Hope and change needed - Inauguration rentals are a bust

Weren't there reports of like 700 million people, give or take, coming to town to see Barry get sworn in? When homeowners in the Washington area read those reports, they grew big parasitic eyes and threw everything from mansions to refrigerator boxes on Craigslist to rent them to all the hope-n-changers.

From Politico.

Robert Cordero had high hopes when he placed ads on Craigslist and The Washington Post. He figured his Capitol Hill duplex — exposed brick, hardwood floors, a stainless-steel fridge — would fetch $1,600 a night from out-of-towners visiting Washington for Barack Obama's Inauguration.

Now he's dropped the price to $995 a night — and he still hasn't received a single call.

"I feel like I missed the window of opportunity, the initial frenzy after the election," says Cordero, a 38-year-old administrator for a nonprofit. "I expected more response."

He's not alone.

Of the roughly 550 listings on inauguralhomes.com, a paid classified website devoted to Inauguration rentals, only 5 percent have been snatched up, according to the site's co-founder, Kevin Diamond.

A similar site started by the D.C.-area Long & Foster Real Estate, Inc. has leased just one of its roughly 150 properties as of Dec. 30, says real estate agent Hill Slowinski.

Boy these folks (even ol' Fred Thompson) thought the Dems would pony up big bucks to come to D.C. to see The Messiah.

Are the stories of sky-high Inauguration rentals now the stuff of urban legend?

In the days after Obama's election, a lot of locals — and not-so-locals — fantasized about renting out their houses and apartments for spectacular sums. D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty signed an executive order allowing residents to rent out their places without complying with the usual rental rules, and Craigslist blossomed with optimistic offers.

A two-bedroom Glover Park town house was offered at $12,500 for the week. A five-bedroom, five-bath home in Bethesda was priced at $20,000 for seven nights. Former Sen. Fred Thompson offered his one-bedroom Washington condo for $30,000 for the week, and an ambitious Craigslister sought $20,000 for a week's stay in his home in Mitchellville, Md. — a 16-mile drive from the Capitol, assuming that one could drive to the Capitol on Inauguration Day.

Even folks with more modest goals starting talking about how they'd spend the rental windfall: Buy new living room furniture? Take a trip to someplace warm? Pay off those pesky credit cards?

"I saw big money signs," says 27-year-old corporate lawyer Jeff Nestler, who owns a Dupont Circle row house with his fiancée. "If we made $10,000, we could go away for those three or four days on an all-expense paid trip and then have a mortgage and a half," he says.

These folks forgot a cardinal difference between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans are generous with their own money. Democrats are generous with other people's money. When is comes to opening their own wallets, the Dems are a stingy lot.

Is the bloom already off the rose, or maybe Obama pretty much got all the available money in the country in campaign donations.

In other news, camping supply companies report record sales on tents.

Special Report: Inauguration Day 2009

• The Obama Administration at a glance
• Examiner.com Inauguration Roundup
• Examiner Coverage: Inauguration Day 2009
• Elections 2008 Examiner Coverage