Roland wrote:

If you sold to the contractor and it is sold as a tear down (based on the
neighbor example you cite) the only value the house has to the contrator
is the land value + they face the nuisance and cost of removing the old
house.

This is a good point. I keep thinking of it in terms of the house
itself, but WRT to the contractor thing, I should be considering only
the value of the lot. Thanks for pointing that out.


IF the condition is actually quite good and only a few additional
improvements are needed (like your selling through a realtor scenario),
again the contractor will view this as a pure business decision: can they
make the improvements and sell at a profit. In both scenarios, the
discount has to be sufficiently large for them to be interested.

I wouldn't say the condition of the house is "quite good"... some of
the work we need to finish is pretty major, which is why we've stalled
out. (As it is, this house is definitely not "marketable" as anything
but a handyman special, despite the work we've done thus far.) I
suppose we could also consider finding a contractor to buy and fix up
the house, but this particular company only does knock-down-build-new
kind of work.

Thanks for your help.


Cina