Is capping house prices a good idea? Yay or nay (or other)? Like from a seller's perspective it's in their best interest to sell it for more than they bought the house for, but almost every place I know of housing prices go up and up often much faster than the average income of that community
meaning it could cheat people of lower income out of being able to afford even a small house and just make the housing market mostly a privilege for the wealthy, which would make capping seem like a good idea (maybe?). I know jack gak about economics, despite taking an introductory
course in economics ages ago in university (which probably confused me more than it helped) so my opinion on this issue is pretty much useless. But hopefully there's some brighter dakkasses who can give this topic a little bit of depth and maybe make this thread somewhat educational.
Instead, we need to be heavily taxing ‘Buy To Let’ cretins. They’re the ones inflating it, because there’s no downside. Whatever the mortgage, Jack the rent up.
Buy to let and holiday homes and second homes (often holiday homes but not always) are what helps push the prices up. It varies area to area; touristy areas push prices up with holiday rentals; whilst denser urban areas you get a lot more rental properties and big rental groups that buy up whatever they can to put another house into renting.
The other factor is that any sort of cap or tax needs to be variable. It cannot be a single figure nation wide because there is huge variety in local economics and that's before one considers outside pressures. For example people moving out of London to a more rural area can push prices up significantly because the sale of even a modest property in London comes with a huge price tag. The rural areas have earnings far lower and thus often as not locals soon get priced out of their own area by migration.
At the same time work and living mobility is something we have made important so being able to move to new areas for work is also something we can't cripple.
Basically this issue gets complicated very quickly if you are trying to be fair to all parties. From those wanting to let a room to help cover the mortgage; to those wanting to sell for a good price ot let them move to retire or follow new work; through to those who want to live in a specific area that they grew up in etc... I would even say that whilst buy to let puts prices up it at least retains the housing for rental; second homes and holiday homes are far more damaging because they take properties out of the housing market (but they are also providing income for the tourist market which is very important in some regions).
The other factor is that any sort of cap or tax needs to be variable. It cannot be a single figure nation wide because there is huge variety in local economics and that's before one considers outside pressures. For example people moving out of London to a more rural area can push prices up significantly because the sale of even a modest property in London comes with a huge price tag. The rural areas have earnings far lower and thus often as not locals soon get priced out of their own area by migration.
It's also prone for abuse and loopholes.
For a good while, people used to jump over selling price-restricted apartments ("protected" was the legal term) by bundling the apartment with a storage unit or parking spot (which weren't restricted) at inflated prices. You would also see cash-heavy operations reporting a lower price (and thus pricing out legit mortgage buyers).
Not to mention that on desirable areas run-down units would sell at the same price as nicely kept and maintained ones.
Free housing for everyone. That's how it used to be in the Soviet Union. And for all their flaws, that was definitely one of the good ideas the Soviets had.
I think that would be a good idea still.
But given current political climates, such a thing is unlikely to pass.
Next best thing I suppose is to shut down real estate speculators, landlords and their ilk. Forbid the buying of a house for the purpose of reselling or renting it out. It should only be allowed to buy a house if you actually plan on living there.
That'll explain why a lot of London is getting bought up by Russian businessmen.
Generally though, caps would be based on the area, and buying outside that area messes this system up.
Sell the house for the capped price, on the condition they pay $100k for the carpets.
The better solution is to provide sufficient affordable housing, either to buy or government owned, so that people aren't forced to rent for a fortune and fuel the buy-to-lets and speculators.
Herzlos thing is that right now renting is often more attractive than buying in some areas. We don't have the job security that was around years ago. In fact the job market is oversaturated with workers in many sectors. As a result rental is sometimes far more attractive because it leaves the person the option of moving to a new location to secure work in the area they are trained and experienced in.
So affordable housing won't get around that; in fact the cure to the rental market pressure is stronger job security since that encourages people to put down roots in an area.
As for better affordable housing; that is hard in a small country with a rapidly expanding population; not to mention that there's increase marital break up which increases housing pressure and immigration.
Honestly the "cure" is to stabilize or reduce the national population
I'm not convinced - I don't think many people travel about so much for work that they can't buy a house somewhere vaguely suitable and just put up with a long commute for a while.
I mean, lots of people travel up to about an hour each way. With careful selection that should let you cover 3+ largish cities in the area which should be plenty.
For people likely to move further afield you're right; buying is an extra burden.
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simonr1978 wrote: Available council housing is practically none-existent though.
Which is the crux of the problem. 14+ year waiting lists up here, and builders getting barely a rap on the knuckles for forgetting to build affordable housing in new build estates.
jouso wrote: Not to mention that on desirable areas run-down units would sell at the same price as nicely kept and maintained ones.
This is a good example of the kind of thing that makes a fixed cap a bad idea. You end up with unanticipated side effects and perverse incentives, like making cutting maintenance expenses being the only acceptable way to make a profit (and who cares anyway, if the market says the price is $500k and you cap it at $300k every house will sell at $300k even in poor condition). The better way to fix the issue is to do three things:
1) Increase new construction, preferably high-density housing if land is an issue. Much of the housing problem is areas where there simply aren't enough houses to meet demand, so price keeps going up. Flood the market with new construction and prices go down.
2) Heavily tax rental properties. If you make buying a house just to put it back on the market as a rental property a poor investment then those properties are available to buy for legitimate residents. The trick is crafting the tax such that it hits the speculators buying at inflated prices and not apartment complexes or rental companies willing to rent at reasonable rates.
3) Find a way to shift demand geographically. If all the jobs are in one place with too little housing then try to get companies to move elsewhere, or let people work remotely, etc. Decentralize the jobs and you avoid creating centers of demand where available space to put houses is not adequate.
simonr1978 wrote: Available council housing is practically none-existent though.
That's an important part of the problem.
The solution is to allow and encourage councils to build more social housing and not sell it off. (Thatcher made the councils sell their houses to tenants at below market prices.)
Cheesecat wrote: Is capping house prices a good idea? Yay or nay (or other)? Like from a seller's perspective it's in their best interest to sell it for more than they bought the house for, but almost every place I know of housing prices go up and up often much faster than the average income of that community
meaning it could cheat people of lower income out of being able to afford even a small house and just make the housing market mostly a privilege for the wealthy, which would make capping seem like a good idea (maybe?). I know jack gak about economics, despite taking an introductory
course in economics ages ago in university (which probably confused me more than it helped) so my opinion on this issue is pretty much useless. But hopefully there's some brighter dakkasses who can give this topic a little bit of depth and maybe make this thread somewhat educational.
You'll remember that 'X' supply and demand graph from economics.
Prices rise and fall with demand's proportion to supply.
The price of a home in relation to a households income has risen dramatically, despite our ability to produce them cheaper and to a higher standard (3d printing with concrete and other alternate build methods),
Therefore, the supply is artificially reduced- a ton of factors that limit the availability of land and the type of home on offer.
In addition, demand is artificially increased by the government paying for and subsidizing social housing. Allowing non-citizens to avail of this housing compounds this folly by introducing new demand
If you want to go the statist, authoritarian solution, you will need to: Ban foreign companies and persons from purchasing land in your country. They may rent .
Restrict purchases of second homes, though taxation or law.
Enforce the sale of 'idle property' - if you buy land and do not develop it, the state may force you to sell it someone who will.
