Investment Opportunity · Watertown

A 7,500 SF Development Lot Off Mt. Auburn St, Priced at Land Value

33 Melendy Ave, Watertown · MLS #73523468 · Offered at $950,000

Let me be direct, because investors do not have time for a sales pitch. This is a location play in one of Watertown’s most convenient pockets. Although the likely buyer is a builder, there are other potential uses. You could gut the existing structure and convert it back to a single-family home, or keep it as a two-family. The zoning and the location are what give you options. I am going to lay out the facts as they sit in the public record, show you what the zoning permits, and then give you real market data on where the finished product lands today. You draw your own conclusions from there.

What are you actually buying at 33 Melendy Ave?

You are buying position. A level, 7,500 square foot lot on a public street off Mt. Auburn Street near the Cambridge line, with public water, public sewer, and gas and electric already on site. The lot sits in Watertown’s residential Two-Family zone.

Here is the detail that matters most, and it comes straight from Mike DelRose Sr., who has worked this market since 1978. In Watertown’s Two-Family zone, lots of 7,500 square feet or greater are not subject to a Floor Area Ratio calculation. Floor Area Ratio, or FAR, is the rule that limits how much total finished floor space you can build relative to the size of the lot. Clear that 7,500 square foot threshold in this zone and the FAR cap comes off entirely. Your buildable envelope is then governed by setbacks, height, and lot coverage rather than a hard ceiling on total square footage, which opens the door to a significantly larger residential building than a smaller lot would allow.

Read the listing signals before you tour it

I want to point you to what the public record says, because experienced investors read a listing the way a mechanic listens to an engine. Three facts sit in the MLS, and together they tell you how to approach this one.

It is listed as land, not as a home. The property type on MLS #73523468 is Land, Residential, even though a two-family structure currently sits on it. That is a deliberate choice by the seller and the listing team, and it signals how the property is meant to trade.

There is no interior access. The showing instructions are explicit. No interior showings, no walking the lot without a logged ShowingTime appointment. Although the likely buyer is a builder, there are other potential uses, and each one carries a different assumption about the existing structure. We are not making a representation about the interior condition, because no one is being given the chance to inspect it. For most underwriting scenarios, the conservative approach is to value the transaction on the land and the buildable envelope, and to treat the structure as upside you verify rather than value you assume.

It is priced like land. The 2025 assessed value is $872,700. The list price is $950,000, reduced from an original $1,000,000. When an asking price sits close to assessed value and the property is marketed as a development site with no interior access, the market is telling you the improvements are not carrying weight in the price. The location is the asset.

Location: why this lot leases and sells

Development math only works if the finished product moves. This location moves. The lot sits off Mt. Auburn Street near the Cambridge line, one tenth of a mile from restaurants, shops, and the bus that runs to Harvard Square in one direction and Watertown Square in the other. Arsenal Yards, the Watertown Mall, and Hosmer Elementary are all close, and you get easy access to the Mass Pike via Storrow Drive.

For a builder, that is the profile you want. Transit access one tenth of a mile away for renters and buyers who commute to Cambridge and Boston. Retail and dining at the end of the block. This is not a lot you have to explain to the market. The location sells the finished product for you.

The exit: what does the finished product command in Watertown?

Here is where the opportunity gets concrete. Whatever you build, you are ultimately selling or leasing into Watertown’s townhome and rental market. Below is where that market sits right now, drawn from a 90-day MLSPIN pull as of July 2026. This is the number that should drive your underwriting, not the land price.

New townhomes in Watertown are trading at a $1,299,000 median, or $585 per square foot. That is the exit you are building toward. Two new townhome-style units on a no-FAR lot in this location fit squarely inside the buyer demand Watertown is producing right now, and at $585 per square foot, the no-FAR envelope is not an abstract zoning perk. It is additional sellable square footage at a known market rate.

What about a rental hold?

If your model is build-and-hold rather than build-and-sell, the rental side of Watertown supports it. Current asking rents by bedroom count, per the same MLSPIN pull, look like this.

Read those numbers with one important caveat. These medians reflect the general Watertown rental pool, which is dominated by average units in older structures, many of them likely half the size of what you would build here. A new, larger, higher-finish unit on this lot should command a meaningful premium to these figures rather than sit at the median. Treat the table as a demand floor, not a rent projection. What it establishes is depth of demand at every bedroom count, not the rent your specific units would achieve.

With that caveat in place, the direction still favors you. More bedrooms built on the same lot means more gross rent against the same land basis, and the three-bedroom band alone, at a $3,400 median across 61 active listings, shows how deep the demand runs for the kind of unit this lot can produce. Model your own rents off comparable new construction, not off this pool, and confirm them before you commit.

The terms you need to know before you offer

• License to Sell from Probate Court. The sale is subject to court approval. Build the probate timeline into your expectations and your financing. This is routine for estate-held property, but it is not a same-week close.
• Closing timeline. The seller requires a 90-day closing from acceptance and reserves the right to close earlier with 14 days’ written notice.
• No interior access. Because no one gets to inspect the interior, do not build a business plan around reusing the existing structure sight unseen. New construction, a gut conversion back to single-family, or a two-family hold are all on the table, but each depends on verification you cannot complete until after you own it.
• Do your own diligence. Confirm zoning, setbacks, lot coverage, and buildable envelope directly with the Watertown building and zoning departments before you commit. Nothing here substitutes for that verification.

Is this the right lot for you?

If you are a builder or investor who wants a transit-served Watertown lot one tenth of a mile from Coolidge Square, with a buildable envelope most parcels in this zone cannot offer, and you are comfortable underwriting land value with a probate timeline, 33 Melendy Ave deserves a serious look. If you are looking for a turnkey rental or a light renovation, this is not your property, and I will tell you that plainly.

I have watched our family sell and develop in these neighborhoods for three generations. The lots that build wealth are the ones where the zoning does the heavy lifting and the location sells the finished product. This one has both. What it needs is the right buyer with a plan.

Listing: 33 Melendy Ave, Watertown, MA 02472. MLS #73523468. Offered at $950,000. Listing Agent: DelRose McShane Team, Mike DelRose Sr. Property sold as-is, subject to License to Sell from Probate Court. No interior access. Buyer to verify all zoning, dimensional, and development information independently with the Town of Watertown. Market data sourced from MLSPIN, 90-day pull as of July 2026. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or development advice.