Saturday, January 17, 2009

A castle and a keep

From the Daily News:

Plenty of bidders at auction; new home goes for $875K

Maybe real estate in Newburyport is more valuable than the market might appear.

A brand-new, custom-built Colonial home in Newburyport with water views sold for more than its city assessment yesterday.

John McInnis Auctioneers of Amesbury, which is better known for its dealings with antiques and collectibles, auctioned off the home at 8 Ocean Ave. in Newburyport for $875,000. The house, a commercial loan foreclosure by Newburport (sic) Five Cents Savings Bank, is assessed at $748,600. McInnis typically only works with the local banks, which have fewer foreclosures.

The newly built home isn't entirely complete. But there were plenty of bidders. McInnis said there were 10 registered, qualified bidders on the property, which is located in the Joppa area.

"We had a huge crowd there," McInnis said. The purchaser was a development company from outside the area, he said.


The land alone (?) at 8 Ocean Ave. was listed here for $299,000. That seems kinda low for the location, which would have primarily river views, but still ...

Funny how those photos on the website are barely recognizable as a street I drive down pretty much daily ...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The real question, at least to me, is'Will the city auditor change the valuation to reflect the REAL MARKET VALUE'? Or will he contnue to apply the wrong formulas to the city's properties? Now, there is a story for you Gillian. How many properties chang hands, like this and the Assessor never posts a change in taxed valuation. Reflecting an error in the fair tax alloted.

Anonymous said...

It's actually 2 buildable lots (one of which now has a house on it) and this is the 2nd developer to bail out of the project.

As for the under-assessments, as Anonymous points out, it's a chronic problem with high-end homes and commercial properties.

Gillian Swart said...

Didn't they recently do a 're-assessment?' I know some guy showed up here with his little clipboard. Between the under-assessments and the treasurer's office not tracking down people who don't pay their property taxes, this is great, huh?

Wait! My lips are re-sealed ...