Seeking advice for buildable lots

[Leonid Stakhov]

Hello BP Friends,

Two years ago we bought a 1908 house on 1.1 acres of land. Historically it was divided into 10 lots. Due to the fact that there was no sewer, it was not buildable. Half a year later, sewer was put into the street, in front of 5 lots. At this moment, the entire property is divided into three tax parcels. 

We are located in a hot market area and would like to use the opportunity to make the most of our property.

What would be a good strategy to go with? We may consider partnering with someone.

Property address: 35530 52nd Ave S. Auburn WA 98001

Thank you for your input. 

[Jay Hinrichs]

Before you do anything.. go sit down with a local land planner engineer and have them tell you what you really have.

Also go to the county planning and see if your shadow plat can be reverted to legal buildable lots.

in Portland this is quite common its called a lot confirmation.

A little history on the West coast.

Our cities basically expanded from San Francisco back in the 1800's and the same engineering firms that platted SF in the middle 1800s also did Portland and many other cities.. so they did this with 25/100 lots on a grid pattern.. its those 25 X 100 lots that are under your plats and sometimes 50x100  unless someone did a reversion to acreage or combined them legally many times they are still legal lots.

and or like Portalnd they have all sorts of funky ways you can resplit them easily.

for instance I have one right now  were I had one home it was a tear down tore it down. it had 4  25x 100s  but because the house straddled the middle two they would only allow 3 lots.

well I confirmed 3 lots then did lot line adjustments so I got 1 skinny  28 and 2 36's  the 36s I sold for 50k premium over the 28s and a 50 foot with two 25s  would not have netted me as much either .

and to be frank.. City of Portland is pretty tough to deal with but I had a nice lady and planning who spent the time to go through all the different options.. but you do have to know enough to quiz them on the options .. they won't do your thinking for you.