Deport non citizens who receive welfare or who commit crimes.
You will ideally be incentivising development at the same time- good luck.
If you want the solution based on personal freedom, you: Remove legislative barriers to domestic property ownership.
Remove/reduce legislation that mandates specific standards or materials for construction
Remove all taxation involved with domestic property, from the builders (incentivising construction) to the home owners, (incentivising purchase)
End welfare programs that subsidize or pay for domestic property
Sell state owned lands to citizens for domestic development.
The above is politically untenable- unions and lobbies would cry murder if any Joe Soap could build a house to his own spec. Pictures of crying children would emerge when you try and effectively bend the welfare state. Crying politicians would complain about the tax shortfall- without tax money, how do they bribe voters?
The best way to go about this would be to identify the biggest artificial modifier to demand or supply (which will vary from country to country), and remove it . The positive effect will be noticed and you gain political support for the rest of the reforms.
I think you have to let the market sort it out. What are you going to do if several people want the same house? You let them bid for it. Its not the sellers fault. Eventually prices get ahead of things and then you have a rollback, but I would always prefer the market take care of things as opposed to some suits in the government.
Besides, in the US, there is tax revenue from property taxes. Limiting the value of properties would also mean less money for the politicians to collect and spend. So I can't see them signing up en mass to do that.
However, there is a lot of market activity within real estate wherein the sole purpose is to drive up price. Speculation and manipulation are not conducive to allowing traditional market forces to find a natural equilibrium wherein demand for housing is matched to actual supply, in fact, they are expressely intended to distort it.
Some level of this will always occur, and some level of it is fine (such as in restoring blighted property). However, when it leads to undersupply for housing *as housing* (as opposed to investment vehicle, buying up a block of apartments, evicting all the tennants and putting a new coat of paint in and rerenting them at 50% more is not healthy for the market in the long term), then there is a very strong case for intervention in the form of purchasing restrictions and increased taxation on real estate (particularly on multiple properties) and incentives around consteucting new and explicitly affordable housing.
I very much like the idea of putting much heavier taxes on multiple properties rather than a cap on house prices although I am almost certain that anyone who buys to rent out will simply increase the rent accordingly thus simply exacerbatong the problem. That's not counting actual housing corporations who a) will never let that happen to themselves, and/or b) will find some loophole that lets them get those taxes back making them basically the only ones who can afford to buy to let.
So maybe a better solution is a cap on rent prices? Possibly in combination with a scaling increased tax for multiple properties. If you can only get X amount from renting out a property, there's an upper limit to how much you can practically afford to pay for that property before it becomes untenable. With a scaling extra property tax, it becomes even more untenable to become a slumlord. I think.
What needs to happen is clamping down on vacation rentals that are purchased for the sole purpose of renting them out. New legislation isn't necessarily needed either, since many of these businesses are less than legal in how they operate. You just need to put some effort into tracking them down and catching them.
If you're going to have any new legislation, something like this could possibly work.
Anybody who owns more than X number of living spaces who doesn't have long term tenants could get taxed some exorbitant fee for as long as they continue to have short term rental contracts. Possibly also cap the number of "Air BnB" type businesses allowed within a given area. Really something like this can only be fixed on the local level since what can and can't be sustained varies from region to region, so national legislation won't be effective.
Instead, we need to be heavily taxing ‘Buy To Let’ cretins. They’re the ones inflating it, because there’s no downside. Whatever the mortgage, Jack the rent up.
Grey Templar wrote: What needs to happen is clamping down on vacation rentals that are purchased for the sole purpose of renting them out. New legislation isn't necessarily needed either, since many of these businesses are less than legal in how they operate. You just need to put some effort into tracking them down and catching them.
If you're going to have any new legislation, something like this could possibly work.
Anybody who owns more than X number of living spaces who doesn't have long term tenants could get taxed some exorbitant fee for as long as they continue to have short term rental contracts. Possibly also cap the number of "Air BnB" type businesses allowed within a given area. Really something like this can only be fixed on the local level since what can and can't be sustained varies from region to region, so national legislation won't be effective.
You guys have it backwards, it's not the rental property owners driving up prices it's the higher prices incentivizing people to invest in rental real estate. If you just buy rental properties and jack up rents above market value you won't get renters, you need a market that values housing high enough that you are likely to have a ready supply of renters willing to pay a rent that allows you to make a profit from your investment. If housing is expensive in your city then the rental properties people are renting were also expensive to buy which means even with high rents there isn't much profit being made. It's unlikely that the owners are making a double digit ROI on that property even if it's leased up because margins are small in real estate but even a 7-8% return makes it a very worthwhile investment.
If housing is expensive that means there isn't enough of it which is more of a result of government policy than speculation in the rent market. If the market drops then rents will drop if the market stay high rents stay high not because property owners are all evil slumlords but because property owners want high occupancy rates because that's what they need to earn a profit. Undercharge rents and you lose money because increased property values increases operating costs, overcharge rents and you get more vacancies and you lose money because you have less renters. Owners want full buildings so the rental rates go up and down with the market, owners can't force rents to be high.
If there's a shortage of housing then there is a lack of new housing construction and if new housing isn't being constructed you need to look at your zoning laws and your development/construction costs. Zoning laws can drive up property values which is good for the interests that already own property in the zone but bad for people who want to buy into the zone (guess who politicians favor more because they're a bigger source of donors?). The urban areas people want to be close to, commercial districts where the jobs, shops and restaurants are located are going to have limited residential zones so those residences are always going to be limited and expensive. If a city has a healthy growing economy then land there gains value and commercial properties have higher margins and lower operating costs than residential properties which is why even new mixed use developments typically have less residential space than commercial space.
We are experiencing this locally. The 2008 housing crash wiped out a lot of construction companies and slowed down housing construction due to the glut of foreclosures. Now that we're finally bouncing back there's a severe lack of starter homes available in our area so housing costs are spiking up drastically. The few new developments that are being build are all expensive McMansion homes because the cost of building a $300k house isn't much higher than the cost of building a $150k house but the profit margin on a $300k house is obviously much better. The lack of affordable housing has already caused a few of the families we're friends with to move out to more rural areas where they can afford a decent house and property. While it's nice to see our home value increase since homes are typically the biggest most valuable investment people have, it's frustrating to see our tax bill increase annually and see our town change into a much more expensive place to live. The primary reason my wife and I moved south to live and start a family was the lower cost of living since the suburbs we grew up in up north had steadily grown more expensive to the point where the rent for a basic 2 bedroom apartment 10 years ago was more than the current mortgage on our house and property. Seeing their equity increase by tens of thousands of dollars tends to make people pretty happy and higher home prices makes neighborhoods more exclusive which makes it difficult to convince people they need to pressure local government to enact zoning changes and increase affordable housing that will drive down housing costs.
A problem with putting caps on vacation rental homes are the communities that thrive and live off being a tourist destination. Those rentals bring money and wealth to the rest of the community via taxes and generating business(eating at local restaurants, buying groceries, etc.).
You guys have it backwards, it's not the rental property owners driving up prices it's the higher prices incentivizing people to invest in rental real estate.
Investing in real estate alone doesn't really jack prices up in and of itself. Its the fact that, instead of renting out apartments normally, the owners are renting out to tourists via short term rental agreements, which is far more lucrative than just having normal tenants.
