I'd be happy to track down the information on this property and advise you of what a reasonable asking price would be. Give me a call at 862-377-1209.

Hello Liz if your unfamiliar with the area you should go to your local real estate company and speak with a agent who deals with commercial real estate. I'm sure he or she would be able to give you all the details on that particular property. I also would have to agree with Barbara Weisman about going to the town building department. If you need me to refer you to a commercial agent in the area please give me a call.

Before I would do anything, I would investigate the property completely with the town building department and talk to the tax assessor to see if taxes are owed and how much.

What you want to know from the buiding department is what they require for this property and if they have condemned it because of the damage done to it, what is allowed to be built there. Sometimes a building is a prior existing non conforming use. In plain English - it was built before the existing building codes existed so it doesn't conform to today's demands. This can be a huge issue - if you're allowed to just rebuild what was there, no problem. If, however, you have to conform to today's codes, the size may be smaller and you might actually have to build a single family home if that's the zoning there today. You might also want to ask if there are any environmental hazard issues that were uncovered.

You can't figure out what to bid on this property until you know all the above. Then there's financing. If it's a commercial property, the down payment required for commercial loans is typically 30%. If you don't have cash to do the construction, you'll have to find a construction loan which is rare these days.

How much to offer depends on what you're buying. If the building is condemned, then you figure it as a building lot. If not, that's something different. What someone paid for a property has no bearing on it's market value. In this case it's a question of what can you do with this property and what must you do to get there.