Global Courant
After a frenzied bidding war, a quirky home built on a bridge over a concrete drainage canal in Alhambra has sold for $180,000 above asking price, which can still be considered a bargain in Southern California’s high-priced real estate market.
The home’s unusual location and relatively modest asking price of $250,000 drew national attention and hundreds of visitors when it went on the market a few weeks ago. Most of the visitors were look-less who wanted to peek inside the tiny house someone had built in 1949 into the side of a city-owned bridge overlooking the Alhambra Wash.
“This was definitely a unique property, there’s no doubt about it,” said broker Douglas Lee from Compass, which had the listing. “I’ve never encountered anything like it.”
People were captivated by what the tabloid TV show “Inside Edition” called “the troll house” because of the bridge’s location – over 155,000 watched the show’s segment about the house posted on YouTube.
Lee declined to identify the buyer who came up with the highest bid of $430,000, but Lee said he is a retired Rosemead High School teacher.
The 450-square-foot residence on the 1300 block of East Main Street has a deck that overlooks the car wash and a rooftop deck next to a road bridge, separated only by a fence. It is within walking distance of a Vietnamese restaurant and hair salon, but does not have a designated parking space.
The house is a one-bedroom, one-bathroom fixer-upper that once belonged to the parents of one of Lee’s high school friends. Lee said his friend’s parents bought the house in 2005 for about $72,000. Their plan was to use it as a posh “man cave,” Lee said, but it stood empty for nearly two decades according to KTLA5.
The average one-bedroom home in the Alhambra neighborhood costs about $350,000, while the median sales price for an existing single-family home in Southern California is about $785,000.
Times staff writer Noah Goldberg contributed to this story.
