Today I am going to inspect a house that just came onto market. The asking price is deceiving low, but the home is located on another street that I really do not like. Medium traffic street and homes are in a canyon… most are dark and dreary. I was the very first to call the agent (within 20 minutes of listing) and will be the first into the house for a showing.
The agent made a hilarious mistake in the listing. I’m not sure if anyone else is going to catch it (probably will). Description says “best house in Point Loma under $800,000”. Asking price $825,000. Oooops. She just gave away what her sellers will accept
No amount of fixing up can fix dark and dreary. I think houses with little natural sunlight are very difficult to sell, no matter how nice the finishes are.
So many places around here stay dark and dreary because of restrictions on cutting down trees. It’s hard to change orientation! Bright paint only goes so far.
If a house on a medium-traffic street has something else going for it - larger lot, great house, easy to get onto the road, I’d consider it. I wouldn’t do ordinary at a high price.
Yes, I am also looking hard in 3-4 other neighborhoods that I like. I don’t have good knowledge of all areas of San Diego County so I have always focused on 4-5 neighborhoods that I understand and know the market really well. Otherwise I could make a big mistake
It’s a NO… for many reasons. The back yard is taken up by ramshackle additions, a permitted family room addition that is extremely dark and dreary and an old garage. The old 2 car garage only has 5 ft height at garage door which eliminates any type of tall car or truck getting into the garage. My carpenter pointed out several key issues. House has a flat roof and there are lot of soffits and dropped ceilings to 7’ in the house where the heating system ducting is running. There is no way to fix the low ceilings without putting on a whole new roof structure. Also he noticed that the walls are not really true drywall, interior walls are that thin mobile home type wall board.
I think the price is too high at this point, so I am going to pass on it.
This is the one I have been waiting for!! The listing agent that has the 1939 3/2 1700sq ft contacted me yesterday and says they have signed the listing. This is the one that has son still living in it, full of crap and they are having a hard time moving him out. Trust sale with heirs.
I cannot get in to view it until Monday afternoon because the family is clearing out the house this weekend. I have no idea how much is really going to be hauled out. The listing agent was being really coy about the address but he finally sent it to me for our showing. OMG!!! I want this house bad. I can imagine how bad the interior is, but the lot is very special. It is about 50% larger than others in the immediate neighborhood. It is in that pocket neighborhood where everything is flying off the shelf at ridiculous prices. Home has view potential, but someone built a brand new McMansion next door that is blocking most of the view.
Listing agent has promised that they will not list the house in MLS until after I get in to view it Monday afternoon. I believe this because I know the guy cannot take any pictures until Monday or Tuesday.
Just drove the exterior of #12. I can see a huge issue that will take a big chunk of money. The house is sitting on a slope that is having erosion issues with our heavy rains. I need to be careful that I don’t get emotional about the property and ignore the $15k retaining wall that will require permits!! And, as soon as I submit for that permit I can kiss another $10k goodbye pulling other permits and at least 30 days waiting for historical review
So were the intensive rains actually helpful in that they exposed the problem? I was wondering how Guizot and Nipoma held up since they both had slopes.
Tarek and Christina spread a wide net. Their properties are across a large area of Orange and LA counties.
I think Guizot should be fine in the rains because we built the big retaining wall against the mountain of dirt and installed some drainage. But I warned them they should put gutters on inside courtyard because a lot of rain could come down from the roof into the small area, although we did run a trenched drainage pipe all the way around the house to drain the patio.
Nipoma better be OK because I spent a lot of money on drain pipes in the back of the house!
I’m not sure the owners of this new property I’m interested in even know there’s a big issue with their slope. It can only be seen from street below and I doubt they go down there at all. And, my experience with most agents is that they purposely don’t crawl around so they can claim ignorance. Whenever I ask the simplest questions like. “Does the heater work”, they never know the answer. Or “owner says Yes”.