On this morning’s walk, after a GOOD sleep that got my brain back in gear, I was noticing a pattern in some of the familiar sights. From 2008 to 2021 there were several Infills in the neighborhood. Vacant houses were expanded into McMansions. Long-vacant lots got new houses, and three big lots were subdivided formally or informally.
The red area was subdivided first, and two of the lots were never used. The blue and green areas were done by one developer. Blue is the abandoned apartment building at 4001 that served as the focal point of my daily walks for 10 years, until it was finally renovated and occupied at the end of 2021. Its lot wasn’t formally divided, but the western and southern parts are still untouched and overgrown. Green is another formal subdividing. 4008 is an old house that was renovated, and the other two are new.
Nothing new was built before 2008. Plenty of activity from 2008 through 2021, including several flips outside the immediate neighborhood. Nothing new has been built after 2021. One of those outer flips has been sitting incomplete since 2021.
The active flip years correspond nicely to the ZIRP/QE period. Coincidence?
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Irrelevant: The map includes another oddity that I never noticed in real life. 3890 is a subdivided lot without a house. It doesn’t really face a street, so it wouldn’t be a deliverable address. It faces an alley that feels like a street because of the triangular pattern. It’s owned by the same people as the house in front. Did they intend to build a house or mother-in-law cottage?
Polistra's Mill 