A Fairfax, Va. home sold earlier this month above the asking price despite the fact that it comes with an unusual caveat… a stranger living in the basement.
The five-bedroom, four bathroom house sold for $805,000 to an unnamed buyer on April 15, public records show. Listing agent Zinta K. Rodgers-Rickert, of RE/MAX Gateway, said the home received five cash offers and closed within less than a week of being listed.
The listing generated headlines in noting that buying the home required “acknowledgement that home will convey with a person(s) living in lower level with no lease in place.”
“NO ACCESS to see lower level,” the listing added.
Two days after the home was listed, the Instagram account Zillow Gone Wild posted about it, noting that it came with “a specific clause in the purchase price.” The post garnered 35,000 likes and comments from users speculating on the identity of the basement tenant and poking fun at the unusual circumstances of the sale.
“800k for 5 bd, 4 ba and your own serial killer,” one user commented.
“Is the basement haunted? Feels like the basement is haunted,” another wrote.
Before the sale closed, Rodgers-Rickert told the New York Post that the then-seller was an elderly man who was ill in the hospital and who had offered the basement dweller a place to stay three years ago after she cleaned his home and “convinced him that she needed a place to stay,” Rodgers-Rickert told the Post.
“So he offered her the basement, but then she never left. And she does not pay rent,” Rodgers-Rickert added.
The agent told the Post that the man’s family was hoping to sell the home before he died because he didn’t have a will, and that they didn’t have the money to hire a lawyer to work on the eviction.
Rodgers-Rickert declined to comment further to NBC News on the circumstances of the basement dweller or the former seller.
A neighbor told FOX 5 that a mother and daughter live in the basement of the home. The listing describes the home’s lower level as a “walk out basement” containing a “legal bedroom, full bath, storage and large living area.”
The 3,500 square-foot home was built in 1964 and previously sold for $319,000 in 1997, public records show.
The listing notes that the home needs work, estimating that required repairs and replacements would cost around $25,000.
“Home is livable but needs some TLC,” it reads.
Photos show the kitchen counter strewn with empty bottles, deteriorating outdoor furniture on the deck and rotting window frames.
To claim squatter’s rights in Virginia, a person has to live in a place for 15 years and not hide the fact that they’re living there, according to local news station WUSA9.
Rodgers-Rickert told NBC News she attributes the quick sale of the home to “the strong market.”
“The limited inventory of homes in N. VA continues to fuel the market and makes all sales possible when priced right,” she wrote in a text.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
