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Terrible House In Echo Park Asks For $770K, Possibly Includes Toxic Waste
It's the opportunity you've been waiting for: a historic, four bedroom house located in trendy Echo Park for just $770,000. Considering the average Echo Park sale price in March was $870,000, it's probably hard to pass up chance to grab a home in one of L.A.'s hottest markets
Or maybe it won't be. As Curbed LA points out, this particular real estate listing, for a house built in 1926, seems primed as some sort of a social experiment intended to determine just how nuts the Echo Park (sur)real estate market is.
The listing itself provides you with literally dozens of reasons why you shouldn't spend $770K on a house that will, for all practical matters, fall down in a stiff breeze:
Maybe a tear down due to the old age and illegal structures. It was disclosed that part of the building is on the neighbors lot and had legal disputes... City has many violations and fines.
Just make amends with the neighbor, pay off a few of those city fines, and hire a good contractor? Flip it, and sell it for profit?
Roof and structure is rotted and sagging, interior floors are weak and rotted, illegal electrical and plumbing... No heavy equipment can be driven on the flag lot driveway, any working material may need to be hand carried and NO construction vehicles on driveway
Make that a really good contractor, and one who's able to do all of their work without the use of... equipment. The listing continues:
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Possible toxic material stored in the yard. May have title issues as the lot shows a different address... Maybe toxic material under part of the units also.
What glory. We here at LAist are curious just what sort of toxic material may be present. Is it something as simple as some lead paint that was accidentally somehow spread across the entire property sometime during its heyday? Or are we talking a full hazmat situation here?May as well include the rest of the listing too, just because it's so good:
No covered parking present, or it was tore down. Fences may not be on property line. Not proper insulation in the walls... There was a main sewer line blockage to the street, suppose [sic] to be fixed now. Lot is not level and not all usable. Small lot.
Okay, so let's review. What we have here is a home that, for all practical matters, needs to be torn down. Even after tearing it down—to be done without bringing any construction vehicles onto the driveway—you'll still have to pay the city backed fines, realign the property's fences, and make sure the property has been scrubbed of its maybe-present 'toxic' material.You do all that, and then maybe you can begin to build something new. Except first, you'll need to level the lot to make it 'usable.'
Surreal estate.
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