The best news was that the noise from Balboa Ave wasn’t too bad. Balboa was 50 or 100 feet below the house level so the back yard shielded the noise to the house quite well. Even outside, it was barely noticable.
A great lot, actually. Lots of space to expand the house, and plenty of space to get away from the neighbors.
There was a lock box on the front door, but other looky loos were already inside – I guess the back was open. Or maybe they climbed in the busted window in the back.
The back was a dirt lot covered in junk – including a weight machine, a door from a 1970’s beetle, clothes, and probably two or three 5-yard dump truck loads of other stuff.
The inside was extremely messy. Clothes and bottles of daily use stuff (shampoo, detergent, toothpaste, etc.) laying everywhere. Gross carpet of various colors. Dirty, dirty, dirty. Call it another dump truck load of crap. Maybe two with the carpet. I can’t imagine how so many clothes could have fit in the closets. So many clothes.
Looks like they had a “going away” party before they left. Any and all were invited to write whatever they wanted on the walls before they left.
Looking in through the windows, one would expect it to smell terrible, but it didn’t smell at all. That is to say – I don’t think anyone went to the bathroom anywhere they shouldn’t have and no bacteriological nastiness to see.
For the most part, the drywall was in-tact, except for a couple of holes in the ceiling. This mess is a good opportunity to rip out all the drywall to expose and inspect the studs, then insulate the whole house and re-drywall.
I think the most costly problem could be water-caused holes in the drywall around the tub.
These houses were built well with fir lumber so I doubt there are structural problems – unless there is a termite problem that has been neglected for a long time. The facia was looking pretty bad, though. And it looks like they used 1x stock for the facia instead of 2x.
If a nice house with real landscaping resided on this lot, it could see it selling for $550K – $575K in today’s market.
I could see a flipper spending way too much on this – A dumb flipper might dream of a $600K sale and imagine a $50,000 budget to get it all fixed up. If an idiot spent $500K on it, I wouldn’t be shocked.
If I could have it for $350K, I’d think about it.
More likely, someone will pick it up for $400K – $450K or so. Maybe a smart contractor will bid low and flip it.
