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Shouting out to snoodog, goobster, kleinbl00, mk, thenewgreen, lm, lil, and any other proud member of the Hubski Homeowners Association LLC.
Also shouting out to Dala because marriage is about communication and all of that new-age, hippy bullshit. Love you, baby.
Tomorrow Dala and I will be going to look at a house. It’s the first house we’ve decided to look at in a while and the only reason we’re going to look at this one in particular is because on paper, it looks like a very good deal. It’s a small house in a relatively safe part of the city, with a driveway big enough to fit both our cars, a backyard that can easily be fenced in for the dog, and for what it is, it’s very affordable. I’m not comfortable talking numbers, but let’s just say financially speaking, our ability to pay it off is a very safe bet. Now, we’re not getting our hopes up too much, because we’ve been house hunting for about three or four or five years now and let’s just say this isn’t an easy thing to do. This one though, has me hopeful.
So on to the neighborhood. Ignoring the fact that the road the house is on is basically an alley with a name on it, it’s a “pretty nice neighborhood.” About a quarter of the houses on it, including the one we’re looking at, look very well maintained. The lawns are mowed, the hedges are trimmed, the windows are clean, the paint looks less than ten years old. They’re cute, little things. Half of the houses aren’t in too bad of a shape. The lawns are a bit neglected, the hedges could have been trimmed sometime during Obama’s first term, maybe the owners could do without a full set of patio furniture on the front lawn, but hey, no one is perfect. The last quarter of the houses though, have given us pause. It would probably be a safe bet to say that these particular houses have more contents on their lawns than inside the houses themselves, not to mention the state of the lawns themselves. Which, I mean, it’s their property and if they’re good neighbors it probably doesn’t matter. What’s more, if we were out in the country, we wouldn’t give these kinds of places a second thought. That’s what I kept thinking to myself until I saw that the house diagonally across the street from ours has to late ‘90s, early 2000s waverunners, sitting right next to the curb, decrepit and bleached from years of neglect as they lay out in the sun. Then all of the sudden, the neighborhood suddenly felt very rough to me, and Dala got the same vibes.
Here’s the thing. When Dala first met me, I was living in a rough neighborhood and I got by just fine. Yeah, you had to keep the doors locked all of the time. Yeah, if you were having a party you had to actually go through the house from time to time to see that the people that were there were ones you actually knew, because your neighbors would seem to think that any party you threw was just open to the public. Yeah, the guy straight across from me was a really rough character and on paper there’s a good chance you’d write him off completely, but once you got to know him you saw that he was actually pretty cool. I mean, hell, he once shoveled my driveway when we had a snowstorm because I didn’t get home from work until well after the sun had gone down and he always kept an eye out to make sure no one was skulking around our yard. All in all though, it was fine.
When Dala and I got our first apartment together, once again, very similar kind of neighborhood. I think the cops were in the area on a weekly basis to deal with arguing spouses, loud music, break-ins, etc. Hell, one time we got a free truck show as the neighbors across the way would line the fronts of their trucks up bumper to bumper and then throttle to see which truck would get shoved back. We never thought anything of it. It was fine.
Our second apartment together? Once again, similar kind of neighborhood, this time in the city. This place though, we weren’t fine with. The apartment itself was okay, probably a little overpriced for what it is. The neighbor across the hall was a cool guy, old, had some cats, a few problems with being flighty and that could have been the old age or it could have been the painkillers but we weren’t gonna fault him for either. We’d trade dinners a few times. Some stories. He once called me one time when we moved out to show me his new Buick. The neighbors underneath though? Bad drug problem. I don’t want to disparage them, because I know things are hard, but when your lady is alternating between crying, laughing, and screaming her head off for hours on end, sometimes multiple nights in a row, it suddenly makes your place very scary and feel very unsafe. We never completely moved into that place, keeping most of our books, electronics, and valuables in storage. Once the lease was up, we noped the fuck out of there. I think though, if it wasn’t for them, things would have been different.
