Consol Energy auctioning homes it bought years ago for mine expansion
Their neighbor bought their house, but Rebecca and Rick Livingood will continue to live in the East Finley Township home Rick built years ago.
Ferris Davis bought back the East Finley Township home on Raspberry Road he sold to Consol Energy a few years ago.
Ferris Davis was born and essentially raised in West Virginia. He was 15 when he, his 10 siblings and their parents moved to East Finley Township, onto a farm of several hundred acres.
Three quarters of a century later, Davis still lives on the property. He purchased a tract from his father decades ago and built a house. Then over the past three years, in a circuitous – and fortuitous – series of circumstances, he sold the property, rented it from the buyer, then bought back his longtime home.
“I was glad to get it back. I didn’t want to move,” Davis, 88, said over the telephone.
He is among a number of Washington County residents who, following the Great Recession, sold their properties to Consol Energy, which planned to expand longwall coal mining in their area. The company’s Enlow Fork Mine runs underneath or near the lots of Davis and his neighbors on Raspberry Road, and properties on Pleasant Grove Road.
Ferris Davis also is among a group who, at auction, are buying back the properties they sold.
Over the past year and a half, Consol shifted its focus to natural gas and backed away from coal, an environmentally unfriendly energy source beset by low prices and low demand. Consequently, the company is auctioning many of the properties it purchased.
Brian Aiello, Consol director of communications, said in an email: “We have an ongoing process to evaluate and auction a portion of the properties we have acquired through many decades operating in the region. As our company transformed and put more emphasis on our natural gas business, owning and managing a large portfolio of properties was no longer core to our business priorities.
“Through this process, we are pleased to be able to provide new housing ownership opportunities in many communities as well as encouraging an influx of private investment in these areas. We will continue to maintain ownership of certain properties that are core to our future operational plans.”
In August, Joe R. Pyle Complete Auction and Realty Service of Shinnston, W.Va., conducted its first monthly auction of Consol-owned properties. “They are absolute auctions, with the highest bidder buying,” said Jared Shinn, director of marketing and operations.
He said two auctions have been held with more than 40 properties sold in the East Finley/Claysville area. A third auction will take place Wednesday beginning at 5 p.m. at Claysville Community Center, and will include online bidding. There will be 24 properties up for bid.
Shinn did not have a total number of Consol properties to be auctioned, but said 20 to 25 have been available for each of the three auctions.
“Nothing else is scheduled, but we’re likely going into 2017,” he added.
Ronald Davis, Ferris’ nephew, said properties are auctioned “sight unseen.” Some are in disrepair, similar to nearby Moon Lorn, the Prosperity home/studio of Malcolm Parcell, a renowned artist who died in 1987. Moon Lorn had two other owners over the next 27 years, before CONSOL purchased the property in 2014.
It now sits abandoned. A neighbor, Steve Leonardi, said vandals started damaging Moon Lorn last winter. Thieves have taken copper, furniture and a stained glass window. Sandy Mansmann, coordindator for the Washington County History & Landmarks Foundation, is leading a move to preserve structures there and get protective designation on the National Register of Historic Places.
The younger Davis lives in West Finley Township, but purchased a Raspberry Road property next to Ferris. He knew it was not in disrepair because someone was living there, and is now the landlord.
Ferris Davis is not the only owner to sell property to Consol, then buy it back. “It’s a fairly significant amount (of people), about one-fourth,” Shinn said.
Buyers must pay cash. “No bank will lend money on this,” said Rebecca Livingood, who with her husband, Rick, lives a few doors up from Ferris Davis.
The Livingoods sold to Consol, then rented from the company until August, when the couple next door, Kathleen and Gaylord “Shorty” Toland, purchased the lot for $40,000. The families are friends and the Livingoods now rent from Kathleen and Shorty, the latter a cousin of Ferris Davis.
Buying your former property can have financial benefits. Consol paid Davis an amount well above the $45,000 he paid to get it back in August. But there are downsides to selling: Consol gets the mineral rights and, as Davis put it: “They said they’re not liable for damages (from mining or vandals).”
Ronald Davis understands the finances, but said his uncle “would have been better off if he kept the house. (Consol) has the mineral rights, can run gas lines on his property, anything they want. Basically, he’s buying the structure and that’s it.”
Consol gave sellers the option of remaining in their homes rent-free for six months, before having to pay rent to the company. Ferris Davis did that.
The company’s offers to buy years ago were hard to pass up, Raspberry Road residents said.
“The reason we sold is they were buying every property. We figured that would bring the values down,” said Rick Livingood, a carpenter who started building his home in 1986. “They were offering above the appraisal value. There was an incentive to sell. We got out of debt.”
Karen Musolino, on the contrary, refused to sell her 60 acres. She has a mobile home in the Chapel Hill neighborhood nearby.
“I have been here 22 years and love it,” she said.
Consol had to pay for damages to Musolino’s property from mining, she said. She also has an oil and gas lease and said Consol was supposed to put up a Marcellus Shale drilling pad more than a year ago, but has not done so yet.
Last week, she was helping her son, Eric Musolino, and grandson, Dustin, 22, prepare to move to Raspberry Road. Eric bought a two-acre property online in August for $27,000, and the two men will be moving there from Washington. Eric said the property has some subsidence issues, pointing out a couple of dips in the ground and saying one side of the house has dropped eight inches.
“It is structurally OK, though,” he said. “Hopefully, the subsidence has stopped.”
Downhill from the Musolinos, Ferris Davis is pleased to again own the house in which he lives. And still a little surprised.
“One day, a couple of months ago, someone took pictures (of the property),” said Davis, adding he has had no problems because of subsidence. “I asked and (Consol) said they were putting it up for sale. So I decided to buy. I’ve been here a good while. It’s a pretty good neighborhood.”