It appears one of my late year predictions didn’t even survive 5 days before it was proven incorrect. I guess that shows how little I know about this business. I was having a skate with the kids at the excellent shaganappi rink and happened to look downhill and what did I see? A dumpster being filled beside the garage at house 2503. That suggested someone is renovating the existing house to repurpose it. Sure enough the property sold for $450k. It was last listed at $518k, having been dropped over a slow and painful year from a starting price near $700k. Total capitulation by the seller here. At $450k it looks a lot better to a renovator. As a large brick clad 6 bedroom house it must appeal to an investor that needs accommodation, be it a nightly rental rooming house (hmmm the neighbours will love that), Airbnb or a suited rental that can be cashflow positive, or even a low cost family home if the budget is kept low maybe as low as $50k. It is after all a 30 second drive to the west side of downtown. While it faces the highway, a negative, it also has immediate access eastbound and whoever lives there will rarely see traffic as a problem. At $450k I’m a little surprised the seller was motivated enough to let it go but not shocked that the property found a price that a deal could be done. I remain fascinated by the fate of this building and the nastiest gremlin it contains, the failing retaining wall upslope that will be costly to deal with. The wall is likely the responsibility of the upslope neighbour and he may need to deal with it or risk slope failure and eventual damage to his foundation and the house below. this is a nasty issue because access is not great for a machine to dig up the old wall and dig down for a new footing and then pour a retaining wall and backfill it. I look at something like that a stretch for me to manage and it could be quite intimidating for a home owner who will need to outsource everything and be utterly reliant on the abilities of his contractor. It is one of those cringeworthy situations where if you must involve an engineer and a city permit a small matter can grow in scope into a true fiasco. If it was up to me I would have done it while the house next door was vacant and there was ‘fewer eyes’ watching the work be done.
Hopefully I can meet the 2503 renovator someday and congratulate him on finding a good deal and investing in the community to improve a property in desperate condition. Could the saga end in a win win scenario?
The house sold for far less the city tax assessment. I’ve noted many properties where the city assessment algorithm is totally out of whack with reality both high and low. This is a subject of another upcoming blog post.