Where we live now is great. It’s a suburb with small town feel, large backyard for the dog, plenty of space for car parking, zero complaints about noise or crime or neighborly shenanigans. We’re suffocating here though, due to not being able to have a place that’s ours, where we can have all of our furniture out, all of our books out, can take naps at 2 o’clock in the afternoon without being woken up by the roommates. We wouldn’t mind a neighborhood like this of our own, but if we’re being honest, we could never afford it, even if we lucked out and stretched our budget.
So back to this neighborhood. We’ve been down this road before and have been fine. The majority of my friends live in neighborhoods like this and they’ve been fine. Half the houses we’ve seen aren’t in great neighborhoods, but they’re not much worse than this one, and we’ve left them open to consideration. Once again, if this was out in the country and this was our neighbor, we wouldn’t think twice about this. In fact, I’ve brought up these houses with a few coworkers and family members and they seem to think it’s a perfectly normal thing for people to do. So what is it, about junk in the yard and years of neglect, that makes what is most likely a perfectly good neighborhood feel unsettling? Are we worrying over something real or are we worrying over something imagined?
The waverunners are their son's. He's off at college, and about to graduate. So yeah, they have been sitting for a while. But he's going to be moving to (insert coastal city here) when he graduates, and going to take them back. Now how do you feel about the street? See, waverunners and things like that don't bother me, because they are transient. House sells? Boom. Gone. But the STREET itself? You said it was basically a glorified alley with a street sign at the end. That tells me that this may not be a city-maintained street, and that you and the neighbors may need to pony up the $5k/house to repave it... every once in a while. When was it last repaved? Who paid for it? Did Mr. and Mrs. Waverunner pitch in? Did they own the house when the last repaving was done? (This will tell you far more about their financial position. Any homeowner with a modicum of sense can get a loan for $5k. But if they own a house on the street and can't pitch in their part to repave... they are the Problem House.) Bigger Picture I'm with KB on the "Don't Buy Now" bandwagon. Trump is a fucking disaster. He's mercurial. Capricious. Undisciplined. And doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself. The US economy does not like uncertainty, and reacts poorly to anyone that rocks the boat too much. Institutional investors are holding their breath to see how bad it gets with Trump, but it's pretty clear at this point that things are not going to get better, economy-wise. (Today he started - kind of - a trade war with Canada over the lumber that is primarily used to build houses in the US. What happens to home building/renovations when the prices of lumber go up 20%? Right. Lots of construction workers out of work. And plumbers. And kitchen installers. And... shock to the housing market, which is already teetering at the high end.) If I could find a groovy downtown condo for a great price, I'd buy it now, and live in it for 5 years, and save every single penny I could. Then, after Trump has failed himself out of office and the market tanks, take that nice little nest egg you have built up, and go buy a house. And rent out/AirBnB the condo. BAM. Now you are paying your mortgage with your rental income, and you own TWO properties as the market recovers in a post-Brexit, post-Trump era of sober realism and a return to focusing on the fundamentals. My $0.02...
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I will only point out that the "buy one to live in, buy three to rent out to greater fools" method of home finance did not work out that great for a whole bunch of people. I know a lady who is underwater on five different houses. She made $50k a year at the time of their purchase.
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I have the opposite experience. I know several people with a house and a rental property (condo, usually), and they are all doing very well. I would hypothesize that someone making $50k/year who buys 5 houses has a predatory lender and bad judgement, as well as a bad business plan...
That's a really good point about the public/private road. We'll have to ask the real estate agent about that, both for this specific house, and the concept in general. As in, does that mean we have to pay to get it plowed? How does it affect home values? Etc. Etc. What makes me think it's not the case for this one, is that this city has quite a few private roads, but there's always a sign saying as much and more often than not, they're in newer subdivisions or cul-de-sacs. This is a pretty old neighborhood, so I can't imagine it being private.
