Recently refurbished UK KH recently refurbished up for sale, tentative 500,000 pounds!https://uk.news.yahoo.com/former-jehovahs-witness-hall-conversion-040000931.html
Recently UK KH Up For Sale
by blondie 6 Replies latest jw friends
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Phizzy
Thanks Blondie !
I love to hear this kind of news, the org. is contracting, and has been for a good few years. This K.H has been out of use since 2021 ! And Hereford is not a small place, no doubt other K.H's are available for J.W's to use, and have been since 2021, but I bet the former users have to travel further !
Of course the Org. did not hurry to sell this place by making it in to something with Apartments that people actually want to live in, and they would have car parking. No, the Org. was and is still hanging out for the maximum price.
The silly thing is the Council suggested 3 x 3 bed. Apartments, these sell for £200,000 or more in Hereford.
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blondie
Thank you, Phizzy. I get news items every day from Google News sometimes post one on jwn. I have my filter set to bring up articles with references about jehovah's witnesses. There is a KH near us with 4 congregations in it. Have to schedule 2 public talks/WT studies on Sunday and 2 on Saturday, and 4 weekly meetings Monday through Friday. Sold 3 KHs doing that, but then the money went to headquarters. Not like the days when KHs were built for 250 seating in our area (pre 1975). They have had to take up chairs from the back rows so the KH doesn't look so empty. Yes, they have to drive farther, but this is a city over 200,000 people. But some of those in the rural areas, have to drive 30 to 40 miles one way to get to a meeting. And now even the "book study" is combined with 3 meetings being back to back at the "mid-week" meeting. Property prices have gone up a lot during and post covid. It is almost impossible for people to find "starter" homes under $400,000. We bought our house 17 years ago, and we could sell it for $550,000 twice the cost we paid for it. My husband said if someone had said to us that we would be owning a house more that half a million dollars he would said they were crazy. Our mortgage is only half what people pay for a 2 bedroom apartment! I notice that regional conventions are being held at the nearby assembly hall, every weekend during May through September.
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Phizzy
I wonder if the Org's property scam is somewhat coming to an end ? have they almost run out of K.H's to sell ? Or will they sell a few more, and schedule Meetings for even more times in a day ? Holding Evening Meetings on a Sunday for some ?
How popular would THAT be ! LOL
But they could cram yet another congregation in to some far distant K.H.
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blondie
Possible, Phizzy. Even years ago in NYC, property was too expensive to build KHs, so the WTS assigned 6 congregations to one building with 3 floors that meant meetings spread all during the week, mornings, afternoons, evenings.
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Anony Mous
There are no new buildings nearby? The scam is to keep buying new property with donations, get volunteer labor to fix it or build it, then sell it and pocket the money. They do this after about 20 years when the properties have appreciated in value and enough members have naturally rotated out so they don’t notice and complain.
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blondie
Anony Mous, very little new building new KHs, focus on selling properties that were bought for pennies in comparison in the past, and now is prime real estate. Instead sell building/property and have congregations share buildings (in my area up to as many as 4). Or even, consolidate though the congregations sold out from under, have to travel far to an existing KH. The focus today is building large, large projects. Yes, there are a few KHs being built but the big push of the past has slowed down considerably. Haven't used volunteers much except jws skilled in the trades even if they have to come from farther away. The WTS has learned that holy spirit does make an unskilled jw a good carpenter or electrician. Even now the WTS does not rely on volunteers very much, but hires out construction to non-jw businesses, who do have the skills, for big projects.