April 29, 2007

Real Homes of Genius: Today We Salute you Inglewood. For $329,000 you get 550 square feet and Garbage on the Lawn.


Today we Salute Inglewood with the 20th edition of Real Homes of Genius Award. Now 550 square feet is a lot of room so you may be thinking to yourself $329,000 is an unbelievable price in such a prime Los Angeles County city. We do have the sunshine tax after all. Thankfully, the agent tells us this place is a fixer upper as you can see from the garbage or toxic sewage piled up in the front lawn. But what’s a little fixing up when you get 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom?! I mean we are talking 5 star luxury here. Not only is this place a deal like no other, you also get garbage containers to place all your extraneous fixing up materials:



Now the seller will not kick you down with any money and is selling this place as is. You take it or leave it. I like their style of business negotiating! Not once did I learn that in my business education regarding negotiating and tact. I was told that in a declining market, you were to undercut competitors quickly and be flexible if prices in the future were projected to fall – it was called the cut your losses principle. Maybe I skipped the chapter titled, Put up so much smoke that you’ll think Snoop Dogg was your next door neighbor. Now for those of you outside of Southern California, we do not have much rainy weather so these sellers did you the favor of removing the roof:



What in the world?! Either this is a joke or an absolute case study on “how not to market a property in a declining housing environment.” Doesn’t the roof remind you of someone making pancakes and the excess batter is running over the sides? I’m sure that I do not need to convince you anymore that this home is worth every penny of the $329,000. In fact, let us take a look at what Zillow values this property at:

Value range of $394,414 to $503,974. So you’re telling me that we can have this mini paradise for $174,974 off retail price? Only in LA can we find fantastic deals like this and the tenacity of folks to panhandle their homes to the public.

We Salute you Inglewood with the Real Homes of Genius Award.

8 Comments:

Anonymous said...

I try to avoid the derogatory term "shitbox" - but in this case, its really hard not to. Let me put it this way: If the offer was renting for only a quarter of the expected monthly cost that this imaginary $329000 paying owner has to pay - I still most probably would continue looking elsewere.

Anonymous said...

Jeez, where do the sellers think they're living: a fancy area like San Jose or something?

http://tinyurl.com/2mlqm7

In the defense of the Inglewood home, it probably IS close to the racetrack and the home of the Lakers! Plus you can rent out the front yard (once the trash is removed) for special event parking at $20 per night. Probably fit 4-5 cars in there, so it's a moneymaker!

Love the roof, though: I wonder how that one passed the building code inspector? Oh, you say the work was unapproved?

Anonymous said...

To Ben Franklin-

The Lakers play in Los Angeles now and not in Inglewood, so the apecial event parking idea is out the window.

Working With Real Estate Investors

Anonymous said...

Dr. Housing Bubble,

I have been reading your "real homes of genius" section and I think it does the finest job of identifying the existence of a bubble like no bubble before it.

Imagine a family (dad, mom, three kids) moving from out of state, to California. California's idea of a "starter home" is, at this point, $500K. This five member family, who needs more space than a condo, is relegated to finding a home in either Huntington Park, or Compton, or Santa Ana, or East LA,or Inglewood, just to afford a "starter home". Would they move to any of those places? Of course not.

They'd rent in a nice neighborhood where bullets don't fly through windows randomly.

California was always more expensive than the rest of the country, but not THIS more expensive. I remember in 1997 laughing at an ad for a four bedroom home in Compton that was listed at $199K, thinking, who in the hell would pay that price to live in Compton? Of course a four bedroom in Compton today would be, what, $600K or more?

Please keep doing what you're doing. Not just for the comic relief, but because people in CA have to wake up, sooner or later.

Adam said...

Seems fitting to point out that the South Central L.A. riots decimated this area, only 15 years ago today. How quickly people forget that they're sitting on a powder keg...

Anonymous said...

The roof is designed like that. It is for "gentle and artistic runoff of rainwater". Makes neat patterns in the dirt.

That house is worth the money because of the interesting patina it has formed. You couldn't build that house accurately, only time can shape it! That alone folks, is worth the price of admission.

Besides, it IS Southern California!!!!!

Unknown said...

I think this one is the best yet for your homes of genius: http://www.redfin.com/stingray/do/printable-listing?listing-id=614292

Price: $900,000

2504 CORTEZ ST
OXNARD, CA 93036-1636

Anonymous said...

That pancake roof comment actually made me laugh out loud, and I have not been drinking. This is HILARIOUS.