Some friends of mine want to buy the foreclosed house next to them, convince the city to condemn it, and have it demo’d. Probably won’t happen, but how much would the tear down cost? We WAGed 20k.
That’s about right, probably less. I just demoed a 2-story house in Atlanta for a bit less than that. You have to hire someone with the machine (a bucket on treads, essentially), and they will charge you by the hour. Hauling the debris away will be the bulk of the cost. You need to find a company that is willing to run a couple of trucks back and forth while a 30-yard container sits there for the machine operator to fill. He can fill it in about 15 minutes (maybe less), so you usually need to have at least three trucks working if you want to manage your time efficiently.
I’ll try to find my invoices for you.
Sounds like a good guess.
This site estimates around $15,000-20,000 to demo a house to dirt, and lists some gotchas and things you may not have considered.
Around here, if the job is over a certain size, you need to produce a detailed worksheet of how you’re disposing of the waste without dumping it into the landfill and satisfy the local air quality bureau that you won’t be releasing excessive dust, ash, etc. before a demo permit will be issued.
No need for the details- just was wondering if our estimate was close, which it seems it is.
Why should the city be convinced to have it condemned? Shouldn’t the property owners be free to do with it as they please (within local ordinances, of course), including tearing it down, once it’s theirs?
Also, your local fire department may be interested in burning it down for a training exercise. It can’t hurt to look into it.
Because the city doesn’t want to shrink ts tax base? I think the issue is more about what happens afterward- the city requires that you rebuild, whereas my friends think it might be better left as a vacant lot/community garden, as it isn’t a very big lot. Apparently this house has been empty for 4 years, and there is an open door on the balcony, so all sorts of weather has been getting in, so it might not be too hard to have it condemned. Burning it down would be too risky, as it is built almost to the line, probably wouldn’t meet setback restrictions now.
Wait, the city requires you to rebuild on a lot if you demo the house?
Yeah…first thing that ran through my head when I saw the title of this thread was how much does a match cost. 
Out of curiosity, let’s say the fire department takes you up on the offer and burns the house down. There’s obviously still some cleanup and haul-away left to do; how much cheaper would that be?
Also out of curiosity: not that the OP’s situation will come to this, but let’s say the building isn’t in a condemnation-worthy state but you want it condemned anyway. Can you help it on its way to condemnation without getting in trouble? Obviously, leaving the balcony door open and waiting will probably work and seems unlikely to land you in trouble. How about, say, ripping out a key load-bearing wall and then pointing out the damage to the city? I’m curious how the city would tend to respond if 1) you pretended you didn’t know who did the damage, 2) you fessed up that you did the damage but claimed it was an accident, or 3) you were just open about the fact that you did the damage, although maybe not about the motivation behind it.
My friend seems to think so.
It just seems strange. I can see how they wouldn’t give you permission to do a demo unless your site plan showed a new construction project, but I have a hard time seeing how they could ever enforce such a thing. I guess they could fine you, but nobody is going to force someone to build a house.
Or a variation if your local community college has a fire academy, give them a ring, we destroyed a couple houses for forcible entry and ventilation training long before we ever got to put real water on real fire 
. One of them we pretty much dismantled with axes, chainsaws, and sledgehammers.
As far as debris in a couple cases bins were provided and we loaded alot of the debris into it at the end of the excercise.
On several of our live fire drills, for the last run, our instructors lit them and made us wait 20 min or so till the whole place was one giant raging inferno after we put it out there wasn’t a whole lot left.
Since the door has been open for so long, you could leave some food around in the house and let it get overrun with vermin.