I looking for a town house in bad shape to do a complete remodel and live in. As I walk through good areas of Queens Village I can not help but notice the occasional empty house. Does any know if this is a realistic idea is there still any “shell houses” / raw spaces left that are available for purchase? Any know if there are any realtors that specialize in this type of housing ?

Thank you.

Lord knows there are plenty of shells in Philadelphia in general. I'd be careful looking for one in an established neighborhood like QV, though, because it seems to me they're almost always going for unreasonably high prices. I think you have to look in fringy, even bad areas to really get a shell for a bargain basement price.

there is one on bodine st. between montrose and christian (this street is not on most maps). it is quite large for the area and has a unique shape. i was thinking about how incredible it could look if renovated just yesterday.

Well, if there's a shell house in a good neighborhood, there's a fairly good chance it may belong the the City of Philadlephia, or the PHA, or other redevelopent agencies.

There's a thread on this site about similar homes in Fairmount, where a contractor was complaining about how Byzantine the PHA process is,
basically they won't sell homes once they own them, but they dont' have the money to fix them, so they sit.

Hal