House Next Door For Sale
2006.07.03
So, the rental house next door to me just went on the market. They are asking $225,900, which seems pretty high to me, housing bubble notwithstanding. Sure, the median sale price in Portland has gone up 15–20% in the past year, but really, I think the seller is living in a dream.
It was built in 1923 like mine, remodeled a few years ago, and is just a little bit bigger. I’ve talked to the current renters a couple times, and one day she said there are two bedrooms and a bath in the finished basement. I don’t see any egress windows, so I don’t see how they could be legal bedrooms… but that doesn’t seem to bother anybody. There’s no garage, so that’s one thing I have that they don’t, but they have that second bathroom.
Last mortgage listed on portlandmaps is from 2004 for $170,000. Compare to $160,000 for mine a year ago.
Zillow.com says their house is a one-bedroom, two-bath, and worth $238,495. If I change it to three bedrooms, they say $246,460. I personally think that zillow’s estimates are too high in my neighborhood, but maybe the asking price is reasonable?
Since I figure my house is in a similar value range, of course I am very curious to see what the seller ends up getting for the house next door.
2006.07.24
The renters next door moved out this weekend. I talked to them a little bit yesterday, and we agreed that the asking price is too high for the location, particularly considering all the apartments around us. She said no one has come by to look at the place.
Yesterday afternoon while I was gone, apparently while driving the moving truck out of their driveway, they hit my cable TV line and brought the thing to the ground. When I got home, it was lying in a jumble on my sidewalk.
I called Comcast, but I guess the neighbors had already called it in, and they had a crew scheduled to come out this morning. I came back from the grocery store a little before noon today and there were a couple guys working on it. A hassle to be without TV and internet overnight, but, not a big deal.
