Sunday, April 6, 2008

Teardown of the week


Since FP is into recycling, this is recycling.

The 2148 SF house was not recycled. It was, in fact, prematurely torn down. (Remember, square footage figures on older homes do not include attached garages, so they are not as small as they sound.) It is an example of what is wrong with the concept of tearing down houses for lot potential, rather than letting the families buy the homes and fix them up as they wish.

This is the difference between potential and opportunity. It is what is changing in the way properties are bought and sold.

This house (see earlier post) was sold on 6/15/2007 for $460,000. Neighboring properties were contacted by the realtor looking for more property so that the proposed 5000 SF house would have a deeper yard. No land was sold. Nonetheless, the home was demolished the last week in June.

Sometime in the next few months, the property returned to the market, for $499,000. No house, just the .48 acre lot.

Recently the lot price has been reduced by $50K. This means it will sell for less than it was bought.

You gotta wonder, would there actually be a family contributing to a stronger neighborhood if this property had remained intact?

1 comment:

Bo said...

FP - another good example, tho not as clear/simple as the post makes it. I can't speak too much to the individual circumstances of the current owner, but I will say...if the previous owners weren't asking a teardown price for something that shouldn't be torn down, and someone didn't pay an exorbitant price, then the house would still be standing.

But certainly these owners are acknowledging that they overpaid when they bought it.