‘Too dangerous to enter’ house sells for nearly half a million in West Seattle

The housing market has gotten so intense and nutty that a house deemed too dangerous to even enter has sold for nearly half a million dollars. At least, that’s the narrative. But, in truth, this is a smart investment.

The Seattle Times reports:

With crumbling floors and ceilings that could collapse at any moment, about five feet of standing water and toxic air not safe to breathe, a West Seattle house was listed recently with the condition that only licensed contractors who sign a legal waiver could enter it.

There is water damage in the basement, debris in various rooms, the floors would likely fall from beneath you and there was, apparently, “various other biomaterial and mold hazards” presents in the home.
The Times quotes a real estate agent who calls the sale “… insane, obviously.”

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But it’s not insane when you think about it. The median house price in this neighborhood goes for about $650,000. Knocking this house down and rebuilding a modern, luxury home (or homes) seems to make sense whether or not you’ll resell or rent.

This, of course, all assumes housing costs continue to rise and there’s no reason to believe that won’t be the case. The City of Seattle is resistant to allowing developers to build up, with the Seattle City Council repeatedly getting in the way of addressing the supply and demand problem with housing (there are too few homes for the high demand).

It’s a 5,000 square-foot-lot. You can do a lot with this property in an already desirable neighborhood. If you think someone was dumb enough to buy this property at the $427,000 price tag, surely you can reason there will be someone even dumber to buy the rebuilt property.

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