This causes a shortage of normal rent housing because more and more landlords switch to the more profitable scheme. With a lower supply of housing, the rent prices go up as more individuals are competing for fewer available spaces.
These lucrative business opportunity causes more people to want to invest in apartments, which drives the price of those units up. Its sort of a self-feeding cycle.
You guys have it backwards, it's not the rental property owners driving up prices it's the higher prices incentivizing people to invest in rental real estate.
Investing in real estate alone doesn't really jack prices up in and of itself. Its the fact that, instead of renting out apartments normally, the owners are renting out to tourists via short term rental agreements, which is far more lucrative than just having normal tenants.
This causes a shortage of normal rent housing because more and more landlords switch to the more profitable scheme. With a lower supply of housing, the rent prices go up as more individuals are competing for fewer available spaces.
These lucrative business opportunity causes more people to want to invest in apartments, which drives the price of those units up. Its sort of a self-feeding cycle.
Again that’s not the owner’s fault. The first rule of real estate investment is to do your best to get the highest and best use out of the property. If the hospitality market in a city is screwed up enough so that it makes more sense to turn apartments into hotels then you need to correct the hospitality market. The local hotels are losing business and money if people are using rental apartments for short term stays so the hotels need to make a correction and recapture that business. Once that happens the rental market will dictate that returning the apartments to standard rental properties is the best use for them. The owners aren’t creating any problems they are just putting the properties they paid for to the best use dictated by local market conditions.
You guys have it backwards, it's not the rental property owners driving up prices it's the higher prices incentivizing people to invest in rental real estate.
Investing in real estate alone doesn't really jack prices up in and of itself. Its the fact that, instead of renting out apartments normally, the owners are renting out to tourists via short term rental agreements, which is far more lucrative than just having normal tenants.
This causes a shortage of normal rent housing because more and more landlords switch to the more profitable scheme. With a lower supply of housing, the rent prices go up as more individuals are competing for fewer available spaces.
These lucrative business opportunity causes more people to want to invest in apartments, which drives the price of those units up. Its sort of a self-feeding cycle.
Again that’s not the owner’s fault. The first rule of real estate investment is to do your best to get the highest and best use out of the property. If the hospitality market in a city is screwed up enough so that it makes more sense to turn apartments into hotels then you need to correct the hospitality market. The local hotels are losing business and money if people are using rental apartments for short term stays so the hotels need to make a correction and recapture that business. Once that happens the rental market will dictate that returning the apartments to standard rental properties is the best use for them. The owners aren’t creating any problems they are just putting the properties they paid for to the best use dictated by local market conditions.
I don't exactly blame someone for doing the most advantageous thing they can do. I'd probably do it in their situation. The issue is its the cause of skyrocketing rent in certain areas. Which negatively effects everybody who happens to live there.
So yeah, its their fault. In the sense that they are the cause behind it. In the same sense that its the raccoons fault that my trashcan keeps getting knocked over.
As rent control has amply demonstrated, placing a price cap creates incentives to DESTROY larger numbers of restricted housing in favor of smaller numbers of unrestricted housing.
Instead, the focus should be the complete and total elimination of minimum size and quality requirements, along with the creation of state-owned low-income housing. The state should be creating rooming houses and tenements to provide minimal housing, and this should be financed by taxes on non-state housing. In addition, the state should incent the creation of massive blocks of low income housing.
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Iron_Captain wrote: Forbid the buying of a house for the purpose of reselling or renting it out. It should only be allowed to buy a house if you actually plan on living there.
I'm fine with that as long as you criminalize homelessness.
Side effect is that apartments will convert to short term rental, without the protection of term leases (which would be illegal). Instead, they will convert to week-to-week hotels, where the owner can charge whateever the market will bear (vastly inflated compared to a term lease), and the hotel will be able to deny renewal as long as someone is willing to pay more. Net effect will be deeper squeeze that forces people out of housing entirely.
That's where the criminalization of homelessness comes into play.
Charge the homeless fines, etc. for vagrancy, put them in debtors prison, so that the state can effectively own them for life.
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Prestor Jon wrote: You guys have it backwards, it's not the rental property owners driving up prices it's the higher prices incentivizing people to invest in rental real estate. If you just buy rental properties and jack up rents above market value you won't get renters, you need a market that values housing high enough that you are likely to have a ready supply of renters willing to pay a rent that allows you to make a profit from your investment. If housing is expensive in your city then the rental properties people are renting were also expensive to buy which means even with high rents there isn't much profit being made. It's unlikely that the owners are making a double digit ROI on that property even if it's leased up because margins are small in real estate but even a 7-8% return makes it a very worthwhile investment.
If housing is expensive that means there isn't enough of it which is more of a result of government policy than speculation in the rent market. If the market drops then rents will drop if the market stay high rents stay high not because property owners are all evil slumlords but because property owners want high occupancy rates because that's what they need to earn a profit. Undercharge rents and you lose money because increased property values increases operating costs, overcharge rents and you get more vacancies and you lose money because you have less renters. Owners want full buildings so the rental rates go up and down with the market, owners can't force rents to be high.
If there's a shortage of housing then there is a lack of new housing construction and if new housing isn't being constructed you need to look at your zoning laws and your development/construction costs. Zoning laws can drive up property values which is good for the interests that already own property in the zone but bad for people who want to buy into the zone (guess who politicians favor more because they're a bigger source of donors?). The urban areas people want to be close to, commercial districts where the jobs, shops and restaurants are located are going to have limited residential zones so those residences are always going to be limited and expensive. If a city has a healthy growing economy then land there gains value and commercial properties have higher margins and lower operating costs than residential properties which is why even new mixed use developments typically have less residential space than commercial space.
We are experiencing this locally. The 2008 housing crash wiped out a lot of construction companies and slowed down housing construction due to the glut of foreclosures. Now that we're finally bouncing back there's a severe lack of starter homes available in our area so housing costs are spiking up drastically. The few new developments that are being build are all expensive McMansion homes because the cost of building a $300k house isn't much higher than the cost of building a $150k house but the profit margin on a $300k house is obviously much better. The lack of affordable housing has already caused a few of the families we're friends with to move out to more rural areas where they can afford a decent house and property. While it's nice to see our home value increase since homes are typically the biggest most valuable investment people have, it's frustrating to see our tax bill increase annually and see our town change into a much more expensive place to live. The primary reason my wife and I moved south to live and start a family was the lower cost of living since the suburbs we grew up in up north had steadily grown more expensive to the point where the rent for a basic 2 bedroom apartment 10 years ago was more than the current mortgage on our house and property. Seeing their equity increase by tens of thousands of dollars tends to make people pretty happy and higher home prices makes neighborhoods more exclusive which makes it difficult to convince people they need to pressure local government to enact zoning changes and increase affordable housing that will drive down housing costs.
QFT. Someone actually understands housing.
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=Angel= wrote: You'll remember that 'X' supply and demand graph from economics.
Prices rise and fall with demand's proportion to supply.
The price of a home in relation to a households income has risen dramatically, despite our ability to produce them cheaper and to a higher standard (3d printing with concrete and other alternate build methods),
That is because land is a scarce good, and existing homeowners are the taxpayers and voters who have a strongly vested interest to prevent the construction of any housing that is not at least as good as what they purchased, ensuring that their personal home values increase.
