Auctioned for almost 50% off judgment 25 Burning Hollow Rd
One of the most famous foreclosures in Bergen County, NJ sold at last week's sheriff auction for $1.3 million. That's 54% of the judgment against the property. The nearly 8,000 sq ft mansion sits on 2 acres at 25 Burning Hollow Rd. in Saddle River, NJ.
From the outside, it looks like a stunning home, but as a news report in 2007 discovered, the inside was a mess. The previous owners had taken in nearly 100 cats and dogs. When the ASPCA removed the animals, they found 23 of the animals were dead. The owners didn't seem to do much to clean up after the animals as indicated by the footage. Check the comments on the foreclosure listing page for a link to some mroe photos as well.
At the end of 2007 a neighbor had purchased the property when it first went into foreclosure, not knowing what was lurking inside. After he discovered the condition of the property, Michael Acciardi was able to back out of the deal with the bank. With the press coverage I'm assuming the person that purchased it this time knows about the condition.
With some VERY thorough cleaning and disinfecting , this could be a real steal. The appraised value is $2.5 million. Homes in this area have similar or higher appraisals. NJ Nets guard Vince Carter lives a few houses down.
The most detailed coverage of the discover I found was in this New York Times article.
Tags: nj mansion saddleriver foreclosure pets
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The house was condemmed by the town and has to be demolished. There was no steal.
Posted by Donald on July 02, 2008 at 03:39 PM EDT #
I haven't seen that they issued a demolision order yet, but I haven't really looked. Is there a link to a story confirming if it was indeed slated for demolision?
Houses are condemned when they are not considered habitable. If you can change the condition of the home you can appeal. Even if it costs a couple hundred grand or more, you could get a crew to rip out sheetrock and trim, replace the ductwork and sanitize everything to make it habitable. Just like if there was a moisture/mold problem. They could go even further and rip everything down to the studs and joists for not much more. It's not like the urine destroyed the integrity of the structure.
If they have to tear down and rebuild, 1.3 mil for a 2 acre lot in SR isn't a great deal but it's not bad.
Posted by Tom on July 02, 2008 at 05:17 PM EDT #
"The Tamis and Stewart home did not seem out of place, even today, except for the animal rescue trucks parked outside -- and a large red notice posted on the front door after Saddle River health officials condemned the building."
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2007/08/23_dead_dogs_and_cats_found_in.html
Posted by Donald on July 02, 2008 at 05:32 PM EDT #
Donald,
I know the house was condemned. What I was asking if there was a demolition order given. I haven't seen anything indicating that there was. The two are not the same. There have been houses that were condemned for various reasons and after the home was made habitable there was an appeal and the house was no longer considered condemned.
I'm not sure if that's what the new owners will do but it's what I would probably do considering the damage can be easily remediated for much less than tearing down and building a new house.
Still a 2 acre property on a street where homes go for 2-5mil for 1.3mil isn't bad.
Posted by Tom on July 02, 2008 at 05:53 PM EDT #
Hi Tom! Glad your back!
How will disclosure regulations affect this property? Is this something that must be disclosed to all future buyers? I would imagine that would influence whether to do a tear down and a rehab.
Posted by NJHH on July 06, 2008 at 01:06 PM EDT #
Just looked at the pictures from PhotoShelter. Since so much of the first floor is tiled I suspect it will not be as hard to sterilize.
The Flip this House show from Texas (with that Armando guy) showed one of these type of houses. I think it cost him like $10,000 to have a special company come in and clean everything. They had to replace the floors and some of the walls but were still (supposedly) able to make a profit on the property. I would imagine the the issues would not be that different on this house.
A big issue on the property would be potential buyers learning the history of the house. I would imagine people would be most hesitant with the condemned status - but it looks at the right price most could overlook this.
Posted by NJHH on July 06, 2008 at 01:43 PM EDT #
God, I'd hate to think someone like Armando Montelongo would be renovating this property :) The one he did in San Antonio http://muskegojeff.blogspot.com/2007/08/flip-this-house-san-antonio-scumbags.html">got some criticism.
I remember that episode, it was the one that caused his brother, David Montelongo, to part company with him. One thing I read noted that http://www.flipthislawsuit.com/2007/04/16/anyone-purchased-armando-montelongos-real-estate-package/">Armondo and David Montelongo had filed for bankruptcy in 2003 (read comment 20.) What's funny is that there were a bunch of positive comments also posted on that blog apparently all from the same San Antonio IP address. These are some of <a href="<a href="http://www.flipthislawsuit.com/2007/10/12/montelongo-foreclosure-and-court-activity/">Armando">http://www.flipthislawsuit.com/2007/10/12/montelongo-foreclosure-and-court-activity/">Armando Montelongo's properties that were apparently under foreclosure and other related legal proceedings.
It can be done, and an encapsulating paint like he used is a good thing, but there's a lot of cleanup, disinfection and odor elimination that should be performed first. I would think that a clean up crew that specialized in mold remediation and water damage or fire damage would be able to handle this.
