Notes on Doors/Under Contract AGAIN

So I know I haven't downloaded the picture from my camera to upload for my update from two posts ago but things have been a little hectic for me but I wanted to give a quick update as we are almost 1000 days, over 32 months or just three months shy of three years since the property was first marketed!

The last time I went by the 7301 Pimmit Ct. house I noticed a note on the door. Out of interest I wrote down the information so I could post it.

Hi,
My name is Julie. I would like to buy your house. I can buy it
right now. Please call me as soon as possible. My number is
571-263-2469.
Julie

Now this seemed odd to me as the owner has a realtor why would someone leave a note on the door and not contact the realtor. Maybe the realtor is unresponsive or they have attempted to contact them before and didn't like the way they did business, but then I Googled the number...

Julie, is Julie Hendrix of S.S.R.E. Investors a company that appears to auction off properties. If this is true it would be a HUGE no no as she would be going behind the fence and trying to bypass the realtor. Now this number based on trackbacks is also linked to DC Life Magazine so it is entirely possible that she could be an editor look for a house as well. Now if she was going to purchase the house for her own residence there would be no issue but it does wave a big red flag when looking at the ethics of realty and trying to bypass the realtor.

Also the house is under contract again. If you can tell by the sound of my typing, I am not impressed. This is because going on and off contract is become the story of the house. Go under contract come off from under contract go under contract, rinse and repeat. I am sure eventually someone will purchase this house, but given the fact that some of the major banks are freezing the foreclosure process to make sure that the paperwork is in order I think that this might not be the last time it goes under contract but we will see. Personally, my gut feeling is to avoid foreclosures for a while.

On a truth in real estate point it is nice to see the remarks have been updated to show that the house does not qualify for an FHA loan.

Under Contract x2

I am reviewing 7301 Pimmit Ct. as it has gone under contract twice in the past month and this will be a longer post than normal.

As this is the second time in a month that 7301 Pimmit Ct has gone under contract, I had expected the higher price of $330,000 to dissuade an offer as for $10,000 more you could get a move in ready home in the area but apparently I was wrong.

The first time this month it was Contingent with No Kick Out (Cont/NO KO) now it is Contingent with Kick Out (Cont/KO). I think it is interesting to note that a short sale starter house is willing to wait for some to sell their other property. While the property can still be marketed I would think they would be carrying a larger risk.

In this market all I can think of would be it would be a move up from a one or two bedroom condo, those prices range from $69,900 to $300,000 and all currently listed properties in the surrounding area have an median days on market of 61 (average days on market of 92). The Northern Virginia Association of Realtors June 2010 Market Statistics for Fairfax County have a median sale of $215,000 and days on market of 44, across all Condominium types.

Next lets go through the price changes on the property.
01/21/2008 $450,000
02/13/2008 $355,000
07/26/2008 $350,000
09/05/2008 $300,000
07/31/2009 $310,000
03/04/2010 $320,000
07/12/2010 $330,000
Please note that as I don't have direct access to the MLS I can only rely on my notes and publically accessible information on the internet. For exact timing consult a Realtor.

For current on the market comparables, as of today, two new houses both considered "Fixer-Uppers" but not marketed as uninhabitable, were listed in Pimmit Hills both priced for $330,000 or under. This brings the total of houses in Pimmit Hills available for sale to 4 under ranging from $290,000 to $340,000 with an additional 2 land only lots available for $325,000. Finally, there have been 4 houses that have gone through foreclosure and reverted back to the bank in the past month, as reported in the Trustee’s Sale section of the Washington Post. These pieces of property will add to the already available housing pool in Pimmit Hills.

Based on size and condition of 7301 Pimmit Ct. the only two recent comps I find within the past three months are from May 2010 one being in nice condition at 2044 Cherri Dr selling for a net of $296,520 and the other being uninhabitable at 7515 Lisle Ave selling for $275,000. Both of these have a smaller "actual lot" but a significantly larger buildable area. The other sale in the area is a larger sized house in much better condition.

Instead of my usual market assessment instead I turn to Are Andresen of Soldsense who makes some interesting comparisons of 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom homes in Pimmit Hills for the first half of 2010 in his blog on Active Rain. I did pull those houses and found that the public MLS data did not match to the Fairfax County Tax Record data for many of the houses, some of the 3 bedroom 1 bathroom MLS houses came up as 3 bedroom 1.5 or 2 baths in the tax records. There is also the fact that the majority of 3 bedroom 1 bathroom homes sold were from 1,052 to 1,768 sq. ft. We thank Are for his insightful overview, but this just goes to show how difficult it can be to do direct comparisons as there are multiple metrics that can be used to assess property value.

