A cautionary tale about house flipping: HGTV makes us think anyone can buy rough real estate, renovate, and pocket a tidy profit. Then there’s 1717 Jackson Ave., a 2-bedroom, 1-bath, 1,170-square-foot Craftsman house built in 1927 that sold for $245,000 in November. Intriguingly, new owner Barton Shore Properties put it right back on the market for $350,000. Our failed flipper has a theory: 1719 Jackson next door went on the market the day after 1717 closed. Is Barton Shore hoping an ambitious buyer will want to combine them?
The seller, who asked not to be named because he is “embarrassed that this dream failed as it did,” bought it in 1996 “as a project house. I lived in it for a while and then started tearing things out for renovation, making it even more of a project house. Then life happened, I moved out and found myself far too busy to put it back together in the many years since. It was past time for me to swallow my pride and sell it as-is to an investor.”
The wrong kind of boom: Nine months after the West Side was rocked by the predawn explosion that demolished the house at 701 S. Seventh St., a sad coda: The now-vacant .2-acre property has sold for a mere $200,000. Former owner Thomas Piedmonte, a septuagenarian who suffered a concussion and minor injuries, is believed to have relocated out of state.
Investigators traced the explosion to two twenty-pound propane tanks being used to heat the house; the gas and water had been turned off.
Related: Explosion Aftermath
Where the Ann Arbor “intenders” go: The first sales in two new Pittsfield Twp.
condos, Townes on the Green and Villas at Inglewood West, may answer where folks priced out of Tree Town proper end up instead. Off Waters Rd. west of Oak Valley Dr., Robertson Bros. has five Townes on the Green townhouses on the map this month; eighteen have sold since July, at an average price of $450,000. Near State and Textile, Pulte has sold six of its duplex-ranch Villas in two months for an average of $483,000.
This Old House of the Month: The cottage at 538 N. Main St. is overshadowed by its neighbors, but it has an adorable scalloped façade, a charming little courtyard, and for $590,000, the buyers got a 3-bedroom, 2-bath just two blocks from downtown.
