location location location
Always the primary factor in real estate.
You could an own a house that looks like the one in Green Acres.
But if it is located in Bel-Air it would be worth many millions.
They used to have a website called “Crackhouse or Mansion” which showed random pictures of houses in Vancouver, Canada.
Some of them were crack houses which had been raided by the police. Others were real estate listings which had recently sold for over $1 million Canadian.
You had to try to guess which was which.
It was virtually impossible.
All the gold in California is in a bank in the middle of Beverly hills in somebody else’s name.
The “locations” where construction is allowed have been systematically limited more and more over the years, until there is really very little buildable land left anywhere in coastal California.
Got to protect the environment, you know.
Regulation has gotten so micro-oriented, that in order to build a “new” house on a property with an existing structure, the tear-down must leave an existing wall, three new walls may be constructed, and finished out for habitation, then the one remaining “old” wall may be torn out and replaced. If there is a complete tear-down, no new construction may be undertaken. Ever.
Does not seem to be a very economical way to renew a property.
“But if it is located in Bel-Air it would be worth many millions.”
Well, to be technically correct wouldn’t you say that the lot it sits on would be worth millions and the house itself would have a negative value? Wouldn’t the lot be worth MORE WITHOUT such a house on it?