Posted on 10/31/2009 11:23:29 AM PDT by SkyPilot
The housing market is so bad you can't even give away homes these days.
Officials in suburban Barrington put three homes up for a sale at just a dollar a piece - a dollar! - and didn't get a single bidder.
A dollar!
Let's review: For less than the price of a CTA ride, a Starbuck's coffee, or the typical tip slipped under a stripper's G-string, you could have bought a home in Barrington.
Sure, buying a house means assuming the future costs of upkeep, but a dollar!
"Even if you're offering a house for a dollar, sometimes all those logistics can make it difficult, especially in this market," Lisa DiChiera of the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois told the Daily Herald.
Though the homes aren't officially designated landmarks, they are believed to have some historic value; that's why Barrington officials want to sell the homes - which are located in the suburb's downtown - rather than just demolish them to make way for development, which is the alternative.
Buyers would be required to relocate the homes, but still. All three could be had for less than the cost of a Subway footlong. And your purchase would last a lot longer.
This story brings to mind one I heard, I think on here, about an explanation of why giving away free jaguar cars would eventually end badly......
When I see homes like that, I wonder, what’s used brick selling for these days?
How much would it cost to transport a dozen pallets of used brick to whatever viable markets could exist for it?
What would be the demo costs?
What would be the dump fees for anything not usuable?
SWAG guesses welcome!
It's very costly to move a house.
HELLO DETROIT!!!!!!!
“Detroit was last night”
How can you tell??
The location forces the question ... How many of these homes had Meth making labs in them?
Its not the initial cost it is the other costs that count. Taxes can easily run into thousands of dollars per year and they increase annually.
If I saw a home being advertised for $1, I would wonder where the catch was. Or realize that it would need $50,000+ to make it livable.
On the other hand, my mother passed away in June and we just put her house on the market Monday. Tues a couple came to look at it and wanted it, put a contract and deposit on it. We did all the paperwork Wed. and will be going to closing in a few weeks. So homes do sell.
And it certainly is not s DIY weekend project.
And you have to have a place to move it onto; and you have to have permits in place to put it there,
Then you need to add the costs of a new foundation, plumbing and power hookups.
Plus the costs of transport related damage.
These stories are always like the "Homless Man Gets 25 to Life For Stealing Hotdog" headlines: much more than meets the casual eye.
They must still be overpriced.
Just thinking of the age of these houses and environmental regulations.
They may have lead paint and asbestos insulation.
The demo and disposal fees would probably be astronomical.
And you would probably have difficulty finding an empty lot for under $200K in Barrington.
Not only is it expensive to move a house, it is difficult to find an appropriate lot in a fully developed suburb.
...and if you can’t find a new lot, it’s up to you to have the house demolished at a cost of at least $10k.
Absolute crap urnalism. It’s what’s not said that is more important than the tidbits the moronic author provided.
Did you happen to read the companion piece at the same page titled “Blame them for your empty wallet”? It is a slideshow sideshow of deflecting blame away from the principle parties (well, they did include Bubba ;’).
Denial ain’t just a river...
“The demo and disposal fees would probably be astronomical.”
No argument. Still, there’s a number, or at least a range of numbers, that represent turning the thing into a pile of used brick, a bunch of crud in a dump, and a vacant lot (which, in turn, might not be buildable, esp if you look at how narrow those bldgs are)
I’m not saying the exercise makes economic sense. I’d just like to see the math, even if on a crude estimate basis.
That car needed a steady stream of parts especially, electric components.
The delinquent property tax payments are probably tens of thousands of dollars - and due immediately on closing.
I lived in the Chicago area for 3 years and don`t recall Barrington being a bad area at all. It`s a northwest suburb that I went through many times. Quite a number of very wealthy people live in those parts.
That sounds like Democrat math......
My thoughts, exactly. Watch Haulin’ House on Sunday nights to see how much it can cost to move a house. It ain’t cheap!
Chicago! Me, I’d have to move it out of the state.
