Despite Dartmouth's recent budget cuts, officials in the College Real Estate office still plan to sell a house located at 1 MacDonald Drive in Hanover on the basis of seniority, rather than trying to sell it at the highest possible cost.
Priority will first be given to bidders who have not lived in the Dresden School District -- which includes Hanover and Norwich, Vt. -- during the past year, and the bidder who has worked at Dartmouth longest will receive further priority.
The three-bedroom house's price has been fixed at $285,000. Its value was both assessed and appraised at $196,200.
Paul Olsen, director of real estate at Dartmouth, defended offering the house at a fixed price based on seniority, describing it as an "employee benefit."
"I can imagine, though, that we could find someone to create a higher sale price," he said, "but that would undermine the objective of the entire program."
He said that Dartmouth typically looks to break even in making such sales.
Joe Urbino, an agent at the Century 21 real estate agency in Lebanon, said that the demand for real estate in the Hanover area often allows for Hanover real estate agents to sell houses at more than their appraised value.
Assessments of houses are conducted by local government to determine how much a homeowner will pay in taxes. The sale prices of houses are generally fixed by comparing the house's attributes -- the number of bedrooms and baths, its location -- to those of houses that have sold recently in the same area.
Urbino said that the $285, 000 asking price of the house seemed "average" and reasonable given the assessed value of $196,200, but he felt uncomfortable speculating further without having seen the house himself.
Ned Redpath, owner of Hanover's branch of Coldwell Banker, also defended Dartmouth's practice. "What they're doing is pretty smart," he said.
Redpath said that he has spoken with people who declined to take jobs offered by Dartmouth because they could not afford housing in the area.
Inflation of housing prices has long been a problem in the Hanover area, according to Redpath.
"Inflation is just crazy here," he said.
Redpath did acknowledge, however, that if Dartmouth were to sell houses to employees at fixed prices all throughout the Upper Valley, that this practice might depress and hurt the market.
Urbino also said that the College's practice of selling to an employee based on seniority rather than trying to attract the highest bidder was "fine." However, he hesitated to say whether the price employees were paying was fair without having seen the house himself.
Employees will be able to view the property from 4 to 6 p.m. on Oct. 24. Applications to buy the house will be read starting Oct. 25.
The house has three bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths and a two-car detached garage.
