If you don’t mind my making the observation… it doesn’t seem like it matters a whit what construction method you use, since you end up in apartments and unable to take the layout with you in any case.
John
There are people in every occupation who are not competent. When hiring an agent, you have to get someone competent. In this case, this is an acquaintance expressing an unsolicited opinion. To label a whole profession based on a personal opinion is extreme. This wasn’t a professional relationship - this person may be very good at selling houses. Frankly, even assuming the situation is correctly described, the OP’s reaction seems a bit extreme.
I am currently in the process of selling a house. Getting a real estate agent has been the best decision I’ve made.
Enjoy
Paul
I can say this…We just got our house appraised and I have a layout at the size of 12x15. It takes up half of the basement, and the appraiser didn’t say a word about it. Plus the house came back at $70,000.
The only way I would take it down is if we were going to sell the house. Until then it will stay up.
The layout might be worth more than the house…
Well we did buy the house at $45,000…So it would be a good profit. Plus that’s not bad (price wise), since my town has the most “empty” houses in the PA.
Here’s a picture of my house.
The layout was constructed so the domino sections could be moved from one house to a new house or placed in storage until a new layout location could be found. I have also used some of the dominos in a spare bedroom as a small switching layout.
Not knowing of the long term stability of my employment, I elected to sell the layout benchwork with the house, but retained the rolling stock, locomotives and DCC system. I also sold most of my furniture as I moved to small apartment and did not wnat to pay for long term storage.
My current layout has several dominos that were constructed for the apartment layout and moved to the new basement. My MRR skills have improved and some of the dominos I kept the benchwork and removed the track and started over.
That’s unbelievable. A mile from my house there’s a place that is about twice that size that rents for $15,000/month. It looks like I need to move to the east.
Hi!
Your posting obviously rang a lot of bells out there, and I’ll add to it…
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If you are not putting your house up for sale, the realtor “friend” was wayyyy out of line and should have known better.
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If you are putting your house up for sale - assuming the layout is not being sold with it - then you do need to take the layout beforehand and get the room back into “usable” shape. You are going to have to take it down anyway, so just do it beforehand.
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Having said that, I do have a story to add… I’ve transferred around a few times with my employers, and owned 6 houses during that time. In 1977 I lived in Joliet Illinois, and had an 8x12 HO layout in the basement, which was relatively unfinished. The long side of the layout was up against a block wall, and I had painted in a 3x14 ft. backdrop directly on the wall.
The first weekend of the sale two families came to look at the house, and both spent more time checking out the layout than the rest of the house. In all honesty, there was more interest in the layout than the house itself. Well, BOTH families made a full price offer that day, with some confusion as to “who was first”. So, one made a second offer for $500 more which was accepted.
While my head was a bit swollen over the attention to the layout, I was surprised that the house itself wasn’t the object of primary interest. Go figure…
Mobilman44
Why are the homes vacant in the area? Economy or the river that winds around it?
An appraiser wouldn’t comment on anything because the layout doesn’t affect the value of the house. It does affect the sell price though.
Consider a couple walking through. The wife would see it and think she’d never be able to see her husband or have the opportunity to nag him since he’d have a place to retreat to. [:D]
Its just your old steel mill town. Monessen use to be the place to be in the 40’s, 50’s, etc (what the older people say)… Now its a old town, and just not much here. A “coke plant” is still in use thou. Its in the middle of town and its called “Koppers”.
The older people have passed away, and the younger crowd moved to a better city. Its not a bad town thou. Its about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh.
In Vancouver a 35’ x 100’ lot with that house is over $1,000,000.00. It’s insane that so much of our hard work has to be tied up in our homes. Oh well at least we have homes.
Example;
For Sale: $1,349,900
Building Type : House
Bedrooms : 5
Bathrooms : 3
Floor Space : 2393.sqft
Storeys : 3
Built in : 1938
Land Size : 33.0 x 122
View : View
Title : Freehold
Location : 317 W 22ND AV
Vancouver, BC V5Y 2G3
Brent[:)]
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