These multi unit houses are all over Scranton, sometimes abandoned for over 10 years. They are a problem to the community and depreciate our neighborhood. The city loses taxes on these properties every year, and if no one ever buys them... it will eventually cost the city about $25,000 to demolish each house.
So why is it that no one wants to buy these multi unit houses, fix them up and rent them? I'll tell you why... there is a law in Scranton that says if a multi unit house is abandon for more than one year it will revert to a single family dwelling (or another way of putting it... it will fall under new building codes)!! This really has to be the dumbest law I have ever heard of. This building code that says you need a certain amount of ground footage for each unit. Most homes in Scranton only have enough ground footage to support a one family dwelling. This law was obviously not in place when most of these homes were built over a hundred years ago. So why do they impose this new building code on old homes? If you are not understanding what a negative impact this code has on these properties, I will explain.
Lets say you are interested in buying the three unit house in the picture posted above. Taxes owed on the property have to be paid, hopefully thats all you have to pay when buying some of these old condemned homes, unless there is a note still owed also. In this case the taxes owed are $5,000 and there is no liens. So lets say you buy the property for the owed taxes. Now you need to fix it up. Scranton law also says that you now need a license contractor, licensed electrician and licensed plumber and file for permits with inspections to get it up to code. This is another dumb law that turns away all unlicensed handymen or any outside contractors from investing in these properties. Why would anyone interested in buying the house (that would want to do the work themselves) hire someone else to do the job for them?? CRAZY!! But getting back to the original problem... Since a house is abandoned for one year and now reverts to a single family dwelling... you would now have to spend money on converting that house to a one family by putting in staircases, taking out and blocking up entrance doors, knocking out kitchens and bathrooms and blah blah blah. All this cost more money... and for what!!! To buy a three unit property that will only be used as a single family home after you have just spent all that money, time and aggravation into rebuilding and converting it... this does not make smart money sense!!!
SO NO ONE WANTS TO DO THIS, THAT IS WHY THESE HOMES ARE SITTING THERE!!!!
I understand the part of having the rebuild of these homes (labeled... condemned) under strict guidelines and inspections. There could be serious structural damage to the property that would really need to be done the right way by a knowledgeable licensed person and inspected after repair. So cant the home owner do all other work, file for permits and be subject to inspections himself? I think so... why not!! Why do we need licensed people to do all other work if it is going to be inspected and corrected? Does it matter if a licensed person does all other work and has an inspector correct any problems? Or does it matter if a home owner does all other work and has an inspector correct any problems? What's the difference? I don't see any difference!!! Let the home owner pay a fee per inspection. This way the home owner will not want to pay for a dozen inspections and he will want to get the job done right the first time.
But anyway.... now we have probably hundreds of these homes all over Scranton that are abandon and unwanted by builders and handymen, the city loses taxes every year on them and sooner or later the city will also have to pay to knock them down. What a waste!!
Scranton needs to think about this and change some laws/codes because our neighborhood is hurting... physically and financially!!!
What do you think about this?
You are absolutely correct we just closed on a five unit and now to find out its condemned and turned back to a single and to make it back to a 5 unit it must have parking for 8 cars off the city street paved and lined most of these big condemned buildings have no off street parking so what happens city looses taxes cause who wants a 13 bedroom single family home come on city of scranton get smarter..
ReplyDeleteExactly!! Its stupidly on the cities behalf. Its also a masive burden to the tax payers along with a neighborhood deprecation problem that reflects on housing prices! It actually is a major factor in an economic problem for the city. But what makes me wonder is... I'm I and a few others the only people that sees this problem? Is it possible that the building dept and mayors office (the so called professionals) has no clue to this major economic issue that burdens Scranton?? I think not!! I think they know, and there is other motives at play .
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