A good deal on a foreclosure? Well maybe, but I'm guessing it sold for true market value.

179 N. Maple Avenue, a back lot but one that's 0.87 acres, sold for $1.325 million.

The house, now bank-owned, is occupied by a tenant, and there were no showings permitted. My guess is that didn't matter, because this 60-year-old house is almost certainly slated for either replacement or renovation as a rental.

The owner, who died in 2009, paid $1.8 million for it in 2005 and, courtesy of Countrywide (of course) took out a $2,008,000 mortgage on the place in October, 2008 and died a year later. From the foreclosure records, it would appear that he never paid a dime on the loan, but the confusion of the 2008 collapse of Countrywide indicates that no one noticed until 2017 (!).

In any event, foreclosure proceedings were initiated in 2017, with the lender claiming an amount due of the aforesaid $2,008,000, unpaid interest of $993,000, property taxes, insurance, etc., all adding up to $3,234,945.62. I'm assuming that the successor to Countrywide took on this bad debt for pennies on the dollar and made out just fine on this sale; otherwise, someone, besides us taxpayers, took a bath. 

The foreclosing party had it appraised in 2017 at $1.6 million, but that figure estimated land value as $1.2 million, and the existing structure at $400,000. Allowing for a bit of upward adjustment on that land valuation and discounting the house down to, probably, zero, $1.325 was probably a fair price.