**UPDATE**Lipstick on a Pig, or: Can this REO be Sold?
Update: Redfin readers nail it again! This property *has* been sold, as poster anon suggested, pointing out that a new fence is an unusual REO sales strategy. Thanks for the insight! Here’s the original post:
The story of the housing market slump is reflected in the dowdy property for sale across the street and three houses down from my home in Richmond’s North and East neighborhood.
It went up for sale in 2006, an ugly shade of blue, one-story, two-bedroom, 900-square-foot box with a long, unbroken expanse of dying crabgrass stretching from the front door to the street. Surprise, no sale. Then it was offered for rent. No dice; back up for sale. At some point it became a foreclosure.
Then, the Neighbors From Hell moved in next door. These people have parties, I mean, P*A*R*T*I*E*S, with cars taking up every parking space for blocks, music blasting so loud that I, across the street and three houses down, have to drown it out with a white sound machine, screaming leather-lunged children. Other days they work on cars outside the house (natch), blasting music from the car stereo.
So now it’s been two years and the desperate sellers apparently finally engaged a real estate agent with a clue, because a lovely natural finish wood fence is even now being put in and I suspect a fresh coat of paint and other cosmetic improvements are on the way.
But my question is: Buh? Don’t these people have to disclose the horror of the neighbors? Can a fresh coat of lipstick, er, paint sell this pig? What would you do if you were the sellers? (Photo of pig sans lipstick: The Pug Father on flickr.)