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I may be wrong, but "Private Road" is a specific classification of a street, that absolves the city/county from any maintenance responsibilities. Plowing, filling potholes, repaving, plumbing the street with gas, repairing common drainage, etc.
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I talked to the real estate agent yesterday. Apparently for our city, there's some kind of trust that residents on private roads join to put money in for maintenance. Sounds reasonable. Also sounds like something I don't want to do. So thanks for pointing out that this is a thing!
Im not super sure what you are asking but here is my perspective on home ownership: If you are buying into a house realize that #1 is not really an investment and you will probably end up paying significantly more than your monthly payment to get it the way you like. Between gardening, repairs and upgrades its easy to get carried away. Real estate is regional. Whats happening in Seattle and LA isnt the same as whats happening in other places, you got to evaluate your local market. First understand where you are locally relative to historic norms, have house prices in your area skyrocked or stayed level. That will help you understand what your risk is. If you are up 100% over the last 5 years your risk is high, if the market hasn’t moved more than 10-15% its probably lower risk. Understand your local government and zoning plan. Is your city running a huge deficit? Are they burning money like no tomorrow on services of dubious value(Seattle)? Are they planning to build any large structures or change zoning near you? Most cities have 5-25 year plans and they are available online or from city hall. How is the tax policy? Is it so bad that everyone is moving one city over to avoid it? Understand your own risks: How is your job? What happens if you lost it? Can you rent the house if you move? You take a 8-10% hit every time you move can you afford that? Do you live in a recourse or non recourse state (this has huge implications on your risk profile)? One of the things that the guys at "Strong Towns" recommend is buying into a town/area that has existed before WW2. City planning was a lot better back then and sprawl wasn’t a huge problem. Areas of that era are significantly more walk able, and there is less infrastructure cost per person due to smart planning, unfortunately its hard to find areas like that with good schools so that might not be an option for you. If you are actually crazy enough to buy into a house as an investment then you might as well just go all in. Basically a 10% market move against you will wipe you out even at 20% down payment so make sure you live in an non-recourse state and put in as little money as possible for down payment buy into a hot market and pray. A hot market will crash eventually so you just gotta be quick to sell when things turn and gain at least 10% to break even, but you could potentially gain huge amounts on your 3% investment. We live in a Non HOA area there are good things and bad things with that. The good thing is that I can keep bees, chickens, do maintenance on my car, skip a week mowing my lawn, paint my house a color I like and not pay any monthly fees. The downside is that I have a neighbor down the block that never mows her lawn and parks her Audi on the lawn. I have another neighbor that has a near abandoned van parked in the driveway stuffed with garbage, and our next door neighbor had a blackberry bush the size of a small shed growing right next to our fence. In my view the freedom to not pay fees and be left alone is worth it. The really egregious things the city will fine you for and if I really wanted to piss off my neighbors I could report them to the city for illegally parking on the lawn/abandoned vehicles. None of those things really make the neighborhood feel unsafe though. The unsafe feeling that we do get is from any abandoned/empty houses and any areas where loitering is happening. There is a house a mile or so from us that is vacant awaiting demolition and crack heads end up squatting there. That feels unsafe and any areas where people loiter like the 7-11 where hobos hang out or the Fed-Myers near subsidized housing. Walk the neighborhood at night/dusk a few times and you will get a get a good idea of how safe or not it is.