If affordable housing really is the goal, then the state needs to build HUGE tenements
If there's a shortage of housing then there is a lack of new housing construction and if new housing isn't being constructed you need to look at your zoning laws and your development/construction costs. Zoning laws can drive up property values which is good for the interests that already own property in the zone but bad for people who want to buy into the zone (guess who politicians favor more because they're a bigger source of donors?). The urban areas people want to be close to, commercial districts where the jobs, shops and restaurants are located are going to have limited residential zones so those residences are always going to be limited and expensive. If a city has a healthy growing economy then land there gains value and commercial properties have higher margins and lower operating costs than residential properties which is why even new mixed use developments typically have less residential space than commercial space.
I think the best way to describe it is a self feeding loop.
Palo Alto is a particularly infamous example, with the city council continually being cited and blamed by local residents for not even trying to address the city housing crisis at the behest of real estate investors who want to keep housing prices as high as possible. Of course there are other factors. Palo Alto is filled with highly desirable jobs, and has some of the highest rated public schooling in the US, so it's not like this is a simple deal where housing prices are simply about housing but I think there's a vicious cycle in housing today that ends up prioritizing maximization of local housing prices at the expense of other factors wherever that happen to be lots of jobs (and thus a reason to live there at all).
We're officially beyond parody now I think. Goverment-approved slum housing. Bring back debtors prisons so you can "own" the homeless if they don't take social housing(because of course, people are only ever homeless by choice...).
To actually address the problem without sounding like this is a /tg/ worldbuilding thread about a dystopian future RPG setting:
The solution is good quality social housing, available to all. Build homes people actually want to live in, not pokey little slum-holes in high rises or ridiculous tiny-roomed houses with "bedrooms" that barely have room for a bed in them, proper good quality homes/flats in vast numbers.
Rather than place rent controls on privately-owned rental accommodation(which I have no problem with as a short-term solution until a large housebuilding programme can be completed), the government can simply use "the market" to their advantage for once and destroy the earnings of the buy-to-let scumbags; in concert with a National Investment Bank to provide very long-term low-interest loans to local authorities to pay for the construction of the housing(likely with an initial earmarked cash booster to some local authorities from central government to get the process running), rents can be set at, essentially, cost or just above it which would be a fraction of "market" rates almost everywhere but by orders of magnitude in places with wildly distorted prices.
Everybody wins except the landlords. So really, everybody wins.
Construction companies have long-term, stable, predictable contracts available all over their country(with sufficiently robust procurement rules to minimise the usual kickbacks and minor corruption). Working individuals and families have access to high quality accommodation at extremely low cost. Governments can provide free accommodation for people in receipt of social security benefits or in very low income brackets at a far more affordable cost to them than the current lunatic system that is basically a massive cash transfer from the public purse to landlords. With modest long-term, steady, assured RoIs from a mass of social housing projects, the NIB can fund other local infrastructure projects, and provide a secure and stable place to invest for public(and, potentially, private) pension plans.
Dude, this is a 40k forum, so the dystopian solution is the correct one.
"Quality" housing is actually the problem. State tenement housing is the best solution, because it puts a lot of housing on the market, increasing supply, reducing pricing.
Also, "git gud" at money, so you can appreciate the value of owning a home
=Angel= wrote: You'll remember that 'X' supply and demand graph from economics.
Prices rise and fall with demand's proportion to supply.
The price of a home in relation to a households income has risen dramatically, despite our ability to produce them cheaper and to a higher standard (3d printing with concrete and other alternate build methods),
That is because land is a scarce good, and existing homeowners are the taxpayers and voters who have a strongly vested interest to prevent the construction of any housing that is not at least as good as what they purchased, ensuring that their personal home values increase.
If affordable housing really is the goal, then the state needs to build HUGE tenements
Not as scarce as you'd think.
Builders love apartment blocks because the return is higher than houses.Huge tenements come with huge social problems which is why no-one wants one in their backyard.
Why build massive blocks of apartments? Are western nations so overrun with poor people that we need to use state money to build sky scraping brutalist monstrosities (clad in rocket fuel apparently) to jam them into? And if so, why?
I lived in apartments in Brazil and it was a really nice experience. There, its the middle class who live in quality apartments with swimming pools and garden facilities for the block, an island in the mass sprawl of poverty and crime. The poor live in sprawling informal single story slums that the police avoid- but which can also be relatively nice. Decent housing can be affordable.
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JohnHwangDD wrote: Dude, this is a 40k forum, so the dystopian solution is the correct one.
"Quality" housing is actually the problem. State tenement housing is the best solution, because it puts a lot of housing on the market, increasing supply, reducing pricing.
Also, "git gud" at money, so you can appreciate the value of owning a home
This. We may as well just build the habzones and megablocks and then have the chasteners break down the door of the unemployed for not reporting to much-worse duty in the lower hive levels.
Also, "git gud" at money, so you can appreciate the value of owning a home
Buying a home is one of the greatest things I ever did. Completely changed my life. I dreamed of owning one for a long time and it took a tough road to get there (doing it myself on a single income), and I can safely say I pretty much have my forever home. At least until I am too old to maintain the property (pool, big back yard, etc). At that point I will downsize. But I have no motivation to upgrade because I live in a great area and it would be silly to own anything larger (4 bedrooms, 3 car garage). I do consider myself lucky to own it because the harsh reality of real estate is timing and the available funds at the time of purchase. I nailed both. I see a lot of people upgrading now and dropping a lot more money that I would want to on less than what I have and it makes me cringe. No doubt there will be another housing correction at some point. Probably the time you see a lot of apartments going condo would be a red flag to hold off on any purchases.
That being said, while I felt left out prior to owning a home, I never felt like the government should have stepped in and helped me out. Not everyone deserves to own a home. They are very expensive not to just purchase, but to maintain as well (and my home was only built in 2001). I think the maintaining part is the biggest sucker punch in the whole thing. People crunch numbers to determine what they can afford in a monthly payment on a mortgage without much thought on what it will take to replace an AC unit in the middle of summer, never mind the constant repairs on the home and the surrounding property. I hemorrhaged money my first two years I owned my home. And if you aren't handy before owning a home, you soon will be after the purchase, once you realize how much it costs to pay people to do things you could be doing yourself. I turned a part of my garage into a workshop, building a kickass workbench from my old kitchen cabinets, and room for various saws (band, table, miter) to allow me to do as much as I can myself before I call anyone to come do it.
Prior to owning a home, I blew cash like it was going out of style. Once I paid bills, saved x%, the rest went to party, and I partied hard. Now I have a completely different mindset. There is even a greater emphasis on saving, and money set aside specifically for home maintenance (the last thing I did was have an oak tree in the front yard trimmed for $250, and one in the back for $700 because they had to hire a climber), or even decorating the damn thing (good quality furniture cost $$$, and if you go cheap on that, its essentially buying disposable furniture that you'll just be throwing away in a couple of years), then there is the cost of remodeling kitchens and bathrooms, which easily can put you over $10k for just modest upgrades even when doing as much as you can yourself.
But all that being said, I couldn't be happier. I don't hear a sound from outside inside my house. Its set up the way I want it, and I have a lot of room to do whatever I want. It wasn't easy to get nor easy to keep. And I don't really think everyone has the right to have something similar, as someone is going to have to share the cost, which I do not to do. I know that is harsh but at the same time no one is helping me.
