Interesting is certainly the best way to describe this option. After being defeated on attempting to purchase a piece of land, I’ve been casually browsing but not really doing any showings. Until last week.
Short history: Been looking to buy a place to house my cars. My budget it small but so are my requirements. This has not gone well. Most recent attempt to buy fell apart so badly the seller pulled the property from the market.
Alright. Onward.
When this property first popped up, I was interested. OK looking but rough house, medium sized shop, largeish lot, closeish to my house. All good things. The biggest red flag was that there were no pictures of the shop in the listing.
I called my realtor the day it listed and asked for a showing. She responded immediately, telling me they already had four showings scheduled, so we’d need to move quick.
Hmmm... no... pass.
Fast forward to a month later. The place is still on the market and they do an $8k price cut.
Well that is... telling.
We arrange a showing and quickly realize why.
This isn’t a house. It is three metal shop buildings stitched together!
The living room, dining room, kitchen, and full bath are all one building. The half bath, laundry, and four bedrooms are a different, adjacent building. The “great room” is a third building joined by a poorly constructed breezeway.
You can even see where the roll doors used to be.
For me, this isn’t a bad thing. This means I can add back in one or two roll doors and make this a real, for lack of a better term, man cave. Who doesn’t want a living room that you can pull your car in to!?
The “great room” is the biggest problem. Not sure what they were thinking there, but the ceiling is low and the beam is undersized. It looks OK in pictures, but I bumped my head going over the beam. The sagging in the middle is.. telling. Without question this room needs to be removed, though there is plenty of value in the concrete pad.
Ok, but how about the shop?
Easily summarized: Seven foot ceiling.
Not exactly enough room for a lift.
Everything else?
The lot is large and fenced, which is good. The pond is disgusting and pointless, which is bad. The ground is super squishy in spots, which either highlights problems with the septic, drainage, or both.
Location is just on the outside of my comfortable range, being about 25 min out it is just far enough to be inconvenient.
Conclusions
Too far, too much work, not enough utility.
I really like the idea of what this place could be, but with the “quality” of work done so far, distance, yard work, and lack of immediate ability to put in a lift.... pass.