That Potential FC Just North on 472 at Woods and Saginaw

I was driving by that potential FC I wrote about last week and saw a contractor gutting it. I grabbed some photos:

This is the east side and the rear of the house.

This is the front. You can see the front door has been removed.

Real Estate Posting

RE this week: 105 existing homes and 7 foreclosures. That's an interesting move in a week!

Also I saw an excerpt from an article about the north Texas RE market. I'm thinking that posting it in full is better than making fun of the logic and paraphrasing. So here goes:

The supply of unsold new homes in North Texas is less than half what it is in hard-hit markets in California and Florida. But that doesn’t mean the housing industry here hasn’t suffered. Single-family home starts have fallen more than 60 percent since the peak in 2006. And several prominent homebuilding firms in the area have gone out of business.”

“‘We’ve seen some fallout and are likely to see some more,’ said Texas builders president Ron Connally of Amarillo. ‘There are a lot of good builders out there who haven’t done anything wrong who have been caught.’”

“The National Association of Home Builders has seen its membership decline by almost 50,000. ‘Our biggest obstacle is getting the financing,’ Connally said. ‘We very well could wake up and see shortages in the market by the time this thing sorts out.’”

I mean, come on! The Homebuilder's Association has lost members (naturally) and the big concern is that at some point in the future, we'll not have enough new real estate to meet our needs. Talk about drinking the KoolAid in Jonestown; There's no going back to the easy credit of the 1990s and 2000s, and without that easy credit (which is also easy foreclosure situations, as the current economic crisis has made clear), there will likely not be a need for new inventory in a general way (not to say that specific area or regional development, say waterfront on the Chesapeake, will not continue to be built) for the foreseeable and then some future.

What also bothers me is the notion that something is stopping the tough-guy homebuilders from north texas from plying their trade. Yeah, it's called an insolvent banking industry that received part of its deathblow from you vampiric developers.

Paging the East Nottingham Zoning Officer!

These are two pics of that dump on the corner of 472 and Glendale (or is it Glen Dale?) that houses the workers from the mushroom houses just to the left of the house (as you are looking at the pics). 

What. A. Disaster! 

What's worse is if you drive by, you'll notice the crap all over the front yard by the tree, the god-awful siding and missing paint, and the total state of shambles this place is in. I don't hold it against the workers who live here for the sorry state this place is in; I hold it against the house owner.

RE This Week

15 FCs and 106 Existing Homes for sale. I wonder where the five FCs from last week went.


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OK, so here's an interesting upscale FC in a nice development:

Briarcroft Dr
Oxford, PA 19363

$379,496
Bed(s):
3
Bath(s):
3
Foreclosure Status:
Real Estate Owned
Sq/Ft:
-
Age (years):
-
Date listed on Yahoo!:
December 11, 2008
(125 days

The image of the house/property is a generic image from RealtyTrac, a company/web site that I have not registered to join. Either way, note how long this house has been in FC: since December 11, 2008--three months ago. Also note the unrealistic (for a FC) price; although, to be fair, I would imagine that this is about the going rate for property in this area of Elk. I'll try to drive by and locate the place and snap some photos sometime in the next few days.

There's also a new FC on 472 where it intersects with Saginaw, about a mile north of Elk in East Nottingham (I guess). The house is right on the corner, on the south west side of the intersection (even though it's not on Saginaw--it's on the road on the other side of 472. It's a real dump, and there was a poor mixed breed dog tied out under some tarp held between a bunch of pine-type trees in the backyard. Now someone has removed all the overgrown brush around the house, and there's been some trash/junk removal. I expect it to go FC any day now.

It's Monday, April 20, 2009, and I got some pics today in the rain of the potential FC as I drove by on 472:

Brick Meetinghouse Road--Old Roads in the Area

Click in on Brick Meetinghouse Road, which is right above the marked A on the map.  OK, now scroll over to the left/west and follow Blake and then drop down to 273 just east of where it connects with 272 and you'll see another east/west Brick Meetinghouse Road. I'll look for an old map to see if I can show that these two "separate" roads with the same names and the same general directions were joined at one time.

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OK, I found some info. This is from an email posted online for a reunion:

"I have just received information from the group planning the 300th
Anniversary of the Nottingham Lots on the grounds of the Brick Meetinghouse
(East Nottingham Monthly Meeting) in Calvert, Cecil County, MD (formerly
Chester Co., PA) on September 29-30, 2001. The grounds are just off MD 272,
on Brick Meetinghouse Road in the village of Calvert, a short distance north
of Exit 100 off I-95.

The celebration is being conducted by the East Nottingham Trustees,
caretakers of the Brick Meetinghouse at Calvert, MD, with the oversight of
the Oxford, PA Friends. Visitors from everywhere are welcomed.

This historic area was settled by a number of Quaker families during the
1700's and 1800's, originating from southeastern PA, West Jersey, New York
and New England. William Penn established the 37 Lots in 1701 (originally
in Chester Co., PA) and the area became "ground zero" for the land dispute
between Penn and Lord Baltimore which led to the drawing of the Mason-Dixon
line between PA and MD. Many Quaker families passed through here and
subsequently moved south to Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and to the
West."

Real Estate in Oxford, PA (19363)

107 Existing and 19 FCs

Sometimes I wonder if I should find a better instrument to measure the local RE market, but I've been using this one for so long that, even if slightly inaccurate, over the long haul, it should provide an interesting histogram.