Abandoned Houses

I never cease to be surprised by the sameness of different things.  With my real estate 'stuff', I'm finding that abandoned homes are much like abandoned animals: they each have their own story--and the current circumstance of abandonment is never a happy one.  While driving by the MD project to see if the electricity had been turned on to perform the inspection, I spied the neighbor.  I said hello and introduced myself.  I learned a bit about this house.

The woman who owned it (as the original owner) is in a nursing home.  She has MS and was unable to care for herself.  The home has a chair lift to the upstairs; and it was sad to go into this home to see this. Josephine, the neighbor, said that the home has been vacant for more than a year and a half. When the house was cleaned out, there was many personal items, to include photo albums that were left behind.  The people gave these to Josephine, who is holding them.

I asked if the woman had children. One in Dubai and one in North Carolina. I could not imagine why the daughter in NC did not claim the photo albums. Best not to speculate on family dynamics, but there was a certain amount of sadness that I felt from the recant of this home's story.

Though it is owned my Fannie Mae, it did not go through the normal channels (HomePath).  Also, there is another asset manager involved--one that specializes in reverse mortgages.  I'm not sure what to make of any of that, nor do I need to.  This house had 27 offers on it.  We were not the lowest (according to the chat), but we were cash.  This home is in a fantastic neighborhood.  The interior is dated as you would expect, but I was struck by how good a shape that it was in--particularly given the health circumstances. 

The interior shape of this house was so much at odds with my last two projects.  The interiors were as follows:  one was bad, one was horrific (by my standards).  I'm sure that there are worse, but I don't think that I would want to tackle any worse than my FD project. On the FD project, I found a cardboard "Man Cave" sign that had racially and sexually offensive stuff on it.  That poor house suffered mightily from the clowns that were living in it.

Another home I viewed and put an offer in on yesterday was another home that was owned by an estate.  From the tax record, the man died a few years ago, and then the wife died recently. The home looks and feels like it was loved and cared for.  The home has very high quality and the unusual characteristic of being brick on block.  While a solid construction, it does not bode well for heating and cooling.