Neighboring Properties are going to be up for sale. What should I do?

[Marvin P.]

I received a phone call out of the blue yesterday from a commercial real estate agent for the two neighboring properties next to me. He was asking if I would be interested in selling my property along with the two others so that the three properties together would be more compelling to a developer. My neighborhood is zoned R3 (multifamily) but the three properties are single family homes.

My house is much (MUCH) nicer than the other two properties and even though my family and I are a little cramped where we live I had never thought of selling until I got the call from the realtor. He emailed me and told me that if the other two properties sold, that my property value would be "severely" reduced. While I don't believe it would be severely reduced, I'm sure the value would be affected.

I bought the house for $550k five years ago (I'm in L.A.) and upgraded a lot of things so I am pretty sure that it would comp out at around $475k in todays market.

I'm looking at stuff around the neighborhood and it seems that the supply is a little tight. I would love to move to a bigger place and with today's interest rates and prices, the mortgage would not cost much more than what I'm paying today.

Does anyone have any advise for me? I'm not in a hurry to sell and I have a little bit of equity in the house. But I would sure love for my daughters to have their own rooms and have more than one bathroom.