Short Sale Again?!?!

I expected it to be a few months until 7301 came back on the market as a REO. Apparently the owners did something to stave off foreclosure and the house is back on the market as a short sale again!

This time 7301 Pimmit Ct. is under the MLS of FX6888001 with Homeequity Realty LLC.

Re/Max is gone and the plot thickens as Homeequity Realty LLC doesn't even seem to have a website to reference.

On the upside I did find a new and useful website to play with called FranklyMLS where you can see all the houses sold with Homeequity Realty as the listing agent. The search functionality at FranklyMLS works for any agent be it listing agent or buyers agent. When going over the notes it seems like they have a decent amount of experience selling short sale homes so this might be a very good move for the buyer.

The most impressive thing to note is that they lowered the price to $300,000 which seems competitively priced for the area.

When you head over to FranklyMLS be sure to check out his blog FranklyRealty.com and his FranklyRealty YouTube Page he definitely has some cool stuff on both and has his finger on the pulse of the market.

As the stock market seems to be in freefall I may throw in some information about stocks as I will likely be doing more research on that to make sure my own assets are in proper order.

Foreclosure

So the Pimmit Ct. property was delisted from the MLS at the end of September. I was wondering what happened to it and came across an excel spreadsheet listing the owners names and the property as going to the Fairfax County courthouse steps in September. It looks like even at the lower price the bank was not able to find a willing buyer.

Maybe now I will get to follow it as an Real Estate Owned (REO). If I controlled the world, I would probably call them Bank Owned (BO) as they stink for everyone involved.

Another Price Drop

So it has been a while without any price movement on the Pimmit Ct. house, FX6640385, but it looks like Re/Max is finally headed in the correct direction by pricing the property at $350,000. The price is lower than what Zillow estimates but given as houses in the area have been selling under the Zestimates I question if a Zestimate really means anything at all.

On the upside the house is only now out of market by not having any upgrades compared to the other properties we have watched in Pimmit Hills. As they didn't keep up with their price drops, at this rate it might end up in foreclose before it sells.

Adding another foreclosure to the books of the banks will not help the Credit Crunch.

I wonder how McCain is doing with HIS multitude of houses in this market.

Zoning

So today we look at zoning ordinances and what zoning means for property. Before we looked at zoning issues in Arlington County, VA now we will look at zoning issues in Fairfax County, VA. The Zoning Ordinance for Fairfax County is fairly comprehensive and would take ages to go over so we will use the case study of 7301 Pimmit Ct. to look at simple setbacks as part of the Residential District Regulations.

The property is zoned R-4 (Residential 4 DU/AC) and has more than the conventional minimum lot requirement of 8,400 sq. ft. The increased size may be due to the odd shape of the lot.

As the lot is in the shape of a pentagon there are two rear yard setbacks to consider. The front yard must be 30 feet, the side yards must each be 10 feet, and the rear yard setbacks must each be 25 feet. With these requirements this should give ample room to expand on 0.41 acres.

The Prices Keep Dropping

So it took me a while to get out and do a drive by of the property with work and birthdays this month. From the outside the property has a cute house, looks to be a standard Pimmit Hills home with what looks like a huge lot.

The house has had consistent price drops about every two weeks since it was listed to drive people to go through the property. I didn't see anyone that went through in the 15 minutes that I hung around the neighborhood.

As I all I did was a drive by viewing I am posting what you see from the curb.

This is the obligatory short sale drive by photo now published on the MLS.

The basic facts are there is a space for a driveway but no driveway, the siding looks to be in good shape, the roof looks like it might have 4 or 5 years until it needs to be replaced, the windows look to be the original single pane glass, and the porch light is hanging by the wires. At the current time the only way I can see justifying the price is if the inside is immaculate with an upgraded kitchen, but from the outside that does not seem promising.

If they keep up with the price drops I may need to dig deeper, or find another property to watch, before it goes off the market.

Very Interesting

So in my daily pull of Redfin I came across a property at 7301 Pimmit Ct. in Falls Church VA between the West Falls Church Metro and Tysons Corner Center. It has a MLS listing of FX6640385 and might be a nice house to watch as it is priced high for the Pimmit Hills area. I will take a look at it on my way home from work some time over the next few weeks and if it sticks around I will provide an update.

If you don't know about Redfin it only has the best mapping and sorting functionality I have ever come across. Even if you have a Realtor I would recommend using Redfin if only to get an idea of the location and prices for a given area.

The Search Begins

So my New Years resolution for this year is to blog on something I find useful, as I have been following real estate casually since 2004 I think I will dip my toe into that area.

I have come across a number of useful real estate blogs in my searches. I would say 95% of the blogs are from Realtors marketing their services, or telling about how they can get a property sold. I have decided to see if I can find a few properties that looks to be out completely out of market given the financial conditions of the day and see about following their stories.

I am considering starting with 1941 North Culpeper St Arlington VA 22207, it has been on and off the market since 1996 and looks far to small to be usable, and 1911 North Cameron St Arlington VA 22207, as it has been on the market since 2007.

My only sticking point is I really want to see about finding things that comes out this year so I can follow them from the start, instead of doing a lot of historical research.

If I follow land only property it usually has a long story to follow, but if I come across something with a house it might make for a more interesting story to tell. If you stumble across this blog and have a suggestion for an out of market property in the Northern Virginia area leave a comment and I might add it to my search.