Forcing appreciation to a property

[Johnny Beautelus]

Good evening everyone, I'm in a dilemma, where I purchase a property in Kalamazoo, MI. Long story short I put too much trust into a realtor who I thought I can trust but it turns out I was wrong, now that property is being condemned. I'm trying to figure out how to force appreciation on the property. The property is only 650 ft square foot and has 1 bed, 1 bathroom. But is zoned to be a two-family home aka duplex. The goal was to renovate the property into a duplex and increase the square footage to around 1200-1500 square feet and add 4bed/2 bath on each side of the unit. But for some reason, I cannot find any property that I can compare it to. How can I force appreciation of the duplex and what will the appraiser look for if they cannot find anything to compare the property? Need help, please

[Rodolfo Goncalves]

Here is my OPINION from 1000 ft in the air.

I agree with @Greg Scott. If you have the means to build something, getting rid of the condemned building and starting from scratch might be a wise move. You can pay $10k to have the house demolished instead of spending $50k to get it fixed. Or just sell it and swallow the loss (there is no shame here, only learning experiences). Unless you are a contractor yourself, building anything at this moment (and who knows for how long) is too expensive to make it worth it as a investment. If you add to a lets say 100 years old building, your new building will be years old in the county records. 

If you decide to go with the renovation and your intention is to rent it out, you also have to consider the market for this kind of property. Kalamazoo has a surplus of cheap older multifamily homes, so I assume they are not worth it as investments for landlords due to low rent prices. How does a renovated property will perform in this depressed rental market? What about if you get a $300k mortgage to renovate it or add-on and you have to sell it in a few years? Can you get your money back?

Of course, there are always opportunities hidden in every situation. You might do your OWN research / due diligence and discover that adding on to the property is a the way to go. Good luck!