So really, you're asking why CC&Rs exist? You've got a long preamble on shit you've put up with in your life but it exists to defend and excuse this passage: It's an excusable passage. Personal watercraft owners can be stereotyped. Many CC&Rs (and some more restrictive municipal codes) require boats to be covered, or under carports, or not even on the property. Shit, many CC&Rs give you three choices of paint color and fine you if your grass is more than 3" long. It all depends on what you want. And what do you want? Ask yourself this: if the house catty-corner had a '64 Beetle on blocks, how would you feel? It's got about the same value. It's got a similar community. But it's a car, not a pair of jetskis. My neighbor across the street has a blue '68. He's a great guy. In his 60s. I got to know him when his hip replacement fell out of its socket last month. Neighbors I share a lawn with? One of 'em is from Bhutan. She's got a grown son in his 40s with Down's Syndrome. He likes to sing off-key. Her yard is immaculate. Other neighbor? Their driveway looks nicer than mine and they got new cars. There are also seven of them living in 1100sqft. Last week my daughter told me that when she smoked, she'd only do it outside like my neighbor. And from the front, you can't tell that they've got a blue tarp keeping the rain off the side where the siding has fallen off. Jetskis? Those are my brother-in-law's. He owns four. No idea why - he can only ride one at a time but he gets great deals on them because as you may have noticed, the depreciation curve on jetskis is precipitously steep. I'll say this: he's got a stove that cost more than my wife's Honda because he's a contractor for rich people... and he's one of the nicest people I know. Especially if you want to surf off Camp Pendleton because the minute you set foot on the shore the MPs will arrest you but if you've got a decent jet ski? You can surf up to about 20 feet and have some of the nicest, most deserted surfing in Southern California. EDITED TO ADD: and I sure as shit wouldn't buy a house in this market unless I absolutely had to. You started looking right about the time pricing disconnected from fundamentals. You are now looking at a time when panic has set in. The more home improvement shows there are on TV, the less motivated you should be to buy a house.That’s what I kept thinking to myself until I saw that the house diagonally across the street from ours has to late ‘90s, early 2000s waverunners, sitting right next to the curb, decrepit and bleached from years of neglect as they lay out in the sun. Then all of the sudden, the neighborhood suddenly felt very rough to me, and Dala got the same vibes.
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So I think what you and goobster are saying is that Dala and I are harboring unwarranted, preconceived ideas about Waverunners. We just got home from driving through the neighborhood again and getting some dinner afterwards. Now that I know that yard is there, and expect it, it really does seem like a nice neighborhood again. I wouldn't mind living there. I am a bit concerned about this market, especially because I'm getting some weird vibes in the job market between talking to people, job hunting, and seeing places close shop both with and without warning. That said, if this house is in good shape it is a really good deal. We're not getting our hopes too high though, because every time we see a "really good deal" and check out the house, we see a house with a "really big, fucking NOPE." We've slowed our search down to a crawl though, partially because of some of the warning signs we're seeing. Our current living situation is getting pretty cramped though and it might be hard to ride out for much longer. (I ran that last sentence by Dala to make sure she was okay with me posting it. I don't want to disparage our roommates, we love them to death, but sometimes that love can be stretched pretty thin.) Edit: Also, in all honesty, if I saw a Beetle on blocks in a neighborhood, I'd see that as a plus. One of the houses does have what looks to be an Old Cutlass with fresh paint . . . sooo . . .
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I'm saying you are harboring warranted, preconceived ideas about Waverunners but that your ideas may reflect your bias, rather than an actual indicator. I'm also saying that you are not alone in your bias. Separate your current living situation from the financial burdens of homeownership. Do not confuse a comfort decision with a capital investment. Sure - it will suck to pay an extra $500 to not have roommates when you could be putting that towards a mortgage. But if your home value drops $20k in a year you came out $14k ahead. And talk to blackbootz. He seems to have scored a major coup through the judicious application of government largesse. If you can buy a house without participating in the housing market, you win.
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blackbootz · 421 days ago · link ·
rd95 If you make less than $32k a year and want to be my neighbor in Baltimore, there is an opportunity of a lifetime in the form of a subsidy. Those might be too specific a set of hoops for your liking (urban life, an income qualification, an owner-occupancy requirement as part of the subsidy, etc. etc.). There were two addresses as part of the program I applied for. The second one is still waiting for its future hubby and wife.
