It would prolly cost you 10k to tear the house down, and at that price you are going to get the cheapest demolition guy, who is prolly going to contaminate the soil(lead paint, asbestos, etc). Then when you decide to sell the land, it's going to be worth even less, cause the buyer will have to scrape the top 1-3 feet of soil(if he's lucky) to get to good soil. Any idea how much it costs to get rid of contaminated soil?!? Plus, property taxes would still hit you for the land itself.
If you left the house there, you would get cited by the city for it not passing code, or being a blight on the neighborhood(they dont care if the rest of the neighborhood is in crap shape, you just bought the house, so they know where you live and can cite you!) If you were cited for not passing code, you have a limited time to get the home up to code, or you pay ever increasing fees until you do get it up to code.. I have heard of fees in the hundreds if not thousands per day.
Lets say the house has mold?! Then you have to remediate the mold, and pray that the house hasn't been placed on the insurance blacklist.... Heck, even if it doesnt have mold, you still have to pray the house isn't on the insurance blacklist.. One over zealous owner can get a home blacklisted for 5-10 years.
I went and looked at a home that was listed at 10k.. In great shape the home was worth 40-50k, but it had been in a fire and needed 40k in repairs. The bank was hoping someone would take the problem off their hands. I assume because they didnt want to pay the fees to tear the house down, or fix it, or pay the citations coming due!
People think how can a house go for $1?!? Well, cause no one wants it at that price.. Too many headaches, not enough cash.
If you left the house there, you would get cited by the city for it not passing code, or being a blight on the neighborhood(they dont care if the rest of the neighborhood is in crap shape, you just bought the house, so they know where you live and can cite you!) If you were cited for not passing code, you have a limited time to get the home up to code, or you pay ever increasing fees until you do get it up to code.. I have heard of fees in the hundreds if not thousands per day.
Lets say the house has mold?! Then you have to remediate the mold, and pray that the house hasn't been placed on the insurance blacklist.... Heck, even if it doesnt have mold, you still have to pray the house isn't on the insurance blacklist.. One over zealous owner can get a home blacklisted for 5-10 years.
I went and looked at a home that was listed at 10k.. In great shape the home was worth 40-50k, but it had been in a fire and needed 40k in repairs. The bank was hoping someone would take the problem off their hands. I assume because they didnt want to pay the fees to tear the house down, or fix it, or pay the citations coming due!
People think how can a house go for $1?!? Well, cause no one wants it at that price.. Too many headaches, not enough cash.