SitemapLarry Graham purchased the house at 9904 Anderson Avenue in 2015, according to public records. But on a recent chilly fall afternoon, he wasn’t there. In fact, the house he’d tried to buy for $13,000 looked as if it had been abandoned months ago.
Frank Ford, a housing policy researcher at the Western Reserve Land Conservancy, stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the two-story, yellow-and-white house, studying the decay.
“The windows are broken, the siding is coming off, the gutters are falling,” he said. He stepped gingerly up the rotting wood stoop to the front porch. On the front door, Ford noticed a letter from the city building inspector stapled to the door, threatening to condemn the house for several code violations.
Ford was interested in the property because it was one of 654 listed on the Cuyahoga County Fiscal Officer’s website as having been sold on land contract in the past several years. It was, he said, like a lot of homes sold on land contract: the buyer put money into it, with the apparent hope of one day owning it, but never got to. To read the full story from IdeaStream click here.