Given the listing price of just $24,000, I assume that this home is in a rather frightening neighborhood. [Update: Confirmed. Murder risk 3x the national average, robbery risk 6x… yikes!] This might explain why the previous owner apparently left in such a hurry, scattering the contents of their desk all over the floor in their rush to vacate the premises.
What I really enjoyed about this (small) set of photos is how the rest of the house appears to be completely empty. Maybe the former occupant lived a very simple life and this was the only room they used?
“Well the South side of Chicago
Is the baddest part of town
And if you go down there
You better just beware
Of a man named Leroy Brown…”
Jim Croce wrote that 40 years ago. I guess things haven’t changed, except for both Leroy and Jim no longer being with us. Between the neighborhood and this listing being a “bank pre-foreclosure short sale” (whatever that is), I can see why the price is so low. Interesting, though, that in ’06 it was for sale at over *4X* the current price! I’m pretty sure there was no interim cessation of bad-part-of-townness to account for that. Perhaps all those folks who shouldn’t have been getting home loans smelled like easy money to anyone wanting in.
Even stranger than the price change… I grew up about 10 miles from here, but in a completely different world so to speak. We lived over in La Grange Park from when I was a kid. I wasn’t aware then, but looking at the map now I’d say the dividing line must be the Stevenson expressway, which I remember even then was 8-12 lanes of concrete no-man’s land filled with sleep deprived and/or road-ragey commuters. A lot of the houses where I lived weren’t any bigger than this one, but the neighborhood was good then. I was back to visit in 2006 and it was still decent.
But the strangest thing of all is in what good shape this place is inside. Other than missing a toilet (for which there are myriad explanations), the 3 interior photos show clean, intact walls, lovely hardwood flooring, and nice looking (if gauche in style) marble tile in the bath. No, they don’t match the tub, but if you’re gonna have to replace the toilet anyway, you might want to do the tub and sink too, granted you can get the current tub out without damaging the marble.
If only Chicago weren’t wall to wall gun violence these days. Still, there are at least 10 major cities with worse murder rates. http://www.policymic.com/articles/22686/america-s-10-deadliest-cities-2012… (O_o)
It does look as though someone was working on it to fix it up rather than living there. Perhaps time ran out on either a very naive first-time home owner or a flipper. No certificate of occupancy, so couldn’t move in (if a real owner) and no money to finish – so they had it cleaned, put it up for sale, and used the place as an office until time ran out.
That would account for the “Waaagh!” moment when they scattered the contents of the desk: most likely all the brochures, fixture catalogs, material samples, etc. … along with realtor’s contacts, etc.
Sad, but anyone who’d spring for that marble bathroom should be grateful someone stopped the music before they spent whatever they had planned for the kitchen… which is likely bare walls, since the lister considerately averted his camera…
I took virtual walk in this neighborhood after I posted the first time. Ya know, it really doesn’t look that bad. The homes mostly seem cared for, the yards fairly neat, and late model sedans parked up and down the street. If this is gangsta territory, it’s gangstas with a sense of civic pride. Maybe this *isn’t* the worst place in Chi-town after all… It’s definitely not downtown.
Good points, Anodean, especially about the incognito kitchen views.
I like your newbie house-flipper idea, and will go one step farther. The first time it was broken into during the flip they installed new locks.
The second time the house was broken into they had already moved their stuff out and finished the floors. They only moved in one desk to do paperwork from.
The third time it was broken into the burglar tossed all the desk stuff on the floor.
The seller hired someone to go in, take pics, and list the place. They never went back in.
@Samme:Makes perfect sense… and considering that the existing finish wasn’t trashed nor the copper stripped, they do get a pretty nice class of burglar in that neighborhood, too. Quite consistent with Emerald’s observations, and worthy of mention on the listing. :D
@Samme: I don’t know why in the world it took so long to occur to me, but just why would anyone take pictures for a listing without first bothering to pick up the strewn about papers? There aren’t that many of them. Are they, perhaps, laced with anthrax or ricin? Or does someone have a vested financial interest in the place selling for less than it should or to people who aren’t as into a nicely kept neighborhood as the surroundings suggest? I know there are nefarious financial doings in real estate – witness our current economy. But that seems like such a long stretch for why someone seemingly hasn’t noticed an easily organized, non-grungy, gross-lacking mess. How can anyone with a more likely motive for taking photos – to sell the place at the best price possible – not notice how trashy this looks? Well, I suppose it’s like the stage manager in “Shakespeare in Love” repeatedly claims… “It’s a mystery!”
I figured after the third break-in the seller was too afraid to go back to the place so they hired someone (super-cheap) to go take pics.
I forgot to mention that the pics had to do double-duty. First the pictures were used as evidence for the insurance claim. Then (since they were too cheap to hire someone to clean-up then take pics) they used them again for the listing.