Adding Value by (Sub)Dividing
Given the combination of an (over)heated Twin Cities housing market; high demand for new construction; and 
housing stock which can be functionally obsolete if not in disrepair, it should be no surprise that there are plenty of local homes that are worth less than the land underneath them.
That’s especially so if that land can be split into two, buildable lots.
How do you find out if that’s possible?
Listing Agent Due Diligence
Step #1 is to check with the local municipality.
I just left St. Louis Park City Hall, where I (re)learned that — unlike, say, Minneapolis — St. Louis Park’s rules for subdividing are quite restrictive.
Specifically, the minimum lot size must be 75′ x 120′, or 9,000 square feet total (equivalent to almost .21 acre).
Which means that the existing lot must be at least 150′ x 120′.
Unfortunately, that means the Fern Hill home I’m getting ready to list at the end of the month doesn’t qualify.
#$%@&!!
See also, “True or False: To be a Teardown, a Property Must Be in Poor Physical Condition”; “East Edina Arbitrage ” Housing Market Edition“; “How to Ruin a Perfectly Good Teardown (Huh?!?)”; “Buyer’s Agent: “Need a Lot/Teardown Up to $900k in East Edina’“; and “What’s Selling . . . East Edina.”
Plus these: “Is it a Teardown? How to Tell on MLS“; “Tear-Down Economics“; “Tear-Down Prototypes“; “Tear-Down Economics, Circa 2012”; and “You Know It’s a Tear-Down When . . .”
