Skeletons in the closet--1811 Lincoln Avenue, Alameda, CA
One of the reasons more real estate agents haven't embraced the internet is the transparency afforded to those who take the time to look. Before the Web and sites like Trulia or Zillow made rich gobs of real estate data available to the masses, real estate agents were the main guardians and jealous purveyors of property information. They felt useful, needed, like experts in some esoteric field; buyers didn't know any better; all was well.
But those days are over. Flippers are particularly affected: if you Google a for-sale property's address, chances are Google and the local newspaper sites or realtors still have a trace of that recent transaction, so it's easy to know how much the flipper is marking up the property, or what manner of transactional bodies are buried in the new listing.
Such is the case for a tiny little house at 1811 Lincoln Avenue that just appeared on the market on or around 8/18/2008, listed at $565,000. Here's some publicly available information about this property:
The address sounded very familiar, and for good reason. It sold for $404,000 in Spring 2007 (my emphasis):
and had been on the market for a little over $424,000.
Take a moment, if you will, to relish the language in the previous listing.
Update 9/19/08: Price dropped to $525,000, and they're now copping to the death in the listing.
Update 10/19/08: Price dropped to $499,000. Remember this property sold for $404,000, so we only have$95,000 $65,000 (those pesky commissions) left to go before we fall into brilliant investment loss leader territory.
But those days are over. Flippers are particularly affected: if you Google a for-sale property's address, chances are Google and the local newspaper sites or realtors still have a trace of that recent transaction, so it's easy to know how much the flipper is marking up the property, or what manner of transactional bodies are buried in the new listing.
Such is the case for a tiny little house at 1811 Lincoln Avenue that just appeared on the market on or around 8/18/2008, listed at $565,000. Here's some publicly available information about this property:
$565,000, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 944 sqft, 2,990 sqft lot.That's right, $565,000 for a 944-sqft house on a postage stamp lot, on a busy thoroughfare just a couple of blocks from a busy intersection (at Grand, which also has a corner store/market type thing, so I guess that's a plus). That's $599 / sqft. And I don't know how you cram 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms in that little space.
The address sounded very familiar, and for good reason. It sold for $404,000 in Spring 2007 (my emphasis):
Alameda Home Sales
All real estate transactions listed below were supplied to the Alameda Sun by Chuck Bianchi of Harbor Bay Realty, Alameda. Neither the Sun nor Harbor Bay Realty guarantee the accuracy, timeliness or completeness of the information.
[...] This information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
Sales records from Feb. 26 – March 4, 2007 2205 San Antonio Ave. Condo $383,000 1811 Lincoln Ave. House $404,000 [...]
and had been on the market for a little over $424,000.
Take a moment, if you will, to relish the language in the previous listing.
[...] diamond in the rough needing that unique jack-of-all-trades person. [...] sold strikly "AS IS" [...] said there was a death in the premises. Buyer responsible for sewer lateral [...]
Photo removed pending resolution with EBRD, Inc.
Appetizing, eh? Of course a lot can happen in a year, and in fact the first thing in the new listing is how much work the seller has spent on this crackerbox:
For perspective, another midget of a similar vintage, on the smaller side, is still on the market as of 8/18/08, languishing at $499,000 after 2 months and a massive $176,000 price drop.
Did anybody ever do a market analysis to predict who would be interested in a minuscule shack on frickin' Lincoln, to alliterate? A minuscule shack with not one, not two, but THREE bedrooms and TWO full bathrooms? To be sure, that's the kind of floor plans families look for. But they also tend to expect 944 sqft to be the master bedroom, not the whole damn house, unless they're in downtown Manhattan.
And they have the gall to feel entitled to almost $600 per miserable square foot.
This is possibly the most wretched, agonizingly idiotic flip I have ever seen, and I hope to the gods the seller gets scorched (financially, of course. This is not a wish for or threat of bodily harm, just a metaphor). This is so monumentally dumb it gets an epic label even though it hasn't even dropped its price. Yet.
In case you're wondering about the absence of photographs and considerably truncated excerpts of property descriptions, read about our recent issues with East Bay Regional Data, Inc.
[...] spent [...] one year over-hauling this house. Brand new kitchen [...]That said, and I hate to be blunt, nobody cares how much time it took to "over-haul" this house. Second, only a severely brain-damaged moron would spend $404,000 on a derelict ghost house that's falling apart and then a whole year and a ton of money fixing it up and maybe even pimping it out. It's NINE-HUNDRED-FORTY-FOUR SQUARE FEET, for god's sake, with a blown-up sewer lateral and a mysterious, alleged death on site.
For perspective, another midget of a similar vintage, on the smaller side, is still on the market as of 8/18/08, languishing at $499,000 after 2 months and a massive $176,000 price drop.
Did anybody ever do a market analysis to predict who would be interested in a minuscule shack on frickin' Lincoln, to alliterate? A minuscule shack with not one, not two, but THREE bedrooms and TWO full bathrooms? To be sure, that's the kind of floor plans families look for. But they also tend to expect 944 sqft to be the master bedroom, not the whole damn house, unless they're in downtown Manhattan.
And they have the gall to feel entitled to almost $600 per miserable square foot.
This is possibly the most wretched, agonizingly idiotic flip I have ever seen, and I hope to the gods the seller gets scorched (financially, of course. This is not a wish for or threat of bodily harm, just a metaphor). This is so monumentally dumb it gets an epic label even though it hasn't even dropped its price. Yet.
In case you're wondering about the absence of photographs and considerably truncated excerpts of property descriptions, read about our recent issues with East Bay Regional Data, Inc.
Update 9/19/08: Price dropped to $525,000, and they're now copping to the death in the listing.
Update 10/19/08: Price dropped to $499,000. Remember this property sold for $404,000, so we only have
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