If property costs too much where you live or want to live, move to a cheaper area. Its no different than hunter gatherers determining an area was too tough to live in so they settled somewhere else. There are plenty of neighborhoods I can't afford to live in and I do not feel someone or some government should be helping me get a home in one. I live within my means.
Of course I say this from a 1st world perspective... the last two countries I visited were China and India. Whole different set of issues there.
It's not as simple as "move to a cheaper area". Firstly you need a job in that cheaper area, which may not be available. Secondly, moving house is a fairly large capital expense; if you're living on the poverty line, you might not be able to afford the time off work to go to interviews, to put down a new deposit, hire a vehicle to move your stuff, etc. It was easy for hunter-gatherers, as they didn't have to worry about money. They did have to worry about the other tribe over the hill who took offense at these incomers.
There's nothing wrong with apartments, per se (even Brutalist ones, done right). What is wrong is when they're thrown up to house the less well-off in their thousands, and then no amenities are provided. The infamous estates in Glasgow and other UK cities were originally designed to have good public transport (by bus) links, have lots of open space, communal recreation areas and shops, and be close to employment. As it turned out, all that stuff is expensive to provide, so ... it wasn't provided. Then you have thousands of people living in cheaply-built, poorly-maintained cramped flats who can't get out of the area because there's no bus, can't afford a car (and don't have anywhere to park one if they did) and have nothing to do. And then the rest of us are surprised when they end up in a life of unemployment and crime.
AndrewGPaul wrote: It's not as simple as "move to a cheaper area". Firstly you need a job in that cheaper area, which may not be available. Secondly, moving house is a fairly large capital expense; if you're living on the poverty line, you might not be able to afford the time off work to go to interviews, to put down a new deposit, hire a vehicle to move your stuff, etc. It was easy for hunter-gatherers, as they didn't have to worry about money. They did have to worry about the other tribe over the hill who took offense at these incomers.
I know I was being simplistic, but the point remains. If you can't afford to live in the area you live in, you either have to make more money or move to an area that is cheaper. One or the other has to happen. Waiting for the gov't to come in for the rescue is just going to put you further into poverty.
AndrewGPaul wrote: It's not as simple as "move to a cheaper area". Firstly you need a job in that cheaper area, which may not be available. Secondly, moving house is a fairly large capital expense; if you're living on the poverty line, you might not be able to afford the time off work to go to interviews, to put down a new deposit, hire a vehicle to move your stuff, etc. It was easy for hunter-gatherers, as they didn't have to worry about money. They did have to worry about the other tribe over the hill who took offense at these incomers.
There's nothing wrong with apartments, per se (even Brutalist ones, done right). What is wrong is when they're thrown up to house the less well-off in their thousands, and then no amenities are provided. The infamous estates in Glasgow and other UK cities were originally designed to have good public transport (by bus) links, have lots of open space, communal recreation areas and shops, and be close to employment. As it turned out, all that stuff is expensive to provide, so ... it wasn't provided. Then you have thousands of people living in cheaply-built, poorly-maintained cramped flats who can't get out of the area because there's no bus, can't afford a car (and don't have anywhere to park one if they did) and have nothing to do. And then the rest of us are surprised when they end up in a life of unemployment and crime.
I think this is a difference in the UK and American mindset- in America it’s the norm to commute via personal vehicle. Driving 1-2 hours one way to a job is fairly typical for a lot of Americans. It’s not uncommon for someone to live in a rural area, and work in the inner city.
You guys have it backwards, it's not the rental property owners driving up prices it's the higher prices incentivizing people to invest in rental real estate.
Investing in real estate alone doesn't really jack prices up in and of itself. Its the fact that, instead of renting out apartments normally, the owners are renting out to tourists via short term rental agreements, which is far more lucrative than just having normal tenants.
This causes a shortage of normal rent housing because more and more landlords switch to the more profitable scheme. With a lower supply of housing, the rent prices go up as more individuals are competing for fewer available spaces.
These lucrative business opportunity causes more people to want to invest in apartments, which drives the price of those units up. Its sort of a self-feeding cycle.
Again that’s not the owner’s fault. The first rule of real estate investment is to do your best to get the highest and best use out of the property. If the hospitality market in a city is screwed up enough so that it makes more sense to turn apartments into hotels then you need to correct the hospitality market. The local hotels are losing business and money if people are using rental apartments for short term stays so the hotels need to make a correction and recapture that business. Once that happens the rental market will dictate that returning the apartments to standard rental properties is the best use for them. The owners aren’t creating any problems they are just putting the properties they paid for to the best use dictated by local market conditions.
I don't exactly blame someone for doing the most advantageous thing they can do. I'd probably do it in their situation. The issue is its the cause of skyrocketing rent in certain areas. Which negatively effects everybody who happens to live there.
So yeah, its their fault. In the sense that they are the cause behind it. In the same sense that its the raccoons fault that my trashcan keeps getting knocked over.
No that's still completely wrong and a terrible analogy. The raccoons are the direct cause of your trashcans falling over, the landlords are not the cause of the increase in the value of their properties that makes them worth more rent. Landlords can't magically make their properties worth more simply by raising rents. Price elasticity of demand is a real thing, if you raise the cost of something then fewer people will want to buy it. Raising rents doesn't cause properties to increase in value all it does is create a smaller pool of renters who can afford to rent from you. Even if all the landlords in an area colluded their rents would still be subject to price elasticity and their properties' value would be determined by the market, the amount of housing available to meet the given demand for it. Rent doesn't determine value, value determines rent. Rental properties generate income for the owners via occupancy, so properties that have consistent high occupancy rates generate more income than properties that may have very high rent rates but struggle to achieve full occupancy. Rental properties generate maximum revenue when they are fully occupied so the rent you charge should be the largest amount you can charge that will keep your building at full occupancy as much as possible.
If there's a shortage of housing then there is a lack of new housing construction and if new housing isn't being constructed you need to look at your zoning laws and your development/construction costs. Zoning laws can drive up property values which is good for the interests that already own property in the zone but bad for people who want to buy into the zone (guess who politicians favor more because they're a bigger source of donors?). The urban areas people want to be close to, commercial districts where the jobs, shops and restaurants are located are going to have limited residential zones so those residences are always going to be limited and expensive. If a city has a healthy growing economy then land there gains value and commercial properties have higher margins and lower operating costs than residential properties which is why even new mixed use developments typically have less residential space than commercial space.
I think the best way to describe it is a self feeding loop.
Palo Alto is a particularly infamous example, with the city council continually being cited and blamed by local residents for not even trying to address the city housing crisis at the behest of real estate investors who want to keep housing prices as high as possible. Of course there are other factors. Palo Alto is filled with highly desirable jobs, and has some of the highest rated public schooling in the US, so it's not like this is a simple deal where housing prices are simply about housing but I think there's a vicious cycle in housing today that ends up prioritizing maximization of local housing prices at the expense of other factors wherever that happen to be lots of jobs (and thus a reason to live there at all).
