third floor, it's fabulous."

Maddox said, however, that "virtually everyone who has come to the house has recognized the fact that it needs to be updated."

Sometimes a fixer-upper, like any house, stays on the market because it is simply priced too high. Maddox said the house would never have sold for $1.8 million, even a year ago when the local housing market was quickening. The $1.4 million price is appropriate, he said.

In Arlington County, Babs Murphy, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker, was showing a house in Cherrydale priced at $695,000. She said she knew the place needed significant renovations.

Wires dangled from the second-floor porch as if they were Christmas lights. A pump that was supposed to drain into the street emptied into (surprise!) the laundry room tub instead.

The owner, who died in January, "was a do-it-yourself guy," Murphy said. The place, she said, was undeniably a "bachelor pad."

Scott Freda, a prospective buyer walking out of the house that afternoon, said that the fixer-upper didn't impress him but that it was a matter of personal taste. The 42-year-old civil engineer said he was used to the luxury-style kitchen and bathrooms in his Arlington condo.

He was also put off by the structure of the house, complaining that there were no outdoor steps leading to the front porch, located on the second level of the house. Visitors enter the house at the basement level and walk up interior stairs.

Freda's conclusion: "I want something more livable when you move in."

Despite their complaints, and yes, some repulsion, the house hunters interviewed that Sunday were not shocked at what they saw. Many had been shopping since the beginning of the year and had grown accustomed to dated wood paneling and yellowed linoleum floors.

But there can be hope for buyers looking for a house that doesn't immediately elicit a "bleh" or an "ugh." Rebecca Morrison, 29, recalls a home-buying horror story that ended happily -- eventually.

Morrison, a survey methodologist, had been house-hunting since late February. She said she and her fiance grew frustrated a few months ago when they couldn't find anything worth the money.

"There came a point in April or May that we were like, 'We are never going to find a house,' " Morrison said. "We are going to be stuck in this apartment forever."

She will never forget one house in Cheverly that she said reeked of dogs and had water in the basement. That was "enough to drive us away," she said.

In late June, the couple found their dream house -- sort of. They paid about $350,000, which Morrison said was the top of their budget. The Hyattsville house needs a new roof for its detached garage. They will have to redo the plumbing, but they can wait on that for a couple of years, she said.

In what has been one of the hottest local housing markets in the nation, it was the best she could find for her price. "I was really hopeful and perhaps a little naive that we would be able to get something less than our max," she said.