"Halvey" wrote in message
...
Driving down a street in my neighborhood yesterday, we happened upon a
HUGE operation where two houses, or maybe two halves of one house, were
being moved onto a lot. Now, this is right across the street from some
pretty upscale houses, and on a set of blocks that are definitely going
to be appreciating in value as time goes on.

The house/s that they were moving in where...to put it mildy...crap.
2x4 exterior walls, uninsulated, old wiring, 17 layers of roof, etc.
They had to rip the chimney out in order to move them, as well as take
off what looked like could have been a porch or something. Basically,
it looked like a barn.

So my question is, under what situation does this make financial sense,
to bring in what, to my moderately trained eye looked like a teardown,
and put it on a really nice lot? My wife and I figure that it *was* a
teardown, and instead, somebody said "I'll take it!" and, for the price
of moving it, plunked it down on their lot and plan on renting it. I
would assume that because it's an 'existing' house, they can circumvent
some code requirements upgrading electrical service, insulating, etc.

H

I spent 3 months working on an "moved home". The move in AZ cost $1000 a
mile, which included the removal and step up of the home after the move.
(1979 dollars) The moving contractor took care of the roof. The home owner
had a floor poured for the structure he did not make the floor foot print as
I had suggested a few inches larger so parts of the exterior walls hung over
the foundation in the beginning. The foundation was made larger and the
walls eventually worked out well. The CCTV was unusable do to the number of
cuts the runs had. I had to rip out the drywall in places to fix that. The
electrical stuff in the attic was a joy to find. They just sawed the house
in half. All of the plumbing was underground. A/C duct was repaired and
installed. with airhandlers in outside closets on either end of the home.
All in all the construction of this home was faster than a build from
scratch but not by much. Maybe a couple of weeks. I am sure the HO saved
some money doing it this way and I am also sure that he got the shell for a
song.

This must be handled with a case by case basis.