Yes the self feeding loop is allowing housing supply to expand very incrementally while the demand for housing grows much faster. Unfortunately self interest and short term thinking is intrinsic to humanity and it consistently holds us back. Palo Alto is a very nice place to live, the established interests in Palo Alto benefit from keeping it a nice place to live that is very exclusive and desirable. Therefore, there are limitations on how much housing can be built, where it can be built, what kind of housing it can be, how many and what type of units can be in a given development, etc. and the developmental cost of approvals, permits and construction is high. The artificial scarcity imposed on the housing market makes existing housing more valuable which makes the current residents happy and makes it very difficult to convince them that decreasing the value of their homes by increasing the supply of housing is worthwhile. The good jobs that are available in Pal Alto have to pay a high salary because the high cost of housing drives up the cost of living in the area. Higher salaries decrease the amount of jobs that employers can offer and the high cost of living minimizes the advantages of earning the higher salary. The housing scarcity in the long term inhibits the growth of the population and the filling of the available jobs which means that while Palo Alto is nice now, it could be even nicer except that they are choosing to limit their growth for the sake of short term gains that benefit the people that already live there. Convincing people to give up a short term gain for a long term gain is very difficult in the best of circumstances and our political system doesn't make it any easier especially in our current condition.
Prestor Jon wrote: Landlords can't magically make their properties worth more simply by raising rents.
They can if they all decide to do so via collusion in their moonlit super-secret landlord cabal gathering. Muahhahaha.
In the real world, no, not really.
As a landlord, if you want to maximize rent, you need to be willing to have your property sit idle, while you wait for that plum renter. In the mean time, you still have to pay mortgage, taxes, upkeep, etc. on it, forgoing longer term leases that provide income stability. Meanwhile, you have to hope that the other landlords aren't going to undercut you in order to pay their bills. All the while, the cash burns, because the bank doesn't care, and neither does the state - the mortgage and taxes still have to be paid, whether its occupied or not. Now, if demand stays red hot, great! If demand cools, you can be looking at 1,000s of unrecovered cost. Hope you built up a real bankroll to cover the property sitting idle...
The situation is especially critical in the Puget Sound area around Seattle, which has added nearly 55,000 jobs in the last year alone, thanks to hiring at big employers like Amazon, Microsoft and Boeing. Combine the resulting surge in population with a slow pace of construction and you get a classic crunch.
The crazy thing is how the costs of new homes are too high for many first time or lower wage buyers, so they end up trying to outbid each other for the lower cost homes, inflating those costs as well. But I don't see how you can put a cap on a price. The seller has every right to make as much as he can, and in a sellers market, should be able to reap the benefits.
The problem is if wages can't keep up with the costs of living over time then everyone is just on borrowed time until the crap hits the fan. One of the lasting memories I have of the great recession is going down cookie cutter neighborhoods and seeing for sale signs in EVERY YARD. There wasn't much of a difference between each house really, and everyone was trying to get out of their underwater mortgage. Crazy times.
There will be a reckoning when the next recession hits. Peeps will lose their jobs, get their homes foreclosed, and there will be a transfer of wealth. This is actually a normal thing when people buy more than they can afford during tough times. People always buy what they think they can afford based on the time they are buying, which is generally good times. What everyone should be doing, is shopping as if times suck so they are better prepared.
And think about all that's lost in the form of interest on those loans... that's less money to invest and save for retirement. People just don't think long term.
Prestor Jon wrote: Landlords can't magically make their properties worth more simply by raising rents.
They can if they all decide to do so via collusion in their moonlit super-secret landlord cabal gathering. Muahhahaha.
In the real world, no, not really.
As a landlord, if you want to maximize rent, you need to be willing to have your property sit idle, while you wait for that plum renter. In the mean time, you still have to pay mortgage, taxes, upkeep, etc. on it, forgoing longer term leases that provide income stability. Meanwhile, you have to hope that the other landlords aren't going to undercut you in order to pay their bills. All the while, the cash burns, because the bank doesn't care, and neither does the state - the mortgage and taxes still have to be paid, whether its occupied or not. Now, if demand stays red hot, great! If demand cools, you can be looking at 1,000s of unrecovered cost. Hope you built up a real bankroll to cover the property sitting idle...
In the UK, unoccupied small commercial properties don't have to pay business rates (for shops, etc) or council taxes (for homes.)
This is part of why there are so many unoccupied commercial properties in the UK. Landlords are waiting for the plum renter and it's easier to do so because their costs are lower.
This is a good example of how government can affect the market through regulation.
Price capping the rent might be effective, but levying the taxes would have the same effect of encouraging landlords to reduce the rent while also raising much needed revenue to support the local government's operations of street lighting and cleaning and so on, which the landlords currently benefit from whether they contribute or not.
Well, following up my earlier post about the cost of maintenance on a home, yesterday I came home from work to notice that my sprinkler control panel is shot. So had to order a new one, at $150, and hope thats the only thing wrong with the system. Kinda relieved the panel lasted this long as its the original, but still. I didn't wake up yesterday with the thought, "Hey lets replace the control panel!" I would have preferred to do something else with that money.
And if there is more wrong than the control panel....
1) Increase new construction, preferably high-density housing if land is an issue. Much of the housing problem is areas where there simply aren't enough houses to meet demand, so price keeps going up. Flood the market with new construction and prices go down.
2) Heavily tax rental properties. If you make buying a house just to put it back on the market as a rental property a poor investment then those properties are available to buy for legitimate residents. The trick is crafting the tax such that it hits the speculators buying at inflated prices and not apartment complexes or rental companies willing to rent at reasonable rates.
3) Find a way to shift demand geographically. If all the jobs are in one place with too little housing then try to get companies to move elsewhere, or let people work remotely, etc. Decentralize the jobs and you avoid creating centers of demand where available space to put houses is not adequate.
On point one, half of this is happening, without the other half going on. . . What I mean is, there is a flood of new housing going up all the time in my area. Hell, there are 3 areas being graded and prepped for new housing within a 1 mile radius of my house, and there's a bunch more within 5 of me that are mixes of apartments, duplexes, townhomes, etc. With that flood of new housing, here's the problem: the prices aren't going down. They are going up. I bought my 2400 sq ft. house for 250k about 4 years ago. . . Today, I could sell my house for north of 350k easily. And in all that new construction, the builders are offering "starting in the low $300s" and higher. Yes, cost of living in the Tacoma area isn't cheap, but these new houses are, IMO, outstripping even the earning potential of the work in the area.
2. IMO, the corporate run apartment complexes are the worst for "gouging" or inflating prices. Many of those brand new apartments I mention above are in areas where residents literally need a vehicle to do basically any standard living activities (ie, groceries), which is the one mitigating factor I can see for the cost of some apartments. I can understand a much higher rent in a deep downtown apartment, because groceries, food and other "standard" amenities are within walking distance of the apartment. But what I'm seeing/saying here, is that this new construction is nowhere close to those services, which to me, does not justify their high cost.
3. I think there's something also to be said for localities and their build permitting structures. Clearly where I live we are in an area where building is "easily" done, and there's a boom of new housing going in. Contrast this with my home town (where, as I mention in another thread, I have a cousin who is selling a house half the size of mine, for the same cost as what I bought mine at) where there is little to no new construction, but the demand has remained at a relatively steady growth.
With that said on point 3, I think that greater care needs to be done in these build projects. As I said above, there's a ton of new housing going in very close to where I live, but the public infrastructure (and I'll include private business such as grocery stores and other living services in this) are not being updated to accommodate the increased population capacity.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Apartment blocks need to have a retail ground floor, simple as that.
