Desperate sellers bulldoze homes

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   Stacie Lposted 13 years ago

   Listed: MSN Real Estate's daily blog
   Desperate sellers bulldoze homes
   Paying insurance and taxes on a vacant home isn't worth it for homeowners forced to wait until the market picks back up again to sell.
   Posted by Mai Ling at MSN Real Estate on Wednesday, December 8, 2010 11:59 AM
   
   'Now is the time to demolish your home,' says Josh Graber, the owner of Florida's Graber Excavating. (© Robert Warren/Getty Images)Maybe the man facing foreclosure earlier this year who bulldozed his home to keep it out of his bank's hands was actually doing the lender a favor.
   
   
   
   According to the Sarasota, Fla., Herald-Tribune, some people see knocking down their homes as the best way to get the most value out of their property as they wait for the economy to improve. (Bing: Plotting your own home's demolition? Where to rent a bulldozer)
   
   
   Carl and Susanne Wise of Sarasota are one such couple; they bulldozed their 13-year-old home, which just a couple of years ago was worth $1 million. From the Herald-Tribune:
   
   
   Wise, a veteran commercial real-estate agent, knows the idea of razing a perfectly good house to the ground probably strikes most people as wasteful.
   
   But with the turbulence in the housing market and the weakness in the rental market, the property's value is in the land, not the house, he says.
   
   
   
   After the Wises purchased a new home, they knew selling their old five-bedroom, four-bathroom house wouldn't be easy, and they would have taken a loss renting it, too, because they say the kitchen needed a pricey renovation.
   
   
   Under both scenarios, the continued cost of property taxes and insurance might have been what finally persuaded them to raze the home. Now, they're just holding onto the empty lot as an investment as they wait for the market to pick back up again.
   
   
   
   Similarly, the Herald-Tribune says snowbirds who hope to one day build their dream retirement home have been known to purchase property at the now-affordable prices, only to demolish the homes so that they can avoid paying insurance and taxes until they're ready to retire.
   
   Put bluntly, Josh Graber, the owner of Graber Excavating, which demolished the Wises' house, told the Herald-Tribune:
   
   
   "Now is the time to demolish your home."
   
   http://realestate.msn.com/blogs/listedb … eaf716a022

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      sarahbarretposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      All the wealth in real estate is realized through control of the property. The property is the most evident way to control it, but control is possible without ownership.Several richest people in the world obtain much of their assets by real estate investment

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2. 69

   megmccormickposted 13 years ago

   That makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. You still have to pay property taxes and keep the lot clean and the value of the property just went down a lot more.  Am I not getting something here?

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3. 82

   Rafiniposted 13 years ago

   After the Wises purchased a new home, they knew selling their old five-bedroom, four-bathroom house wouldn't be easy, and they would have taken a loss renting it, too, because they say the kitchen needed a pricey renovation.
   
   
   Okay, I have a couple problems with this crazy scenario. 
   1 - why did they purchase a new home before selling their previous one? 
   2 - How were they able to bulldoze a 13 year old home? 
   3 - Isn't there still a mortgage to pay? 
   4 - What does the mortgage holder say about bulldozing the mortgaged home? 
   5 - If the house was all paid for, why not hold onto it until the housing market picks up? (if it picks up) 
   6 - Wouldn't bulldozing the house cause a bigger loss than renting it would have?
   7 - Why would a 13 year old house need a pricey kitchen renovation??  What's wrong with the kitchen it has - doesn't it work??

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