Showing posts with label community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community. Show all posts

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Absentee landlords beware!

My wife stumbled across this listing (MLS #8024635) over the weekend, and liked how the house sat up high on the hill. So before we looked any further I decided to pop over to Zillow and get the scoop on the location, and what Zillow thought it was worth.

At first I was a little puzzled by the photos posted on Zillow (4804 N Borthwick), but then I realized they must have been posted by the tenants. We found this info an the subject of who can post photos to Zillow:

"Who Can Upload Photos?
Anyone can upload photos of a house — owners, agents, neighbors — anyone! Since Zillow is a community site, we want everyone to contribute — even your neighbors or someone who has lived in the house 20 years ago. Photos uploaded by owners and agents will show up first. Also, community-uploaded photos cannot be deleted, but if you see something that doesn't look right or is inappropriate, please click the "Flag content" link and Zillow Customer Support will review it."

This photo shows the rotting windowsill with the title "massive water going in", other photos show the moisture in the walls and other fun discoveries.This is not the first house I've seen in the Mississippi area that appears to have been bought by investors, never had any maintenance, and is now being unloaded for what they hope is a tidy profit.

To all the absentee landlords out there: be careful what you try to get away with, your tenants now have more and more tools at their disposal to let the rest of us know just what you're up to, or not up to.

Good luck trying to sell this one. We'll check back and see how much it gets marked down over the next few months.