Hey! Who Put That Pig Farm There?
It’s all about location…so they say.
But sometimes the location comes with, well, what some folks feel are annoyances that shouldn't be there.
We lived in Bolton MA a number of years ago, a fairly affluent and somewhat rural community along the 495 corridor about 30 miles west of Boston. Definitely a “bedroom community” as the term goes. [photo courtesy of wattpublishing on Flickr].
Some of the more rural areas were being developed with expensive, custom-built homes on large lots as the town was growing during the DotCom craze of the mid to late 1990s and there was quite some brouhaha about a pig farm in one of these upscale neighborhoods.
Seems that on warm, and windy, days the owners of these expensive custom-built homes no longer had to guess a pig farm was in the area.
Of course the pig farm had been there for years, and everyone knew it, plus it was disclosed to the folks buying these newly built “yuppie” homes. They bought anyway.
But that didn’t stop folks from complaining, and filing lawsuits to try to get the pig farm shut down, or at least having the pigs excommunicated.
It didn’t work. As many of the townspeople said…the pigs were there first. But it made for great scandalous reading in the local paper for ages, and lots of gossip in this small town.
The pigs remind me of the occasional media-worthy griping in pricey La Jolla about Black’s Beach.
It’s not uncommon for some homeowners in the pricey residential area on the bluff to complain that the beach far below, in part, is a nude beach.
Guess when you spend upwards of 8 digits to live on a cliff overlooking the ocean you don’t want to be troubled by some naked people running around on the beach a hundred feet below. [the view in the photo is from the Torrey Pines Hang Gliderport]
Black’s Beach, like the pig farm, has been that way for many years although there are attempts to alter it. And pretty much everyone knows about this famous Southern California beach.
Not sure it’s a mandatory disclosable item, though, but probably not a bad thing to share, just in case. Clearly some buyers have an issue with the beach.
As a buyer it pays to do your due diligence in the event there is something in the area that you might find offensive – an industrial park, a mall, a group home (a big controversy in the Bressi Ranch master planned community in Carlsbad), railroad tracks and so on. You may not be able to just make them go away, and after the fact, well, it’s too late.
And as an agent, what do YOU disclose?
And good stories in YOUR area?
Some other things to consider in our area - flight paths for Palomar Airport Road, surfers parking in residential areas (noise, changing clothes by the side of the road)
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