Foreclosed houses
My partner and I recently found a hidden pocket of amazing houses right near our neighborhood.
It’s not that our subdivision is terrible or anything, but the whole area is locked in a low-income demographic around here.
Most of the places are pretty standard for lower-middle class working families, so it was really crazy when we found these sprawling mansions only a few minutes away. We drove through the neighborhood and marveled at the properties, although we soon realized that most of the houses appeared to be run down. We started to notice funny details, such as clunky AC window units hanging out of a huge, picturesque front window. We also saw a ton of old ductwork and nasty, semi-deconstructed air conditioners and furnaces sitting around the sides of the houses. That’s when we realized that many of the homes had been foreclosed on, and therefore the residents had begun to take apart the home infrastructure for cash. They were ripping out copper wiring that was contained in the air conditioner and heating equipment, as well as the large aluminum panelling that was used for duct work. Clearly the residents couldn’t afford their large house payments, so they began to live without modern heating and cooling systems as a last ditch effort to keep a roof over their heads. It’s really sad, but I’m also quite interested in the cheap properties. I know it would be expensive to renovate one of those homes, including establishing updated air temperature control. I wonder how much it would cost to put a whole new HVAC system back in.