Strange house with strange public records: please help me understand
I saw a FSBO for a house in a really expensive neighborhood. The price is half of the market price but it has a major foundation problem. As a matter of fact, the house has been deserted for at least 4 years.
So I looked into the history of the sale records. The following is what I found.
Seq# Sale Date Sale Price Sale Type
1 06/01/1979 (obsolete sales codes)
2 08/23/1991 $0
3 12/11/1995 $315,000 Good sale; verified
4 08/20/1996 $537,000 Good sale; verified
5 09/26/2002 $0
6 10/28/2002 $0
7 12/15/2003 $280,000 REO Sale-Gvmt/Financial Inst
8 09/13/2005 $0
9 09/15/2005 $0 Foreclosure
10 11/10/2005 $0
11 11/01/2006 $0 Good sale; verified
12 11/14/2006 $0
13 01/29/2007 $1,047,000 REO Sale-Gvmt/Financial Inst
It seems that this unfortunate properties has been foreclosed twice. The transaction that puzzles me is the last one (#13). What could be the circumstances that this house could sell more than $1M while the house was totally deserted with major structural issues? Yes, I checked out the house myself it is indeed in very bad shape. The current owner is asking for $300K, which is OK given the neighborhood is going for $500K. But I am worried about the mysterious $1M last sale price. What could have happened?
Please shed some light on this. Thanks.