Posted on 12/16/2007 5:55:59 AM PST by Zakeet
SURRY, Va. Maybe it was the inescapable mind's-eye visions of the brutality inflicted on dogs in the rugged wooded area behind the fence. Or maybe it was the glare of the media spotlight.
Something kept Michael Vick's former dogfighting headquarters from selling at auction Saturday, disappointing a real estate developer who has about $500,000 tied up in the place.
"I didn't see the people in the crowd I thought we needed," Wilbur Ray Todd Jr. said after rejecting the only serious bid $747,000, the property's assessed value for real estate tax purposes.
Todd said he thought the 15-acre country estate in rural southeastern Virginia was worth at least $1 million, even without "the celebrity factor." He now plans to list the house for a more conventional sale.
Facing financial ruin, Vick sold the property to Todd for the bargain price of $450,000. The disgraced NFL star has lost millions in endorsement deals and will lose the final $71 million of his Falcons contract. He also might have to repay the team nearly $20 million, and he's being sued by three banks for allegedly defaulting on nearly $6 million in loans.
[Snip]
Todd spent about $50,000 sprucing up the place, which had been trashed by burglars and looters. People arriving for the auction noticed the most recent addition: a front-yard flag pole, with a Falcons flag rippling in the cold wind.
"It was the finishing touch," Todd said.
A container for donations to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was placed at the front of the driveway, and a small concession stand offered burgers, hot dogs and drinks, with proceeds going to the SPCA.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I am just trying to imagine what this guy Vick might choose in the way of interiors, wall covering, plumbing fixtures, tile etc. That stuff is expensive to redo. Think taking the house back to the studs and starting over. Even then it would always be the “Vick place”. No thanks.
And a lot stupid. He's actually using Vick as a marketing tool, i.e., the pet-friendly B&B idea, the flagpole with the Atlanta Falcons flag as the "finishing touch" before the auction.
No - he put $50K in it on top of his purchase price. He is in for around $500K. The offer would have been about a 50% profit... not too bad.
The current owner watched too many “Flip that House” shows. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and sell for a loss. /s
Well said, post #16. A lot of these athletes go into professional sports and try to “keep it real” by hanging out with the losers they grew up with. If I would have made it big in sports, I would have promptly told my “friends” to get bent.
The authorities should have seized the property, which was used in the commission of a crime. It’s done every day when cars are seized when the driver is engaged in soliciting prostitution , drug sales and various other crimes.
Or Elvis’ Graceland comes to mind.
The real problem,
there is an unknown number of unmarked shallow graves containing very large dog corpses on the property.
Each spring during the muddy season those bones could pop up anywhere on the property.
And as Stephen King warned us, you don’t go building a home on top of a pet cemetery.
Who the hell wants to live on the former site of Dogschwitz?
It boggles the mind how much entertainers get paid in this country. I wonder how much cancer researchers are paid?
The investor forgot the primary rule of real estate, "location, location, location". The home is in Surry county which is in the middle of nowhere. Vick is from there, and built there, but the place is pretty isolated.
Not too shabby for a $35,000 property as we were told at the beginning of this saga.
he probably has to sell it to pay for all the fines
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