How ugly can a home or property be before a buyer won't buy it?

Bird Dogs, Wholesaling
1

There is this home I was looking at the other day →

Cosmetically, it’s not in the best shape. It looks like the siding needs repaired or replaced, the roof has or had a a hole in it at one time, and was badly repaired. However, it’s on a decent sized lot (.32 acres). No cc&r’s, mature landscaping, fully fenced, and if wanted, the buyer can move a modular or trailer home on the lot. They say it would cost $3k to $6k to remove the current home. I’m not sure about the foundation, though. It looks like the seller is comparing apples to apples that one lot in our county sold for $29,950, and 12 lots in a newer subdivision about a mile or 2 away are bank reo’s and they’re listed for sale at $27,500. In 2009, the re agent recommended they list it at $29,500 to sell by winter 2009 and it’s still for sale. There is a small modular trailer court across the street, and the property is located on another busy 2 lane street in town. They have a huge sign out in the front yard, and smaller signs advertising the house for sale in the front yard.

Some of the property information is listed below for review:

Asking: $28,000
Built: 1910
Bed: 2
Bath: 1
Sq. Ft.: 1,141
Zoned: SF Residential
2009 Tax Value: $64,590

What do you think about this property? Thanks in advance.

2

What I think is that they’ve put a lot of time and effort into trying to sell it for $28K, so it is not worth anywhere close to that. If the thing would be a good purchase for 2-3K under the asking price, someone would have already purchased it.

In a healthy market, I will pay bare land prices for a property like that one, and I get the development and the building for free.

In this market, be sure you are looking at what bare land has actually sold for. It’s not much because there is no point in buying land and building if you can buy a house already built for much less than the cost of the construction, let alone the cost of the land and development fees.

A lot on a busy road across the street from a trailer park is not a desirable lot by anyone’s standards. It’ll be a very hard sell, unless it is zoned commercial and a good site for a convenience store or some sort of small cheap-customer business that could take advantage of that traffic. Nicer businesses don’t want to be across the street from a trailer park.