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Georgetown’s cheapest real estate is a $50K wall

It’s a comedic bit decades in the making

Wall at 30th Street Northwest
Wall at 30th Street Northwest (Google Maps, Getty)

Sometimes real estate is a joke.

That’s at least how a $50,000 listing for a wall in Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood started, the Washington Post reported. The story of the wall at 30th Street Northwest is a laugh that stretches back decades, and is now going viral on social media –– but not everyone finds it funny. 

It all started in the 1960s, when Allan Berger’s father attended a tax auction with a friend. Berger told the publication his dad saw a wall for sale, and thought, “Ah great, I could say I own property in Georgetown.”

When his father died, the wall landed in Berger’s portfolio. Until recently, he intended to hold onto the wall as a sentimental artifact of his father’s sense of humor. 

“You can go there, take a girl out on a date, go walk around and say, ‘See, I own that,’” Berger told the publication.

Berger’s commitment to the bit faded when the wall became an issue of dollars and cents. Whatever structure it once belonged to is long gone (the wall now faces a parking lot), but it remains attached to the home next door, which belongs to Daniela Walls. 

Walls bought her home in 2019, and in May 2020 hired an engineer to figure out why there was water leaking inside the house. The culprit, according to the engineer’s assessment, was Berger’s wall and its lack of maintenance. A December 2022 report stated the wall problem, “warrants prompt corrections to prevent imminent structural effects,” the publication reported. 

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More simply, “It’s, like, crumbling,” Robert Morris of Keller Williams Capital Realty told the outlet. 

In November, the D.C. Department of Buildings slapped Berger with a pair of fines totaling $1,661 for infractions he denies. Walls also made an offer to buy the wall for its tax assessed value ––  $600, which less than satisfied Berger. 

That’s when he tapped Morris to list the wall, and decided on a price. 

“That’s when I came up with $50,000, without any research, without any great thought,” Berger told the publication. Walls said she doesn’t have the money, and besides, “Nobody is going to give you a mortgage for a wall.”

For Morris’s part, he has spoken with a dozen potential buyers after listing the wall. Only one asked for a showing. 

“I’m not sure you’re aware of this, but it’s a wall,” he replied, according to the outlet. “You can walk right up to it. That is your showing.”

— Kate Hinsche

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LawsuitsListingsResidential Real EstateWashington D.C.