Pending in Riverside

21 Weston Hill Road, $1.695 million, pending after just 9 days, which strongly suggests a bidding war, and probably a battle between builders looking for a good lot in this section of Riverside, at that.

It’s a perfectly nice house, even though it’s a back lot: a good friend of mine lived here many years ago, and it’s been nicely updated since then, but it sits on 0.49 of an acre in the R-12 zone, giving it an allowable 6,300 sq. ft. of FAR. At least half of that land is unusable cliff face (suitable for climbing, back when we were 12), but as far as I understand it FAR doesn’t care about such niceties, so a builder can put up something large, overpowering and expensive here, and almost certainly sell it for a price that will make his efforts worthwhile.

Of course, it could be going to an end-user: there’s always a benefit to buying a property at its land value and getting a “free” house as a bonus, but I’m guessing a builder would have been able to outbid such a buyer; we’ll see.