Michael Vick's Home Fails to Sell

Now here’s a surprise….  Michael Vick’s Virginia Home, where his now infamous dog fighting compound was located, failed to sell at auction this week.  Turns out that people weren’t interested in running up the price because of it’s notoriety.

Here’s the back story:  Vick sold the home for $450,000 to a real estate investor shortly after pleading guilty
to dog fighting charges.  The investor, Wilbur Ray Todd Jr., spent roughly $50,000 according to his estimates on repairs related to vandals and looters, and then placed the home up for sale at auction, hoping that the property’s notoriety would fuel bidding.

So….. $500,000 invested, plus taxes, title, recording fees, commission, etc. and when the home comes up to auction, the bidding stops at $747,000, which just happened to be the tax assessed value of the home.  Turns out that the price wasn’t enough to buy it, and the house was not sold.

This means that a profit of close to $250,000 minus the prior fees was not enough.  Mr. Todd said that 1915 Moonlight Rd. is the most famous address in America right now (Funny, I thought that distinction was held by 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue…), but really the sale (or lack thereof) of this property brings up an interesting property concern.  Stigmatization.

Obviously, there are individuals who were willing to pay up to $747,000 for the home.  The estimated value of the property is somewhere in the million dollar range, but would you want to live in a home with a past such as this one?  It’s an easy answer for me, but what about for you?  Would you be willing to live in a home that has had so much media attention, where a major dog fighting enterprise existed (and evidence of it still remains), and where dogs were willfully executed?