Home Costs $800K, but You Can't Look in the Basement

Cash-only deal in Virginia involves house with apparent squatters
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 14, 2022 4:38 PM CDT
Home Costs $800K, but You Can't Look in the Basement
   (Getty/Jeff Manes)

It's not your typical house listing: Five beds, four baths, two squatters in the basement. And yet the $800,000 home in Fairfax, Virginia, is now under contract for a price above asking, reports Fox5 DC. The listing didn't actually use the term squatters, but it was close, and it stipulated that potential buyers would not be able to see for themselves: "CASH OFFERS ONLY NO ACCESS to see lower level and Home sold AS IS ONLY with acknowledgement that home will convey with a person(s) living in lower level with no lease in place," per Zillow Gone Wild, where the listing went viral. Washingtonian is able to shed some light on the strangeness after talking to listing agent Zinta K. Rodgers-Rickert of Zinta & Rob and the Red Truck Realty Group Re/Max Gateway.

The Realtor says a woman "weaseled her way in" to living in the basement about three years ago—a neighbor tells the Fox station that the woman's daughter is there, too—and won't leave. The current owners are not “the type that can financially afford or emotionally deal with the eviction,” thus the odd listing. A bank likely would have balked at offering a mortgage under such circumstances, but the cash-only deal gets around that. Homes in the area often go for more than $1 million, so even factoring in $100,000 for needed renovations, it's not a bad deal, notes Washingtonian. The new owners will just have to go through the headache of a formal eviction. (More real estate stories.)

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