[aqpgreendragon]

They aren't paying that much for the house. They're paying that much because it's located in a good area. They'll knock it down and built a brand spanking new house and sell that for a profit. This happens every day in hot real estate markets

[Balgair]

Depends on the HOA, if there is one, and the city planner's office. You may not be able to do so at all or the new house may be very expensive, especially in a place like Sunnyvale with 'green' building codes and state earthquake laws. I mean, yeah, that's still chump-change for a $2.5M lot, but those HOAs will get you.

[brianwawok]

The description kind of hinted the lot would be big enough for 2 houses. Would the local lets law you flatten the house, build 1 house to live in on half the land, and say sell the other half of the land for a million bucks to a developer?

[hkmurakami]

You go through a city planning commission to do the sudivison.

[methodover]

Startup idea: Let people pool money to buy larger lots and do exactly this.

[vasilipupkin]

exactly