Coldwell Banker Valley Brokers handled the sale of 732 Fourth Ave. S.W.
Somebody is buying the historic house at 732 Fourth Ave. S.W., which sat vacant for years and became the subject of a city of Albany enforcement action in 2017 to clean up the overgrown yard.
The house had been listed with an asking price of $169,000. Now there’s a “pending sale,” for how much I don’t know. A broker at Coldwell Banker couldn’t tell me the buyer’s nameTuesday because the sale had not yet closed.
Linn County tax records say the house dates from 1891. It’s in the Monteith Historic District and once was the family home of an Albany school superintendent. Most recently it was owned by the Federal National Mortgage Association.
The city had $85,000 in liens against the poperty, most of it in fines and interest, and last month accepted a negotiated amount of $20,000 to clear the liens. The bank told the city it was interested in finding a buyer with an interest and experience in restoring historic properties.
The house is across Fourth Avenue from the Vine Street Water Treatment Plant, currently the site of an $865,000 project to repair some equipment. The contractor has until the end of October to complete the job.
Other houses in the vicinity of S.W. Fourth have been nicely restored or kept up, and now perhaps this will happen at 732 as well. (hh)
Repairs at the Vine Street water treatment plant across the street should be completed by this fall.
Albany is doing a great job to keep its beautiful historic neighborhood.
I would like to see the same effort to make our city more livable for people and not for cars: Pacific Blv. splits the city in two like an asphalt river. There are no safes routes to walk or ride a bike for kids to go to school. Going from North Albany to downtown walking is nearly suicide. And I could keep going on and on.
Remember, designing a city for cars excludes the weakest in society: the elderly that can’t drive anymore, disabled, the poor and children.