Houses around the neighborhood

This house is being built about half way between our house and Old Town.  The owner is seriously indecisive, which is leading to a VERY long building process.  They started this 15 months ago and it doesn't have the siding done or the roof shingled.  I talked to the builder and he guessed there was another year to go. 

It's a very odd floor plan.  The house is over 7500 square feet and has six bedrooms, but it has a two car garage and a tiny kitchen.  Weird.

At the bottom of our hill is an attached pair of condos, both of which are for sale.  They should be a great place for vacationers.  Nice finishes, gourmet kitchens, cherry floors, 5 bedrooms, a bus stop out front and a 3 minute walk into town. Oh yeah, and a never ending series of building problems.

I'm not a real estate agent, but I am pretty sure you don't want to be selling your house at the same time they are ripping all the stone off the facade.  These places are about two years old and they have been in a constant state of rebuilding.I've never heard all the details, but they must have a lot of leaks.  I've seen dry wall guys, flooring, and now stone work. Maybe they could just rent the places out to a good handyman and call it quits.

In stark contrast is the little cabin/shack next door. I was mocking the decision to rebuild this little building in a post here. To their credit, they have done a wonderful job rebuilding the place.  It looks nice and even has some pretty landscaping.  I still question the sanity of paying to rebuild something that must be about 400 square feet, but they have done some very nice work.

This picture is from up on the hill, looking across the street from the little shack and the two catastrophic condos.  As you can see, it is a mix of very large houses and a handful of old historic shacks.I heard rumor that the reason the shacks aren't purchased, torn down and replaced, is that the historical records of ownership are so convoluted that it isn't clear that you would really own the final result. I'm sure you couldn't get title insurance if that was the case.

There is a noticeable pickup in housing construction now. It is way off the peak, but it sure beats the complete lack of housing work going on last year. 

Up in our neighborhood (April Mountain), we went from having 6 of 39 condos on the market to none on the market.  In fact, realtors were sending out inquiries a few weeks ago.  They had a buyer who wanted something in April Mountain, but there were no listings.  Yeah!  Now make the prices go back up!