Now for the Review of 7301 Pimmit Ct.
Positive aspects
Siding appears to be in good shape.
Well manicured lawn, shrubs, and bushes next to a wooded area.
It is a large 0.41 acre lot zoned R-4.
Negative aspects
Land is listed as Buildable-Poor Lot.
Lot is in a Chesapeake Bay Resource Protection Area limiting potential for additions and changes.
The house is next to a drainage culvert.
Lot is in a 100-year flood plain and would likely require flood insurance.
Lot is in the shape of a pentagon.
Significant moisture and mold issues have been identified.
Current addition is not permitted by the Fairfax County and would have to be removed.
There are no appliances in the house besides a dishwasher.
The kitchen would need major work to be useable.
There are drywall issues.
Windows are single pane glass.
There is no driveway.
Roof may need to be replaced in 3-4 years.
Porch light is hanging by the wires.
The ceiling fan is put up with tape.
The neighbor has chickens.

A New Beginning

I have been having some issues moving over only part of the blog to its new home. I haven't been able to move over all of the posts as I was not as diligent as I should have been in the labeling process. Also I cannot seem to move over the comments section so we might have to just start new on comments. If anyone knows how to move the comments please let me know.

To commemorate this transition I will see about going to 7301 Pimmit Ct. and getting a new drive by short sale photo and update this post when I have gotten it.

UPDATE DRIVE BY SHORT SALE PHOTO

::pending::

Don't forget to visit my original blog Northern VA Out of Market Properties for more information about multiple properties in Northern VA.

Tune in tomorrow — NEW Bat-time, NEW Bat-channel

So when I sat down to blog today I realized something, there is one property that I have been following that has been on the market for over 2 years now, and according to Redfin there are only 2 properties that have been on the market longer. Now I know that there are other properties that could have delisted while under contract, which explains how this property's Days On Market are so low, but I haven't been tracking them.

For those following the blog I am talking about 7301 Pimmit Ct., Falls Church, VA 22043 that went on the market January 21, 2008. As the property has been marketed for over 900 days I plan on moving all relevant posts to their own blog!

Hopefully the transition will go smoothly and we may even get some new readers. For those already getting the feeds to the blog I have secured the name to the site and the NEW RSS Feed has been established. You will have to subscribe to this feed to get any new updates specific to 7301 Pimmit Ct.

Moisture and Mold

Apparently our humble little blog does do some good.

I was contacted by someone who went through the 7301 Pimmit Ct. house with their Realtor and found large moisture and mold issues in the house, along with rusty pipes in the crawl space. They were kind enough to include pictures for us to include on the blog.

Moisture issues on the floor.

Water damage repair on the ceiling.

Water collecting on pipes in crawlspace.

Wet insulation and mold in the crawlspace.

Wet insulation and mold on the beams in the crawlspace.

More wet insulation and mold on the beams in the crawlspace.

Ok, seriously is anything not left untouched by water.

I suggested that since they have first hand experience with the house they might want to post it in the comments section of FranklyMLS as I believe more information for everyone is always better.

While I can't validate the validity of the comments they told me that it didn't look like anyone had gone into the crawlspace. Personally I don't know how people can go under contract with a house and not get dirty checking out some of the obvious places where things can go wrong.

Chesapeake Bay Resource Protection Areas

The average home owner may never think about easements on their land but they exist whether they are caused by a road, utility, or just a protected area. After TheFEMAIntern tipped us off to 7301 Pimmit Ct. being in a 100 year flood plain we went into the county to pull the Stormwater Management Maps. To do this use the Fairfax County Digital Map Viewer. As you can see the full map doesn't look like anything special until you zoom in.

When you zoom in you can see that almost the entire property, along with most houses on the South East side of Pimmit Dr. and Pimmit Ct. are in the what Fairfax County classifies as a paved ditch overflow area (floodplain). There is also a grass ditch that is down the street that homeowners looking in Pimmit Hills should keep in mind.


