Chicken: Chicken, Chicken, Chicken

So I haven't posted anything lately on 7301 Pimmit Ct. so I figured I would drive by and walk up and down the street on my way home from work this week to see if I could see anything that might help me to figure out why the land is listed as Buildable-Poor. The weather was great for a walk, but while I didn't come across anything useful as far as the Buildable status in conserned I did notice that the neighbor has a chicken!

I did not know that Fairfax County allowed domestic fowl, but I found out chickens as pets are ok so long as you have less than 32 chickens per acre. While I only saw one chicken in the twilight hours that still means that the neighbor may have up to 12 pet chickens and still be Code Compliant!

Next time we will review the planned development plans at East Falls Church, so stay tuned.

Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) Review

So the summer days and summer nights have flown by and during that time it looks like one of our case studies went under contract on August 1st, as I started to pull together the information needed for a closeout and recap the property got relisted at a higher price!

Considering the price history under Re/Max at 7301 Pimmit Ct. I don't think this is a greedy buyer looking at foreclosure, I am guessing that this is a Broker Price Opinion coming in at over the asking.

Here is a BIG question for you; does it really make sense to kill a deal over $10,000 or possibly less when the home has been on the market for over a year?

Now for the Review of 7301 Pimmit Ct.
Positive aspects
Siding appears to be in good shape.
Well manicured lawn, shrubs, and bushes.
It is a large 0.41 acre lot zoned R-4.
Negative aspects
There is no driveway.
Roof may need to be replaced in 3-4 years.
Windows are single pane glass.
Porch light is hanging by the wires.
Current addition is not permitted by the Fairfax County and would have to be removed.
Lot is in the shape of a pentagon so expansion would be “unconventional”.
Land is listed as Buildable-Poor Lot.

Questions left unanswered:
Why is the land listed as Buildable-Poor?
Did a discount of $49,000 make sense compared to FX6928567? This was the fully upgraded house down the street with mahogany, granite, and marble throughout.
Will a discount of $39,000 still bring in buyers?
With so little description about the inside of the property does it really belong in the high end of the lower cluster of property sales over the past year? The closest comparable for the size of the land was FX6853705 which sold in October of 2008 for a net of $318,000 but the house has a basement making it twice the size with a nice, but not polished, interior.

The property included in this chart contain lots from 0.23 to 0.39 acres and 884 to 1556 sq. ft.

Bing Maps and Permits

So I was never really liked Microsoft Live Search but now that Bing has come out I have been playing with the travel search functionality, which I really like, and the mapping functionality. Bing Maps has this thing called Birds Eye where you can see properties from the side, this is still from the air but at an angle it is not at all like what Google Street View is trying to do.

When I looked at the property from the side and then looked back at the Redfin Listing I noticed that the back addition was not listed in the sales information, and from looking at the neighborhood again from the Birds Eye View the "bonus room" for lack of a better term was an addition.

Time to check the permits. So in 2004 Fairfax County came out with their Fairfax Inspections Database Online, FIDO. It is a silly name but the functionality is great and goes back to 1985.

With that I hit FIDO up and look to see what permits have been pulled for 7301 Pimmit Ct. and find that the only item was in September of 2005 to a previous owner for a Multiple Work Permit# 052669632 that could not be issued. Three months later the owner decided to sell his house to the current owner.

Long story short, the current addition is not permitted by the county.

Buildable Status Continued

So I still haven't figured out what makes a residential property Buildable-Poor Lot in Fairfax County. I have found out by playing in the tax records that all of the parcels of land on the South Eastern side of Pimmit Drive, and all of the houses on Pimmit Court are listed as Buildable-Poor Lot while all of the houses across the street are Buildable-Average Lot.

When looking at Google Maps the only thing that I can tell is what looks like a bike path behind the houses and Lemon Rd Park, so maybe the county has some easement for the path.


View Larger Map

Buildable Status

I was poking around Redfin now that things seemed to have settled down again and came across 3212 Glen Carlyn Rd, it is a lot that consists of two parcels totaling 1.78 acres that is bank owned for $600,000.

The bank says it appraised in 2008 for $900,000 which seems high considering it sold in 2006 for $1,040,000. I may have to add this one to the blog for being out of market. If we get one or 2 price drops expect to see data for this one later.

The reason I bring this up is of the two neighboring parcels one has the site description of Buildable-Average Lot and the other is Non-Buildable-Flood Plain. This caused me to wonder what impact the site description has on the houses value if any.

Lets look at one of our test cases, 7301 Pimmit Ct., which has a site description of Buildable-Poor Lot. Scouring the Fairfax County website only comes back with a Validation Request, which basically says that when the lot was originally zoned, in 1954, it was determined that a house could be built on the lot.

If the status in 1954 is poor for building I think I will have to do more digging to see why with 0.41 acres it is a poor lot for building. It really makes you wonder if lots were zoned according to the standards of today if houses would still be allowed on the lots.

If anyone knows any more about the site description field feel free to leave a comment in the comments section.

Green Shoots, Now Back to Housing

Hopefully you haven't minded the stock market research for the past few months too much but I am going to attempt to delve back into the real estate, the true point of this blog.

With the talk of "green shoots" in the financial markets, I am going to head back into the wide wonderful world of real estate. Even searching the financial markets gives you clues for real estate. Some of you may know about the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices. That is the leading measures for the US residential housing market, that tracks changes in the value of residential real estate both nationally as well as in 20 metropolitan regions including the Washington DC area.

Speaking of Washington DC area, I plan on taking a very local look at real estate by taking a long lunch one day, in the not to distant future, and going to the courthouse steps to watch a Trustee Auction and talking to some of the people within Fairfax County records to see what I can find.

In the mean time here is the new drive by short sale picture for 7301 Pimmit Ct. that is currently on the MLS.


And the repost of the old MLS short sale drive by picture for 5111 North 19th St. that is now on the market as an REO. Now that it is bank owned they got smart and FINALLY competitively priced the property.


My last 2 cents on the stock market are that the S&P will move diagonally from here for at least the next year, as we are in a trading range.