This. I've seen areas built like this, with store fronts on ground level and apartments/condos above and it just strikes me as a crazy convenient/efficient way to construct housing and development. I think it should be a standard practice localities should encourage.
The only real issue is that like Ensis Ferrae I find that new development never lowers prices, but only increases them. Every new development that goes up is fancier and more expensive than the last. No one in my area is building housing to be affordable for common people.
To be fair it’s hard to justify making affordable housing for “common people” from a developer point of view. You’re essentially spending the same money to get less back than you would in a higher income area. Unless there were some grants or kickbacks involved from the state or at the federal level it’s just not reasonable to build lower income housing.
Sinful Hero wrote: To be fair it’s hard to justify making affordable housing for “common people” from a developer point of view. You’re essentially spending the same money to get less back than you would in a higher income area. Unless there were some grants or kickbacks involved from the state or at the federal level it’s just not reasonable to build lower income housing.
Thinking about it, I'm almost certain that mixed use dense housing would drive far more profit than lower density housing. If I can have basically 2x to 3x the usable square footage, and so my per-foot price can be basically half. Instead of a 3000 SF McMansion, I could have 6000-9000 SF apartments, 600-900 SF each. The same holds true for condos vs tenement,although slightly less Sure, it's a bigger project, but no way I don't make more money on it.
KTG17 wrote: Well, following up my earlier post about the cost of maintenance on a home, yesterday I came home from work to notice that my sprinkler control panel is shot. So had to order a new one, at $150, and hope thats the only thing wrong with the system. Kinda relieved the panel lasted this long as its the original, but still. I didn't wake up yesterday with the thought, "Hey lets replace the control panel!" I would have preferred to do something else with that money.
And if there is more wrong than the control panel....
These are the sucker punches I am talking about.
Up until the last few weeks of relentless sun, I would have had zero sympathy with your position. The grass is (ordinarily) green here, whether you take care of it or not. The trick is getting a house in the first place when the price is driven up by mandatory social housing that you don't quite qualify for if you are working more than min wage, and housing grants that don't really help unless you were earning enough to not need it.
I don't know if this is a problem in other nations, but here in America it's distressingly common for a renter to trash the place they're renting, and the cheaper the apartment is, the more likely it is the renter will trash it. Government-owned apartment housing for the poor (commonly known as The Projects) is usually the literal worst, nastiest, most crime-ridden neighborhood in the whole metropolitan area. Even Section 8 Housing (government rent assistance for poor people renting from a private landlord) usually isn't all that much better.
Note the use of the word 'usually'. Here in Truth or Consequences, the government-owned housing is very well kept up and regularly inspected. Of course, it's also not deep in the worst reaches of the urban combat zone either; it's not even in the poorest section of this little rural town.
Vulcan wrote: I don't know if this is a problem in other nations, but here in America it's distressingly common for a renter to trash the place they're renting, and the cheaper the apartment is, the more likely it is the renter will trash it. Government-owned apartment housing for the poor (commonly known as The Projects) is usually the literal worst, nastiest, most crime-ridden neighborhood in the whole metropolitan area. Even Section 8 Housing (government rent assistance for poor people renting from a private landlord) usually isn't all that much better.
Note the use of the word 'usually'. Here in Truth or Consequences, the government-owned housing is very well kept up and regularly inspected. Of course, it's also not deep in the worst reaches of the urban combat zone either; it's not even in the poorest section of this little rural town.
Yeah I think it's a pretty common problem. Put up some densely packed cheap or free housing for people in need and you end up shoving all the down and outers in to one place. Great places to get illegal drugs, get into fights or get stabbed and mugged.
It's not even just the government housing though, it's any densely packed affordable housing. One relatively nice suburb has an area where they threw up a bunch of cheap 1 bedroom apartments and it turned the area in to a bit of a pit within an otherwise nice area. I was thinking of moving in to the area because I know the suburb as a whole is nice, but I opted for a more expensive area after spending a few nights next to night shift workers, unemployed families arguing late at night, people dealing out of their apartments, etc.
Around this area if you are poor and don't want to live in a crap area your only real option is move to the less densely packed suburbs further from the city centre and drive/train it to work.
Life will be interesting when we have far more people than jobs.
Interesting. A number of large cities including Barcelona, London and Amsterdam have requested the UN to give some incentive to national governments to do something about housing speculation in large cities as the situation is becoming unlivable for residents, and it's a problem that goes beyond national borders because it's happening everywhere.
Ok, so a few weeks ago it was my sprinkler control panel, yesterday while doing my yard work my powerhead broke. Its been on its way out for a while so wasn't competely surprised.. So I had to stop what I am doing and run to Home Depot for another. The model I want no longer only comes with just the powerhead, but a trimmer extension as well for more money. My trimmer is a POS so getting a new one was on the list of things to do anyway. Both are very nice and it was a pleasure to finish the yardwork. However, I would have been just as happy to have finished it using my old ones. The cost of the new powerhead and trimmer? $200.
So just in July I am at $350 on replacing broken things in my house that you probably wouldn't be thinking about if you rented an apartment or condo. And its things like this that I think buries people in debt owning a home. Its not even necessarily replacing an AC unit, or appliance, but the constant smaller things that add up.
The worst part is that I am in the process of adopting another rescue dog and the $350 would have gone a long way to covering his new bed, toys, and vet visit. :/
I read somewhere that a householder should expect to spend 1% of their property's value per year on maintenance and/or savings for big ticket items (new roof, etc.)
The main problem is that most things will not go wrong for years and then multiple things will go wrong all in a very short span of time as they all get old at the same rough rate. It's worse today because we live in a throw-away society where replacement parts are often hard to find; where repair work alone costs a lot of man hours and where some direct order parts are priced so high that - basically - you are better off financially buying a new one than paying to repair the old one (unless you can do the repair work yourself).
That said we've found that auction houses are great way to get hold of cheap household stuff. If you've got a trailer or van its even better because a lot of big household stuff sells for very little because most people won't pay for delivery and can't move it themselves. The fridge we have now cost £30 and works great.
Of course its a bit of a gamble and you can get a lemon *stares at the £20 tv that killed itself* but overall you can make a saving if you are careful and lots of non-electronic stuff is often pretty safe to get (desks, chairs, draws, outdoor tools etc...).
Gumtree and the like are good for secondhand furniture.
Things like a new gas boiler or refitting the bathroom are something you have to think about long term and ideally save up for. But sometimes they happen as an emergency.
Kilkrazy wrote: I read somewhere that a householder should expect to spend 1% of their property's value per year on maintenance and/or savings for big ticket items (new roof, etc.)
I have a savings account that I have auto transfers from my checking to that account every week that is just for home maintenance. Not a lot but over time it helps. I had a big chunk in there when I needed my pool pump replaced, and splurged on a variable speed pump since I had the money already set aside. Never had to touch my real savings or use a credit card. I also had some in there to blunt the cost of replacing the AC unit last year. The thing about that particular account is that I do not use it for anything else than home maintenance. Just don't even include it in my net worth. Its strictly for upcoming home repair. Most people don't do that, so they have to whip out a credit card or something and you know how difficult those things can be to pay off quickly.
