What is a NAIL HOUSE?

A nail house or holdout is when an owner of real estate holds onto their land even though massive development is going around them and have had multiple offers to sell their land. The term Nail House comes from a Chinese pun coined by developers that refers to nails that are stuck in wood but cannot be pounded down into the wood. The more common term used worldwide is a holdout, but is basically someone who is too stubborn to sell.

In this example we have what was called the million dollar corner. This business on the corner refused to sell so the Macy’s department store so they built around this corner. Later in 1911 they finally were able to buy the corner piece of land for you guessed in 1 million dollars. 1 million in 1911 is worth about 25 million today.

A similar experience in the East End of London is this building. Wickhams bought up all the land to build a department store but were unable to buy this one little piece in the middle which was owned by the Spiegelhalter brothers who ran a jewellery store. Wickhams went ahead and build the department store around them. Wickhams was never able to buy that piece of land and eventually the jewelry store was shut down in 1982 and sold buy at that piece Wickhams was no more. Today the jewelry store is roofless and falling apart.

This 108 year old farmhouse in Seattle Washington was owned by Edith Macefield. Real estate developers offered her 750k then eventually 1 million dollars for her small plot of land but she refused. During her dealings with the real estate developers and the construction going on around her, Edith made friends with the construction superintendent Barry Martin. Martin told media that she was on the verge of selling the house when she took a fall and broke some ribs which took the energy right out of her. After her fall the idea of moving vanished from her mind. When Edith died in 2008 she left the house to Barry Martin in exchange for his friendship during the ordeal. He then went on to sell the house for a measly $310,000 to Greg Pinneo a real estate coach. Pinneo failed to pay taxes and the house eventually went through foreclosure. This house has become a popular selfie location and if you look closely you’ll notice striking similarities between this house and the one from Disney Pixar’s movie UP.

Finally this example here is from what was called “snack street” in Chongqing, China. The family who owned this house refused to sell for 2 years to the point where developers dug a 33 foot or 10 meter pit around the house and cut off their power and water supplies. The family broke into the construction site and reoccupied the house, proudly flying a Chinese flag at the top. Now you might be wondering how they got back up there? Yang Wu a local martial arts champion used nunchakus to make a staircase and threatened to unleash his wrath on any authorities that tried to remove them from the house. The family granted media interviews to stir up a lot of attention and initially turned down a $453,000 offer but later settled with the developers in 2007 for $505,000.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holdout_(real_estate)
http://eatballard.com/edith-macefield-house-up-house-in-ballard/
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-04/03/content_842221.htm

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