If the new buyer has an agent I would be surprised if they didn't know about the history of the home. I'm not a realtor so I don't know all the disclosure laws in NJ, but I doubt that there's any specific provision for a pile of dead animals 2 feet high or feces so deep you need to waders to walk through it. :) There must be some provision though when a house has been condemned. If the house doesn't get demolished, there's going to have to be a hearing to get the condemned status lifted which would make the remediation process public.
On top of all that, Burning Hollow in general has problems with it's water. 26 wells in the are were found to have VOC's at higher levels than allowed. There seems to be a bunch of debate over whether the wells should be closed and municiple water brought in.
Posted by Tom on July 06, 2008 at 03:42 PM EDT #
Thanks Tom. This will definitely be a property to keep an eye on to see how things progress. Can you tell who the new owners are? Wonder if they are in the construction business? I would imagine the new owner already has is plans laid out. They probably also have extensive knowledge of Saddle River zoning rules and regs.
As for Flip This House - I think the only even slightly realistic groups were the Trademark group and the Conn. group. The Georgia group also have alot of allegations against them. Both Georgia and Armando made so many bad choices. How good could the Georgia group be if they always needed outside investors. And Armando's feud - they made amends in later in the series so I wonder if it was just for television. And that Flip this lawsuit website is great. I have spent hours and hours going through the various posts.
Posted by NJHH on July 06, 2008 at 07:36 PM EDT #
No idea who the owners are other than "25 Burning Hollow MJA, LLC". I didn't find a business with that name though I did find one named "25 Burning Hollow, LLC" not sure if it is the same.
There is a construction company as well as an investment company with MJA in the name. Might be them. Michael Acciardi was the person that attempted to purchase it. Maybe his middle initial is J? I might try and look into it more this week, hopefully I can find something. I need to finish up this threaded comments code. It's not working quite right. The preview doesn't seem to show up and the threaded comments aren't going through the formatting filter. Need to find some time to finish that up.
I liked the Trademark Team too, especially Ginger ;) The guys from CT seemed to be the best of the new breed but when it showed them giving seminars they dropped a few notches in my book.
Trademark had some issues too. I remember one of the first episodes, the lake front property, was shut down because they didn't get permits. There was another episode where Richard was running around to his investors trying to get money because the remainder was do on a bunch of properties they picked up at auction. It was close to a million dollars. I forget if they got an extension or if they got the money. Out of all of them they had it together even though they had some troubles. When they started the new show I really missed the old format and the contractor they used to have. When Richard was holding them up from doing work he took his guys out to the woods with some beer and guns to shoot stuff. The gay landscaper that was fawning over Ginger strutting through a construction site in high heeled boots. I mean, it was just really fun to watch.
A&E really screwed up. The show hasn't compared to what it was that first season. http://www.flipthislawsuit.com">FlipthisLawsuit.com</a> has a bunch of info on what happened and the lawsuits but I haven't followed it in a while. I deleted the program from my DVR months ago. Same with The Real Deal. It just seemed too sanitized.
It just seemed real and not staged like the other flippers. CT came the closest but still not the same. Lecima and the Montelongo's seemed to scripted. Apparently the Montelongo family business is a big residential remodeling company. Not sure why David and Armando aren't involved in that. Supposedly it's very successful too. I saw the website and the work they do seems very high end, not the type of crap Armando was doing. On their website they even say they're not affiliated with Montelongo House Buyers or A&E. There was a news story about it somewhere.
Posted by Tom on July 06, 2008 at 09:44 PM EDT #
"25 Burning Hollow, LLC" is the LLC that was used by the original buyer of the house who paid $2.6 million. I forgot his name, but you can look it up in the Record or anyother media outlet that covered the house.
Posted by Donald on July 06, 2008 at 11:10 PM EDT #
Thanks Donald, that's what I was suspecting and why I didn't plop down the 5 bucks to get the details. Michael Acciardi, who I mentioned above, is the neighbor that originally purchased the property. If I remember correctly he owns The Planet in Hoboken and or some other restaurants. He was also in a battle with someone else regarding the old Clam Broth House. He owned the liquor license, someone else owned the building, I forget exactly. Haven't followed that story in a while.
Posted by Tom on July 07, 2008 at 12:09 AM EDT #
Also, I'm curious how you found out he was the person behind 25 Burning Hollow, LLC. I didn't find that in any publicly available information. A couple weeks ago you were also implying that properties purchased at foreclosure by an LLC didn't seem legitimate to you.
Posted by Tom on July 07, 2008 at 12:26 AM EDT #
Simple: Last summer the Bergen County sheriff website listed the buyer of 25 Burning Hollow as "12 Burning Hollow, LLC" and when the story broke, they mentioned the name of the buyer so I put 2 and 2 together.
Posted by Donald on July 07, 2008 at 01:04 PM EDT #
So how is it you were claiming, not too long ago, that an LLC is somehow illegitimate?
Posted by Tom on July 07, 2008 at 05:08 PM EDT #