House at 739 W. Ninth Street Update

Remember the house pictured on the far right side of the vintage postcard above? I had mentioned it back here as being a real bargain at $300 down and $300 a month.

How it looked in January 2012

Well, since that post in early January, three things have happened.

First, the house was intentionally set on fire on March 22 (which you can read about here).

Second, the house was featured on the front page of the April 1st Elyria Chronicle-Telegram in an article about the mortgage crisis in Lorain County.

In the article by Evan Goodenow (which you can read online here), the house was highlighted as an example of a house that was foreclosed on and now is being sold by an out-of-state interim investor who has probably never seen the house. It's also cited as being a particularly bad deal, as the mortgage was for twenty years, and thus whoever buys it will have paid $72,000 for a house with boarded-up windows and a trash-filled yard.

So much for my 'real bargain'!

Lastly, the property has suffered a bit of damage to the front porch, either during the fire or some other incident (below).

The house today

Could it be I jinxed this poor building by featuring it on this blog?