As luck would have it I decided to play with some of the other maps available and came across the Chesapeake Bay Map. Now normally you wouldn't think anything relates to the Chesapeake Bay in Pimmit Hills, but you would be wrong. Apparently it is chocked FULL of easements for Chesapeake Bay Preservation Areas. The point of these easements are to regulate the kinds of development that can occur in sensitive areas along streams that drain into the Potomac River and eventually the bay in Fairfax County. Some of these easements came into effect in 1993 or as late as 2005, so I don't know how much attention these areas got in the real estate boom years.

Now I am not going to go into all the detail of what Resource Protection Area easements mean but needless to say, if you thought possible flooding was bad you only have half the story!

A Chesapeake Bay Resource Protection Area (RPA) limits what can be built on the property including additions, sheds, and in some cases decks. If you where looking at 7301 Pimmit Ct. for buildable land think again. To do an addition larger than 177 sq. ft. requires a public hearing by the Exceptions Review Committee, public notice in the local newspaper written notice to adjacent property owners, notice to the local civic association, and approval by the Department of Public Works and Environmental Services. With a civic association that was quoted in the Washington Post in 2005 of "including the possibility of filing lawsuits" to keep McMansions out of the area this type of barrier is a high hurdle for anyone considering adding onto the current structure.

One of the most worrisome aspects is as the current addition was not permitted and there is the possibility that should the county prosecute they could assess civil penalties of up to $5,000 for each day of violation.

As 7301 Pimmit Ct. just went under contract I will aim to do an Under Contract Review by next week. Information on this little house has just been jumping lately! After that I promise to provide an update on the 19th St. Property Arlington land only property.

UPDATE: As Matt brought up a lot on the Chesapeake Bay Resource Protection Area could have building that avoids the flooding and Cheasapeake Bay RPA zones by building forward of that line but in the case of this property if you use the maps and the GIS tools provided by Fairfax County you find that the existing footprint and setback requirements take up more area than the house currently sits on so there is no place to build forward. Because the RPA came into existance well after the house was built it was grandfathered in. Now in most areas where the RPA would take effect Fairfax County has parkland. Potentially, and I would have to check the rules again the only option that might exist is to keep the existing original footprint of 884 Sq Ft and build up but (and don't quote me on this part) I think you would have to keep the existing structure and not tear down and rebuild in the existing footprint.

Flood and Flood Insurance

Special thanks to TheFEMAIntern for leaving the comment about one possible reason why the South Eastern side of Pimmit Drive may be listed as Buildable-Poor Lots. It was previously mentioned that the properties this street, including 7301 Pimmit Ct. and 2045 Pimmit Dr., are in front of a drainage culvert that is at the edge of Lemon Road Park, well apparently those flood! And the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) knows that and provides maps and insurance for the areas that may flood.

These houses are in a "Special Flood Hazard Area" also known as a 100-year flood zone. I put in a couple calls to insurance companies, and without going into too much detail the additional cost for policies in this are are between $400 and $2,000 per year and the maximum insurable structure cannot excede $250,000. It also means that any addition would need to be less than $150,000 as any change that is over 50% of market value causes the entire structure to have to be brought into compliance with the current floodplain requirments.

That effectivly kills the idea of building a mini mansion on these lots as the value of 884 sq. ft. structures in this area is already around $130,000 and the total assessed value is around $300,000 according to the 2010 tax assessments.

Here we go again! Review

So guess who got an update that 7301 Pimmit Ct. is back on the market for $320,000. I know I usually do the Under Contract Reviews while the house is under contract but for whatever reason I honestly thought I would have more time. I can only assume that another increase in price means the Broker Price Opinion (BPO) came in higher yet again! Seriously banks do you even look at the properties?

Doing a rough pull of sales for the last year appears to show that prices have increased closer to the $320,000 price level but over half of the houses are all in 1052 to 1768 sq. ft. range! Even trying to account for the land, it is hard to justify comparing a run down 884 sq. ft. property to something twice its size. The more recent sales for houses of the same size are between $270,000 and $309,000. The only property in similiar condition, that sold for more than the nicer properties, was priced for $75,000 less than the lowest priced REO and went under contract during the end of the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit.

Now for the Review of 7301 Pimmit Ct.
Positive aspects
Siding appears to be in good shape.
Well manicured shrubs, and bushes.
It is a large 0.41 acre lot zoned R-4.
Negative aspects
The neighbor has chickens.
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.
There are no appliances in the house besides a dishwasher.
The kitchen would need major work to be useable.
The ceiling fan is put up with tape.
There are mold issues with the walls.
There are drywall issues.
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.
The house is next to a drainage culvert.