My thoughts, exactly. Watch Haulin’ House on Wednesday nights to see how much it can cost to move a house. It ain’t cheap!
Chicago! Me, I’d have to move it out of the state.
Uh, thunk that’s right.
NOW, you know why the British drink warm beer. I understand their refrigerators work about the same.
You mean no one wishes to bear the expense of moving a falling down, POS? Wow, am I surprised!
“Buyers would be required to relocate the homes,”
Yeah, the house itself may cost a dollar, but you must first have property to move it to, the price of MOVING A HOUSE, the insurance costs for that endeaver, etc...
Sorry, the house costs more than a dollar.
By the way, if they were selling a house and LAND for a dollar, I’d snatch it up in a heartbeat.
But they aren’t, they are selling an old crappy building. Land not included.
I don’t think you guys are getting that part. It’s not the location, because the location doesn’t matter if you have to MOVE THE HOUSE.
You don’t get the lot. Just the pile of crud on it. And you must pay to remove the pile of crud.
Ahh, the MGB...fun when it works, but...
Back in the 70’s in McLean, VA, the son of our next door neighbor worked on an MGB (off and on, as a hobby)...for the better part of the seven years we lived there. Then, finally, the big day had come. Car fully restored, engine started, backing out of the driveway, *poof*. Flames erupted and the car had burned to the ground by the time the fire department made it there. 5+ years of work for 20 feet of driving...(in reverse at that).
Barrington is about 5 square miles.
It’s a money address...median income >83k per year.
Nope. One of the priciest suburbs in Chicago. The problem is these houses are only of dubious historical value, and the land doesn’t come with them. You would probably have to move them at 3 or 4 miles before you would even find an empty lot around downtown barrington, and I think land prices there start at around $1mm per acre or more. Anyone who puts out that kind of scratch for land is going to want to put up a nice new house, rather than something they are going to have to ask government permission to change the paint color.
. . .And it’s extremely dicey, and expensive, to move a brick home. I had a project several years ago that, if it had commenced, would have involved moving a large, multi-story antique wood framed house appx. 200 yards on the same property — no trip down a road with the additonal costs cost of disconnecting overhead wires etc. The quote I got from my sub was close to $20,000. That didn’t include the new foundation, which I priced out for another $10,000. So you have to look at the Chicago “giveaway” houses as not “giveaway” at all. The guy who wrote the story, is ignorant on the subject he’s written about.
1. Barrington has a long-time reputation as a high-dollar subarub, far distant (in many ways) from the slums of Chicago.
2. The buyer has to move the house to some other location. That can be about as expensive as building it from scratch.
BTW, that picture looks a bit like one of my old neighborhoods—near Humboldt Park—but much more rundown.
Ahhh! Don't say that! My dream is own a restored MGA someday!
Thanks for letting me know. A couple of other posters familiar with the Chicago area have pointed this out. I wonder what the catch is? If they are only selling the building, and you can't purchase the land as well, that would do it.
I bought a red Fiat Spyder for my wife when I was in pilot training for the Air Force. She had the car 2 days, when I got an urgent message right after I landed from a training flight.
The engine blew, and she was terrified and scarred. I had to drop a new engine in it. What else could I do? Then, I started driving it. Fun as heck. But then, the distributor cap caught fire when I was driving it, and I inhaled all kinds of smoke before I put the fire out. Then, someone cut the canvas top and stole my radio. Then, something else went wrong. I traded it in for almost nothing to a Mazda dealer, but I missed the car.
It's not just the future costs. In most cases, there are colossal *present* costs, to either bring the house up to code or demolish it. Even it it's not going to be occupied immediately, there's a raft of local ordinances requiring cosmetic repair, structural repair, and removal of anything the local authorities deem to be a "hazard" (to trespassers!).
You forgot the words, “rustic charm” and “dont street appraise!” LOL
Beautiful car! Hope you can make that dream come true - just make sure there are no gas leaks...;-)
You bet!
Good one!
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