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