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quote:
You BOUGHT a house sight unseen in a place you've never been before?
I have to say, I am always surprised to hear of people doing this, mainly because of the huge variability I saw when lot "hunting", some in lots sitting side by side. So this post is not just for those who have done just that, but for all- what have you found on your properties or in your neighborhoods, after purchase, that surprised you?
For me, it was that the lot we bought in Fern Acres (after 4 separate week-end visits from Oahu) had been previously graded under all those ferns!
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Ours was a pleasant surprise. The Bear and I bought our place after multiple visits, inspections, title searches, etc. (We even stayed in the house for a week before we bought it.) One of the things we liked about it was the fact that it had never been ripped, other than the footprint of the house and driveway. We were drawn to the nice ohia forest and an uplift in the lava rock surface behind the house. Once we moved in and began clearing the waiwee and other brush under the ohias, we discovered that there is a lava tube running along one side of the property that had collapsed in two places making for one nice landscape pit feature and one mini-cave with a hidden entrance. A neighbor said, "Cool a, natural fallout shelter." Another remarked, "Wine cellar."
Cheers,
Jerry
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Does anybody really buy "sight unseen" any more? With the internet and digital photography it costs exactly $0.00 to send a dozen, a hundred, a thousand photos to a prospective buyer, assuming they have contact with someone locally, eg the real estate agent. You can use Google Earth to check out the area (in some cases) and access forums to ask questions about the feel of the neighborhood. It's easier than it used to be!
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We just found our pit feature last week! It's about 10 x 30, with nice curved in side where the bubble collapsed, and we're thinking of making one end of it into an outdoor fire area.
