Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
Developers have listed an historic, century-old Montclair, New Jersey home for the ridiculously low price of just $10. But interested buyers should beware, for there is a catch – whoever buys the home will need to relocate it at least a quarter-mile from its current site.
Source: NorthJersey.com
The home, which encompasses 3,912 square feet and comes with four bedrooms and two bathrooms was first built in 1906. It’s one of 500 historic homes in the area that were designed by the famous architect Dudley S. Van Antwerp. Similar homes generally fetch much higher prices, and indeed the home in question was actually sold for $1.4 million in May 2015.
So why just $10?
Well, the home was since sold onto a development company called BNE Real Estate Group, which wants to knock it down and replace it with eight smaller, single-family homes.
Montclair City’s Planning Board agreed to the developer’s plans, but officials also don’t want to destroy such an historic home if possible. As such, the plan was approved with the stipulation that the developer must attempt to sell the home first. Any buyer would have to relocate the home themselves. A deadline for offers has been set for August 30 – if no buyer is found by then, the house will be bulldozed, NorthJersey.com reported.
Although the developer is asking for a nominal $10 fee, it also said it’s willing to contribute $10,000 towards the cost of relocating the property. Still, experts estimate the total cost of moving the home at around $75,000 to $100,000, in addition to the cost of a new plot of land for the home to be erected on.
Although it sounds unusual, it’s not uncommon for homes in the U.S. to be physically moved to a new location. The process involves digging up the home from its foundations, then placing steel beams under its frame so it can be lifted. The home is then placed on a trailer bed and driven to its new location, where its lifted onto a new foundation.
