Pssst...wanna buy part of my yard?

[EconE]

I've seen quite a few homes where the owner purchased a house on two parcels and is now selling one of them (the parcel with the yard of course)

Seattle...

http://www.redfin.com/WA/Seattle/413-32 ... ome/148964

Bainbridge...

http://www.redfin.com/WA/Bainbridge-Isl ... e/17513752

[thepull]

Yeah..good luck to those people with that.

[Mama]

LOL, I wonder if they'll put restrictions on the use of land. I was always joking with my spouse that we should buy 3000sq feet with a view and a good school system and plop a cheapo trailer. Total price would probably equal that of a small-med house in bad areas of the city..Seattle probably doesn't even get hot enough for the toxic fumes to kill us.

But I do wonder if these folks would have "criteria" for the buyers since someone will be practically moving in their back yard

[Angie]

Um, where have you guys been for the last, oh, 90 years? This is nothing new.

Go for a drive in any established in-city neighborhood, look carefully at the pattern of houses' ages, and it's usually pretty easy to pick up the decade when infill development put houses in what had previously been big yards.

Last night I was in Madrona picking up Girl Scout cookies (you all support your local Girl Scouts--they'll be selling in front of grocery stores, etc, for the next few weekends) and on our friends' block there was a clear pattern of big '20s vintage houses next to smaller, midcentury houses.

Same thing all over the place here in Columbia City and it seems like almost every big yard that was left got "infilled" in the last ten years. I watched probably a dozen infill houses go up within half a mile of my house in the last decade.

[EconE]

I think that Seattle's "infill" kills off neighborhoods. The zoning here is a bit odd also where you'll have a large house next to a small house behind a condo with townhomes across the street.

[kfhoz]

Here is a Kennydale lot also being split, and an outbuilding has to be demolished to do it. The old existing house has a bit of a view, but that will be history if the split-off lot gets a big fill-to-lot-line "cracker box" built next to it.
http://www.redfin.com/search#lat=47.520 ... omLevel=15

I wonder how the Case-Schiller numbers handle these, as the previous sales price included a yard. Maybe it is infrequent enough so they can statistically ignore it?

[The Tim]

[rose-colored-coolaid]