From here, you can start to get a sense that this house was absolute water frontage.
But from here you realise you may have bid too high.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the property took months to sell. Whoever bought this place was expected to demolish and build something new, a little further back from the cliff.
The creepy dollhouse
New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.
Listed for $US149,000 ($209,000).
Someone actually bought this place.
This listing could have just been your run-of-the-mill dilapidated hovel, but instead the owner – a real estate agent, no less – decided to take the horror up a notch and include some creepy old dolls in the photos.
The effect was slightly terrifying but, in what can only be described as strong 2021 real estate energy, it worked: the property became the top listing on Realtor.com and sold after only one day on the market.
Truly terrifying.Credit:Realtor.com
NOLA Living Realty agent Tony Bertucci told The Real Deal he bought the decaying home to flip but changed his mind after Hurricane Ida. When it came to selling it, he decided to lean into its rundown state by posing Victorian dolls left by the previous owner in the listing images.
“I did it just to get the house some attention because the house was so hideous and horrifying,” he said.
It says everything about 2021 real estate that this place went under contract within a day.
The underwater blocks of land
Ontario, Canada, and San Francisco, United States.
Listed for: $C99,000 ($108,000) and $US75,000 ($102,000).
A vacant block in Ontario, Canada was listed for $99,000 but it came with one catch: it was completely underwater.Credit:Remax
Property prices went crazy across the world this year but this was a new – quite literal – low: people selling blocks of underwater land.
The only thing more bizarre was the fact there were more than one of these listings on the market at the same time.
In Ontario, Canada, a sprawling 7.7-hectare plot entirely covered by the waters of Lake Erie hit the market in May. The listing said: “This property is presently underwater but could have endless possibilities in the future”, advising prospective buyers to “be creative”.
At the same time, a similar plot in San Francisco, United States, was up for grabs.
Set on half a hectare of tidal land, the vacant block was located east of Candlestick Point, underneath the famous San Francisco Bay.
Underwater real estate: 250 Fitzgerald Avenue, San Francisco, California, was up for sale for $US75,000.Credit:BHGRE
The listing read: “Seller is not sure if this tide land can be developed into a yacht harbor (sic), houseboat park, a pier or anything at all. Land is underwater”.
Both listings have now been taken down and it is unknown whether the blocks found buyers.
The house that got built by mistake
Apple Valley, California, United States.
$US309,000 ($417,000).
This house in Apple Valley, California, was built by mistake 14 years ago.Credit:RedFin
A house described as being “built by accident” in 2007 in the middle of a desert was listed this year.
Nobody seemed to know how it had happened – how does a house get built by mistake? – but the property, located in Apple Valley, was in the middle of nowhere. It had never been occupied and was abandoned by its owner at completion 14 years ago.
An aerial shot of the house. How did someone mistakenly build in the middle of the Mojave Desert?Credit:RedFin
Since then, the house has been destroyed by vandals and what possibly could have been a garage is full of graffiti; inside, the walls were ruined and fixtures and fittings ripped out.
But in 2021 no listing was too weird and every house has a buyer. The house is now under offer, according to the listing, and will hopefully get the start it deserved, 14 years later.
London’s thinnest house
Shepherd’s Bush, London.
Listed for: £950,000 ($1.7 million).
London’s thinnest house came with a fat price tag.
Not every strange listing has come out of the United States. Just most of them.
This five-level West London period home – reminiscent of the magical house that was invisible to neighbours and owned by Sirius Black in the Harry Potter movies – made headlines around the world when it was listed in February.
Measuring just 1.66 metres at its narrowest point, it did not appear, at least on the outside, that it could be fit for habitation but “England’s thinnest house”, wedged between a doctor’s surgery and a shuttered hairdressing salon, had two bedrooms and two living areas.
The unlivable Sydney houses with no kitchen or toilets
Kensington, Sydney, and Strathfield, Sydney.
Sold for: $4.7 million and $5.5 million.
25 Duke Street, Kensington was uninhabitable but that didn’t put buyers off.Credit:NG Farah
Sydney’s property market has been a force unto itself in 2021. These listings were not weird, strictly speaking, but it was more the prices they fetched at auction in June that were absolutely wild.
No kitchen, no toilet, crumbling ceilings: it was no problem for buyers, who were shelling out millions like there was no tomorrow.
First was a house at 25 Duke Street, Kensington, that had no kitchen or toilet, let alone power or water, which sold under the hammer for $4.705 million.
One week later it was a house at 155 The Boulevarde, Strathfield, in Sydney’s inner west – with crumbling ceilings, cracked walls and a murky brown pool – that sold at auction for $5.5 million.
Anyone for Marco Polo?
The fact it had been left empty for two years and occupied by squatters was no matter for Sydney house hunters. It sold for a massive $1.1 million over its reserve price.
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Best of the worst property listings for 2021
Source: Philippines Alive