Questions left unanswered:
Why is the land listed as Buildable-Poor?
Why does the price for comparable houses not make sense?
Why does the bank keep raising the price when all the new houses on the market are lowering their price?

Sales Before Taxes

Now I know the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit is coming to an end at the end of the month, but for me taxes are the priority.

This is not the case for all people, as 7301 Pimmit Ct. went under contract at the end of March!

Will this be the end of our saga with this property?

Will they be able to close before the June 30th deadline.

Only time will tell, and hopefully the home owner can now get a good nights sleep knowing they are near an end.

To celebrate lets look at the best feature of this property its back yard, as photographed by Realtor Ken Issacman of Isaacman Properties.

Floor Plan

I want to say a special thanks to Brian Schantz with TeamWorks Real Estate LLC for providing a floor plan of the standard Pimmit Hills house that could be adapted based on the pictures and information received on 7301 Pimmit Ct. This gives a little bit better idea what 884 sq. ft. really means.

Please note that this layout does not include the none permitted rear addition.

Pictures! Part 2 of 2 (Interior)

So this one couldn't wait for a normal weekend post.

Realtor Ken Issacman of Isaacman Properties, provided us with pictures of the exterior and interior of 7301 Pimmit Ct. We are breaking the post into two sections, the exterior and the interior.

Ken warned us that the house has been ransacked, as the only electrical items are a dishwasher and a ceiling fan.

Interior:

Ugly kitchen cabinets and tile, but at least there is a sink and an old dishwasher. I wonder if they even work. It is interesting to note just how many Realtors have been through the house and left their cards over the years.

Here is where the kitchen stove, oven, and cabinets belong.

The kitchen floor looks to be in bad shape.

A laundry room without washer or dryer. It looks like mold in the bottom left corner but it might just be dirt.

Apparently there is mold on the right hand side of the laundry room.

The bathroom with bad tile and holes in the walls. The sink looks to be the best thing in there.

Shaky picture of the living room, not much to say as the walls and floor are not very clear.

First bedroom.

Second bedroom, looks like moisture issues with the wall. It could really use some elbow grease.

Third bedroom wall repair.

Ceiling in the third bedroom does not look too stable, especially with fixes to the ceiling and a fan taped in place.


With all the issues in on the walls I wonder how much was due to water from the snow in February.

Pictures! Part 1 of 2 (Exterior)

So this one couldn't wait for a normal weekend post.

Realtor Ken Issacman of Isaacman Properties, provided us with pictures of the exterior and interior of 7301 Pimmit Ct. We are breaking the post into two sections, the exterior and the interior.

Exterior:

They grass is in sad shape but besides that no real change in the outside front of the house.

The front stoop looks a bit dirty, and the broken porch light is cut off in this picture but all in all not bad (complete with winterization certificate).

The not permitted addition. Looks like it was just added onto a cement slab, there appears to be a crack at the bottom left corner.

Walkway to enter the rear of the house. I think we can safely say that the addition was probably a screened porch until they added it on.

It just keeps snowing!

Unless you have been under a rock, you know that the Washington DC area was hit with record snow this February and while I spent it helping other people dig out from the snow it made me wonder about some of the vacant properties in our area did and how they handeled the record snowfall.

In this installment of it just keeps snowing we are going to look at Pimmit Hills and some of the Bank Owned/Short Sale properties where you might want to look for water damage. Even if they have been winterized it is still a large load on the roof and a lot of water just slowly melting.

FX7227175 7421 PAXTON RD
FX7247363 1741 GILSON ST
FX7317814 7421 BETHUNE ST
FX6953599 2017 NORDLIE PL
FX6888001 7301 PIMMIT CT
FX7255806 1931 HILLSIDE DR (potentially the worst offender with a flat roof extention)

While I hope that neighbors might get out and help keep property values up by helping remove snow and ice that could damage a house in the long run I know that that is honestly not very likely.

Lemon Rd Park

When it is cold outside it makes you think of going out to play in a park on a nice warm day.

Today we are going to look at one of the main selling features of 7301 Pimmit Ct., the fact it backs to Lemon Rd Park in Fairfax County.

Fairfax County has a Master Plan for Lemon Road Park that includes adding trails to the existing system, an outdoor classroom, and an apparatus area. Based on the Master Plan the current bike path is in truth a drainage culvert.

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.

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.