09 May 2011

417 Hopkins

While riding bikes with my son Sunday, I noticed this building in the West End that I had never noticed before. It caught my eye, because it is a very nice stone building that is obviously divided between two owners. It is in the Betts Longworth area, in a strange cul-de-sac that was created long ago when the streets were re-configured during some urban renewal program.
 


Curious, I looked up the ownership, and found that the building is actually made up of two 16 foot wide lots. That is a pretty skinny lot. The right side has a long history of solid ownership and slowly rising value, and that the left side has passed from one absentee owner to another for years.

That might be the end of the story, except that I did notice one funny blip in the ownership history. In September 2001, Jackie Shropshire sold this vacant half to Jeffrey D. Blovits for $98,000! A few years later is was sold for $5,000 and then later for $1,000! Googling Shropshire, I came up with the fact that she was part of the Black United Front, which was a political organization prominent during the 2001 riots. Then I googled Blovits and found this (tragic / comedic) description of himself written before the mortgage meltdown:
Jeff Blovits is the branch manager of the Westerville Franklin Bank, a mortgage franchise location of the publically traded ssb out of Texas. Jeff has been in the financial services industry for 12 years as bank manager, underwriter, and mortgage lender. His innovative mortgage planning concepts are paving the way for countless clients to improve their financial lives.
I wonder who wrote the appraisal for that $98,000 loan.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Three houses away from where I live is a once great but not too big house purchased by an unreachable out of town investment owner. They bought it at auction for $16,000 maybe three years ago. It's the only property they own that has a structure on it, the rest are oddly located empty lots. Nothing has ever been done to it. It has historic potential on a street once considered for local historic designation. If the city gets involved all they want to do is tear it down even though it is fixable.
Like the above building on Hopkins, why is this allowed to happen? ... so often.

Jellyplant said...

Interesting... I just happened to notice that building on Friday. I went to the show at the Betts House and then wandered around. The masonry wall on the side has been worked on. Has anyone thought to file for receivership?

McEwan said...

My husband and I considered purchasing the property on the right side last Spring. But, we didn't want to purchase it unless we thought it was viable to eventually purchase the attached property, as well. And we weren't going to be able to access the shared wall to check for fire/water damage to the structure. Great potential, though!