Would you buy a home with an award winning layout or sell your home with your train layout?

Sadly the last 3 friends who sold homes with completed layouts had to tear them out to sell the house. Will be interesting to see how this goes. Wish him the best of luck. 

I would sell mine with my layout if there was an intereseted party.    BUT I would put lots of caveats on it.    I built it and I can maintain it and I tried to keep wiring diagrams and notes on everything I did.    However, realistically, it would be a bear for someone to come in and try to take over and maintain my layout.    and they would probably not like my workmanship either - sometimes I don't even like it!

I don't think I would buy a house with a layout.    I have specific ideas of what I want to do and it has to be an operations focused layout, not a display layout.    I have not need for continous running but lots of need for industrial sidings for example.     So I doubt I would ever find one that would interest me.    And then I would have the same problems taking over someone else's as they would have with mine.

Now if your find one and like and the DOCUMENTATION IS GOOD enough for you.  - - go for it.

Gary, where is the house located? Looks attractive and I would buy that house with the layout, depending on location. Looks like there would be room for a decent O gauge layout in addition to the HO layout.

Pete

rattler21 posted:

I didn't have an award winning layout but it did occupy half of the third floor.  The real estate agent said it had to be removed.  Several men in our modular group helped me take apart the top, cross pieces and legs.  The house sold to a couple in their late 20s and his hobby was O gauge.  He told me it sure would have been easier if the legs, cross pieces and top had been left in tact.      John in Lansing, ILL (ex-Cincinnati)

It would seem that is the death blow to most potential scenarios playing out positively.

I'm not a realtor or anything, but I suspect every realtor would say the same. 

If you were comfortable doing a For Sale By Owner (FSBO), and could find a buyer who both: a)wanted a train layout and b) was OK with buying a FSBO, then it might work.  You are obviously reducing the target audience to something nearing zero with those criteria overlapping in a qualified buyer though. 

I recall most of the home buying books I read before I finally took the plunge about 10 years ago warning of dealing with people selling their own house.  Generally speaking people selling their own house think more of it ($$) than might be realistic, and there can be a lot of other complications along the way.  While I cannot recite them chapter and verse I think the general gist of it was that you as the buyer are taking a fair amount of higher risk for the seller's convenience of not having to pay a selling commission to a realtor.

-Dave

Norton posted:

Gary, where is the house located? Looks attractive and I would buy that house with the layout, depending on location. Looks like there would be room for a decent O gauge layout in addition to the HO layout.

Pete

Hi Pete: 

The house is located on the Golf Course in the safe Del Webb Community in Huntley Illinois, and if you’d like to contact Pete you can contact him by e-mail. His e-mail address is in the video description and he gives more contact information in the video.

Good luck & this may be the home for you: Gary 

Thanks Gary. I figured it might be in the mid west. Any move I make would have to be to a warmer clime at this point. 

I hope he finds someone interested.

Pete

Any realtor who is  or is not a train collector would advise to remove the layout stunning or otherwise.

Years ago, we sold the family home with a rather extensive HO layout in the basement. The layout wasn't coming out of that house in one piece or even easily in several smaller pieces. Sold the house to a developer who then bulldozed the house (and, I assume, the layout at the same time). Tossed a few engines in the trash, kept a handful that are under glass in my current train room. 

Considering my current home has a rather extensive koi pond set up, which the prior owner built, I figure that it will have to be filled in when we leave. It was actually a selling point for us as we were going to build one but the previous owner took care of that (had 2, one in the front yard and one in the backyard, I filled in the backyard pond). I love having it and would gladly buy a house with one, pending a full inspection.

We're here for the long haul.  I built my house and have done any improvements and changes to it over the past forty-five years.  Now I am building an indoor layout.  I have an outdoor railway in large scale.  So when I have to leave here it will be because they're dragging me out.....LOL

Mine was a shelf-layout that ran between four rooms on the second story. Tunnels through walls and a bowl of spaghetti wire in the attic to boot. What I did was to have it running with three trains when the realtor came to do his initial walk-through. He said, "Keep it." Within about two weeks, we had a full-price buyer (and this was in 2013, when Reno, Nevada, was no where near recovered from the mortgage mess of 2007-2008), and she insisted it stay. I left behind a Z4000, the TIU, AIU, remotes, and a few running stock. The word from old neighbors is that she ripped it out about a year later.

Eyes bigger than stomach?

Honestly if it was a layout that had a good mix of running potential and switching I would take the risk. As I have never had a layout fully built.

trainroomgary posted:

Would you buy a home with an award winning layout or sell your home with your train layout?

No.

On a similar note.  Buying or selling a house where there is an in ground pool is tough from both ends.  Some people want a pool while I would imagine most would not.  Some sellers think a pool is a selling point, while others would fill it in to sell the house.  

Would I buy his home with the layout. Well no on two reasons one I'm not moving north, two It's HO

Would I sell mine with the house? depends on how much they are offering for the layout. 

It would be a shame if such a great layout was demolished.  Unfortunately, that's often what happens, especially since each home layout represents one person's unique vision.

Personally, I wouldn't pay a premium for a house with a layout - I would look at buying such a house as a win/win - buyer gets the layout, seller doesn't have the financial and psychological costs of demolishing it and hauling it away.

I think I found the neighborhood on Zillow.  Didn't find a listing for that particular house, but it looks like houses on the golf course are listed for $300-450k.  In that price range, it might be possible to find a well-heeled buyer who will pay a little more.  And if the seller has to demolish it, the financial cost of doing so would be a very small percentage of the sale price.

Since the layout is of such high quality, I hope that the seller will resist the realtor's suggestion to tear it out.

Considering that the layout is located in an area of the country which has a high concentration of model railroaders, publicizing it to the various clubs, hobby shops, and train meets might turn up a buyer.   The monthly meet in Wheaton isn't far from his location - maybe a nice brochure could be prepared and handed out, or perhaps buy a table and display the information.

My wife is a 25 year Realtor. Most buyers would be deducting the cost of removal from the offer price. If you got lucky and sold one inplace good for you, but certainly not the norm.

Years back I was looking at an electrical job for a general contractor  I worked with. The house was on the north shore of Long Island in a very exclusive community. The house was about 4,000 sq ft. Nothing special but it was right on LI Sound and you could see Manhattan on a clear day. Well I'm checking out the house and we are going through the basement. I ask him what's behind a door and he says he's not sure. I think you can guess where this is going, I find a 20' X 30' O gauge layout! Needless to say I took the project. While I was there I managed to get a train or two running that the new owner had brought to the house. He was not a big modeler but was intrigued buy this beautiful layout and wanted to learn how to operate it.

It was very well built, all conventional, block control. I figured that you could run 4-5 trains simultaneously. He was happy to have my help to get started. After I competed the project we spoke occasionally but I never went back to see the layout again.

So to answer the question- YES- I would buy a house with a layout already built. Selling the same would be difficult at best figuring that you need to be patient and find the right buyer.

Bob

Mallard4468 posted:

 

I think I found the neighborhood on Zillow.  Didn't find a listing for that particular house, but it looks like houses on the golf course are listed for $300-450k.  In that price range, it might be possible to find a well-heeled buyer who will pay a little more.  And if the seller has to demolish it, the financial cost of doing so would be a very small percentage of the sale price.

 

Hi Mallard 4468

Mr & Mrs Walton are selling this home with the layout by "Owner", at this point. He is very passionate about this layout and he is going to teach the new owner all about the design and operation.

Thanks for taking a look: Gary

Yes I would buy a home with a completed layout assuming that the home had other important features such as right area, price and my wife was happy with the remaining part of the house.

NH Joe