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WanderingEng · 423 days ago · link ·
Can you elaborate on this? I've been looking at buying, selling my condo in favor of a house. Prices seem fairly reasonable.and I sure as shit wouldn't buy a house in this market unless I absolutely had to
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francopoli · 422 days ago · link ·
The market is going to slow down as interest rates climb. As rates climb the people with adjustable rate mortgages that were borderline able to buy will have to either sell.... NOW or get foreclosed on. This is about where we were right before things got exciting in 2007. If you are in a good place, like the area, and don't need to move? Save like a mother fucker, know the value of the areas you want to live in, and start to look for deals at the end of the year. I'm just some dude, not a prophet, not a financial advisor so take that for what it is worth.
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See, and I don't even think the interest rates will matter that much. Sure - rates go up, prices will go down as financing becomes more dear but it won't change the transactional nature of home sales. I think credit got way too goddamn easy again. Go google "subprime loans" or, for true fun'n'games, "subprime car loans" or "student loan debt" and tell me how we're going to walk this one back gently, no interest rate shenanigans necessary.
If you've got something to sell, sell. I can't say we're at the tippity top of the market but things are starting to look pretty bubbly. Redfin recently reported that days-on-market is eight days shorter this year than last year and in the markets I watch, prices have long since detached from reality. Wanna see the hottest-shit neighborhood in LA? Here you go. Median income? $42k a year. 58% renters. 8.4% with a college degree. Wikipedia used to say 80% of the 85% latino population was Mexican nationals but they don't anymore. Nonetheless, home values are increasing 8% per year and the median home price? $563k. I happen to know this weapons-grade shithole rather well as I have to live there 3-6 months out of the year. And yes - there are now well-heeled hipsters moving into the barrio responsible for LA's draconian anti-gang laws. Do the math. You're supposed to spend no more than 28% of your income on mortgage payments. That's a $980/mo mortgage payment. If you're buying the median home with the median income and making the suggested payment, you put over $350k down - over 60% of the value of the home. How likely do you think that is? How much more likely is it that there's loose cash buying up properties because there isn't anything else making money? And what happens when people would rather put up with roommates than pay more than a half million dollars for this shithole?
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WanderingEng · 421 days ago · link ·
Meanwhile, here's what $550k gets you here. But this is more my thought. You make a lot of good points. I like to think that it's saner around here, but I'm not sure we're immune to booms and busts. What will it take for west coast bubbles to permanently pop?
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Man I love Wisconsin. If I could have made that work... Dunno how you and the missus feel about kids but my suggestion is that 1000sqft is gonna be fine for the two of you and as soon as you invoke a little one it's gonna feel tight. We did 1100sqft with the two of us and hobbies and it was tight. Then we did 1300sqft with the three of us and hobbies and it was tight. INB4 some tinyhouse choad starts talking about minimalism. SoCal is gonna pop like a goddamn champagne cork as soon as the water's all gone. Everywhere else with a tech/med/finance community? It all comes down to the fact that companies are no longer required to make money to be worth something. The entire South Lake Union area of Seattle is testament to the fact that people go orgasmic when Amazon makes $500m profit on $32b in sales. GM earned $1.34 a share last quarter. Their shares cost $35. Amazon will probably earn a buck this quarter (they announce tomorrow). Their shares cost $909 right now.
francopoli · 422 days ago · link ·
Jesus. You mean to tell me that people are so desperate for housing they are considering CYPRUS FUCKING PARK?
blackbootz · 422 days ago · link ·
Bubbles pop? Holy shit you know it's one hell of a shithole when they won't even post pictures of the indoors.And what happens when people would rather put up with roommates than pay more than a half million dollars for this shithole?
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Dude. They didn't even line the shots up with the horizon. It's like the Blair Witch Listing - run by with your camera phone, plaster it in burst mode and post the five least offensive shots you catch. When this blog starts to look familiar, we're nearing the end. Keep your eye out for pergraniteel.
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