Carrboro News Janitor Hits it BIG in Real Estate...Twice!
Part II

(continued from Part I)
The Second Real Estate Deal

So the Janitor buys a place on James Street, for more than he ever thought he'd pay for a house. Nice neighborhood, a great shortcut from West Main Street to Hillsborough Road, an elementary/middle school up the road, a Post Office down the road, Speed Humps and lots of deer to hunt. What more could you ask for? A nice stable community.

But he didn't realize when he purchased the property how hot the speed humps(not bumps- bumps are passé) were and how they would make Hump-side and Hump-view property so valuable. The land in view of the humps has become so valuable that earlier in the year a house with four acres was sold for an undisclosed amount of money(actually we could find out if we went and look at the county records...but that will take too much time, so it's easier to say it's undisclosed). The lot was subdivided and three more houses are slated to be built. The old original house is on about an acre and the other three(I can hear the hammers pounding across the street as the first house is being constructed) will be on slightly less than one acre each.

Speed Humps and New Homes- Is their Age of Glory over?

The house they're constructing now is right even with the Speed Hump, making it by far the more valuable of the properties. The older house has a fair view of the Speed Hump, while the other two's view will be classified as "poor" and "nonexistent".

So, big deal you're thinking.... a couple of houses being built near a speed hump. What's the big investment part?

Well, the houses will all be put up(and have been) and put on market for prices in the $490,000 ballpark. That's more than twice what any house as old on the street and $150,000 more than have been sold in the neighborhood.

When the janitor bought his house, he thought putting in Maple floors would add value to his house, but never in his wildest dreams did he think that the speed bumps(He's old school so even though the sign identifies them as "Speed Humps" he knows them as Speed Bumps)in front of his property would be the eggs that turned the goose into a golden egg layer.

That's the good news.... the bad news is that High Street has developed a new type of hump(called a Speed Table) that may make the James Street Humps obsolete. As it stands the houses have not sold in five months which could be a result of the crashing Carrboro Real Estate Market, the impending obsolecense of the speed hump, or a combination of the two.