Today's Turkey

Over at my other site, I've got a feature called "Hot Bargain Properties" Being as the market is swinging more strongly to the buyers every day, it's what you might call a "target rich environment". On the other hand, there are still folks in denial, and just plain "What were you thinking" moments. Since a typical realtor won't talk down anything, no matter how ridiculous, I thought I'd post one of those. The format is similar to my Hot Bargain Properties posts.

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General: East County, 3 Bedroom, 2 Bathroom Asking price $575,000.



Why you should be interested: You shouldn't. Nobody should. It's a nice house, and if it were somewhere else, it might be worth every penny. But here it is an uninhabitable waste of property tax money every six months. At $575,000, that's roughly $600 per month, $3600 spent twice per year.



Selling Points: It's gorgeous on the inside. Spacious rooms, beautiful kitchen, nice brand new carpet. The whole property is basically brand new. Pity that ten feet outside your front door is a neighborhood that looks like it came from Deliverance. I haven't seen the inbred mutant banjo player yet, but I keep looking every time I drive through on my way to something else.



Why I think it's a potential bargain: I don't. If somebody gave me this property, I'd give to some charity or deed it back to the county immediately. Less trouble than trying to sell it for $1, or finding a deaf person who wants to buy it. The only way you might be able to live here is inside a hundred foot deep multilayered bunker.



Obvious caveats: The fact that it's less than a quarter-mile off the departure end of the main use runway of an airport might be something you'd like brought to your attention, as if you wouldn't know immediately. I don't know how they sold the other homes in the development. Maybe the wind had shifted on that day and the planes were using the crossing runway. I don't know why I wasted pixels taking a picture, but I had to wait for a Piper Cherokee to clear the picture window. It filled the whole thing. I love small planes, but there is no way I could stay here one night. The noise was bad enough with just the little trainers that were hopping around the pattern. This airport gets some fairly large aircraft and corporate jets, and has a regular traffic in retired World War II planes (and older!), all of which are noisier than most people would believe. I worked at that airport, and I know of two crashes in the field that used to be where this development sits. Just a matter of time before someone falls out of the sky on one of these homes.



Why it hasn't sold already: Left as an exercise for the reader. Actually, it's a private sale, not from the developer, so it did sell once. Go Mark Twain one better. Idiots. School Boards. The owners of these. I'd say two better and name the developer, but evidently the universe developed bigger idiots. Or a bigger fool. You can look out the window at runway centerline, for crying out loud.



If you keep it ten years and it averages only 5% annual average appreciation per year: Based upon a $575,000 asking price, this property will be worthless.



Fact you should be aware of: Open your eyes and look around. Feel the vibrations from the aircraft overhead! Reach out and touch one! (Actually, please don't try. You might be able to!)



Obvious way to enhance value or appeal of property: Getting rid of the airport would be one, but I know the provenance of that airport land. Isn't going to happen. The county not only makes a mint off of that airport, but in order to close it they would have to pay the federal government at least billions and I believe tens of billions of dollars. Not. Going. To. Happen.



I'm a buyer's agent, so I'm not afraid to make fun of stuff like this. If this owner came to me to list it, I'd probably make like one of Ted Striker's seatmates in Airplane!



Don't call me on this one. Please, I'm begging you. Properties like this are a Realtor's version of Slasher movies. You're stuck in a roomful of rabid dogs sharks lawyers and their idiots shills clients, and nobody else gets out alive!



Caveat Emptor, for the love of humanity!



UPDATE: I forgot to mention that they are building a freeway that will come within one block of this property!.