housecrazy
Update on my house that won’t sell
Yes, the darn thing is still for sale.
photo credit: Sarah Felix Burns
“But it’s so cute! I can’t believe it hasn’t sold yet!”
If I had a penny for every time I heard that, I could have my mortgage paid off by now.
“I LOVE that house! I would buy it in a second if I was in the position to buy!”
Apparently, a lot of people are not in a position to buy. We’ve had offers, and close-to-offers, but either the potential buyers can’t get financing, have a house that they need to sell first, or just get cold feet for God knows why – like the buyers who walked last summer.
“Why do you think it hasn’t sold yet?”
Bad luck? Retribution for sins in a past life? The universe conspiring against me? I’m starting to sound really paranoid here. But the prevailing theory is that the house does not want us to sell it.
photo credit: Sarah Felix Burns
“Why don’t you rent it out – no wait, renters would trash that historic home.”
Yep, in these parts some renters tend to um, wreck houses. I know it’s not PC to generalize so I’m just saying some renters around here. Maybe renters where you live don’t steal door knobs, cook meth in the bathtub, and throw trash in the backyard, but they do here, unfortunately.
“Can’t you just lower the price?”
Been there, Done that. Thrice. We are at the point where we are almost at the same price that we bought the house for in 2010. We are losing money on the place and just want to come away with our shirts on at this point.
photo credit: Sarah Felix Burns
“Why don’t you hold an open house?”
Tried that myself a couple of weekends ago. The only people who showed up just LOVED the house but were not in a position to buy. And they wanted to come see why this amazing house hasn’t sold yet. And they couldn’t figure out why this adorable house hasn’t sold yet.
Amazing before and after of a 1912 Craftsman
image from: http://www.laurelhurstcraftsman.com
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image from: http://www.laurelhurstcraftsman.com
In 2010 Jeff and Sharon Kidder purchased this 1912 bungalow in Portland, Oregon. The house was in decent shape but many of the original features had been obscured over the years as successive homeowners left their updating marks. Remember a few years back when it was all the rage to “lighten up” old dark wood in vintage craftsman homes by painting it all white?
Case in point: the house’s entryway when Jeff & Karen bought it…
The Playboy Bunny house is up for sale
image from: http://www.estately.com
The Playboy Bunny house (right across the street from Hugh Hefner’s infamous Tudor-style home) is for sale!
image from: http://www.estately.com
I used to watch The Girls Next Door just because I loved this mid-century house so much – well, okay… Holly, Kendra, Bridget and Hef were a kick too. As the E! channel reality show portrayed, this house was essentially used as a guest house for Playboy Bunnies-in-training.
image from: http://www.estately.com
This was the house where, up until recently, aspiring Playboy models stayed while visiting LA for their photo shoots. The mid-century rancher in the posh Holmby Hills neighborhood has hosted many a centerfold in its heyday.
My favorite Hobbit House in Vancouver is for sale!
image from: www.cbc.ca
I was surprised to learn that one of my all-time favorite houses – we’re talking going back to college years here folks - in Vancouver British Columbia is for sale! Not necessarily a good thing because it is at risk of being torn down and replaced with some massive modern McMansion.
This was the VERY FIRST house that caught my eye the day I moved to Vancouver. I remember my parents commenting on the distinctive wavy roof because we had never seen anything like it before.
A couple years later, I lived in an attic apartment literally four blocks away from this house during my last two years of university in the late 1990′s.
I drove by this house every day as I took the bus to the University of British Columbia. I walked by it countless times with armloads of groceries. Being a life-long house nut, I was naturally smitten with this little cutie and always wondered what lucky soul lived there.
image from: www.vancitybuzz.com
It turns out the house was owned by an elderly lady who passed away in November 2012. Her heirs are selling off her estate so the home is now up for sale for the first time in many years.
Skinny, spiteful houses
image from: http://mentalfloss.com
They’re long, they’re lean and they are meant to be mean.
Mean to the neighbors who made someone mad enough to build a tiny house right beside them, cramping the views and ventilation and diminishing adjoining property values.
Yes, that is what all of the following houses have in common: they were built exclusively because someone got a bee in his bonnet.
The Hollensbury Spite House in Alexandria, Virginia
image from: http://www.nytimes.com
John Hollensbury built this narrow blue house wedged between two other homes in the year 1830. He owned one of the larger homes and the alley beside it, but did not like the fact that people parked their horses in the alley, or that vagrants hung out there. Known to be a cranky, antisocial kind of guy, John Hollensbury took it upon himself to build a house in that space, darn it.
Below is a 1924 photo of the ”Hollensbury spite house” in Alexandria Virginia
image from: http://tinyhouseblog.com/
Turning heads at 7 feet wide and 25 feet deep.