As far as the new roof, I am sure most people get home equity loans, which sucks. And the time of year also impacts the cost (replacing a roof in Florida costs a lot more in the summer than it does in the winter, and it barely rains here in the winter so the likelihood you need to do it then is rare). So it typically goes that the needed repair will come at the worst possible time. And I got lucky when my AC unit went. It was in Feb and we had a REALLY mild winter, so I really never needed the heat. I got a great deal on a Trane Heat Pump basically because it was Feb and a slow time period for AC install guys. In the summer I would have paid a lot lot more. But you can't survive in Florida without an AC unit in summer, so peeps have to pay the premium prices.
Overread wrote: The main problem is that most things will not go wrong for years and then multiple things will go wrong all in a very short span of time as they all get old at the same rough rate. It's worse today because we live in a throw-away society where replacement parts are often hard to find; where repair work alone costs a lot of man hours and where some direct order parts are priced so high that - basically - you are better off financially buying a new one than paying to repair the old one (unless you can do the repair work yourself).
Which is what I did. I didn't have the time nor the will to tear apart the old powerhead, figure out what parts might be worth replacing, and then wait for those parts to arrive and then hope that repair work fixes it. Not to mention I was in the middle of doing my yard, and with all the rain we get in the summer in Florida, we literally have to cut our grass here every week, so I would have to have all this resolved by next weekend anyway. It was 90 degrees out and I was already exhausted and the last thing I wanted to do was deal with that. The powerhead should have been less that $150 and based on that I was okay just getting another. I just didn't expect it to be bundled with the trimmer.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Apartment blocks need to have a retail ground floor, simple as that.
This is something that's happening around here, while they're building an entire complex that's roughly in the middle of no where, the complex itself is supposed to have commercial space on the first floor of most of the buildings to support a relatively self contained living area, aside from work for most residents.
Seems like a decent enough idea, certainly beats out another track of housing starting at twice what I've paid for my house for something built half as well. Still lost as to how people dump that much on a house and don't get at least enough property to have some privacy in their home.
Meanwhile everything sub about 250k(usd, upstate ny) draws a crowd, sub 200k is a warzone, you'd think folks would build some ranches again for cheap and sell them. Doesn't seem to be happening. All McMansions.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Apartment blocks need to have a retail ground floor, simple as that.
Meanwhile everything sub about 250k(usd, upstate ny) draws a crowd, sub 200k is a warzone, you'd think folks would build some ranches again for cheap and sell them. Doesn't seem to be happening. All McMansions.
The McMansion costs about the same to build and develop as the rancher, but is worth at least twice as much for just the structure. Housing developers only care about maximizing their profit.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Apartment blocks need to have a retail ground floor, simple as that.
This is something that's happening around here, while they're building an entire complex that's roughly in the middle of no where, the complex itself is supposed to have commercial space on the first floor of most of the buildings to support a relatively self contained living area, aside from work for most residents.
Seems like a decent enough idea, certainly beats out another track of housing starting at twice what I've paid for my house for something built half as well. Still lost as to how people dump that much on a house and don't get at least enough property to have some privacy in their home.
Meanwhile everything sub about 250k(usd, upstate ny) draws a crowd, sub 200k is a warzone, you'd think folks would build some ranches again for cheap and sell them. Doesn't seem to be happening. All McMansions.
I was in Hong Kong last year and in most of the areas, especially in the Mong Kok area, many of the apartment buildings have commercial space on the ground floor. Many many small businesses, A lot of little grocery stands and that sort of thing. In the evenings things are pretty lively there. Everyone comes out of their cramp apartments down to the street level where there are street performers, cafe's, etc. Even on Sunday night at midnight it was like a party.
The thing is, there is a large enough population around the area to support all of these small businesses, and many of these businesses were the same kind (vegetable stands, convenience stores, food stalls, etc. Most of these apartment buildings are 15+ stories. Lots of families. Except in the really urban areas in the US, most apartment buildings have been two story, then moving up to 3, and lately in my area, moving up to 4. These, in my opinion, don't have enough people in them to support a business like a coffee shop, crossfit gym, or smoothie place, let alone some other business. Most of the commercial space I see in my area in places like these are vacant. In places like Manhattan, sure, those work and we see that. But most of the US doesn't live in apartments that tall, and most new ones are built within a community with even a gate.
I think the model could work in some areas, but you just need a lot of people in that area and businesses that cater to those people. Yes, you could stick a random business in there that isn't dependent on those occupants, but then you also have an issue with parking, because the spaces in the area are going to most likely be taken up by the people living in that area. I don't like hunting for a parking spot or parking a few blocks away. I know I am spoiled.
BTW: The whole time I was in Hong Kong, I constantly thought of my big back yard and how lucky I was to have it. Before Hong Kong I was in Mumbai. I have seen the future of overpopulation and it isn't pretty.
KTG17 wrote: Most of the commercial space I see in my area in places like these are vacant. In places like Manhattan, sure, those work and we see that. But most of the US doesn't live in apartments that tall, and most new ones are built within a community with even a gate.
The specific design I saw was 5 to 10 story buildings with the larger buildings having commercial space in them for both typical store fronts and office space in higher floors, with I believe 15-20 buildings clustered in a relatively small area designed after the 'big city' structure if I'm going to use their words. I'm curious to see how it works, but I didn't see any massive flaws readily apparent in the initial design other than it being more or less in the middle of nowhere itself. But given the general sprawl of the last ten years, it probably won't be in the next ten.
The model seems to be proving effective with a number of larger apartment buildings being made in the area (4-5 stories in burbs, 10+ in the city) immediately next to or over commercial space has been doing reasonably well despite some on going jokes. That said, this same area has made buying a house roughly as expensive as renting a two bedroom apartment recently, so either the rental market has absurd demand or the fact that three companies that own property in the area may be working against everyone who actually lives here.
KTG17 wrote:The thing is, there is a large enough population around the area to support all of these small businesses, and many of these businesses were the same kind (vegetable stands, convenience stores, food stalls, etc. Most of these apartment buildings are 15+ stories. Lots of families. Except in the really urban areas in the US, most apartment buildings have been two story, then moving up to 3, and lately in my area, moving up to 4. These, in my opinion, don't have enough people in them to support a business like a coffee shop, crossfit gym, or smoothie place, let alone some other business. Most of the commercial space I see in my area in places like these are vacant. In places like Manhattan, sure, those work and we see that. But most of the US doesn't live in apartments that tall, and most new ones are built within a community with even a gate.
It also works with 3, 4, or 5 stories on top of the stores. But you need a certain overall density of that type of housing and not just a few of those and then a lot of big houses for one family each next to those. It seems that the US has mostly bet on cars and thus made those sprawling cities possible and that's hard to reverse because it's about fundamental urban planning differences. That makes public transportation in less dense urban areas a bit inefficient and leads to further dependencies on cars. So it's either highly dense areas or rural areas where you only have a few neighbours and the possibilities in between don't get much of a chance.
And I've read about how a lot of the US population sees new public transportation as something that's implemented for the working class and exactly as something for everyone. So people with cars tend to keep using those.
It's not that hard to have small retail like a corner market, sandwich shop, barber, dry cleaner and/or a convenience store in the first floor of something like this, even if it's only 4 stories total.
Nobody's putting in a Walmart Supercenter on the ground level. More like having your neighborhood 7-11 and McDonalds in the suburbs. Rather than having a bunch of spread out houses, they're denser and walkable/bikeable.
JohnHwangDD wrote: It's not that hard to have small retail like a corner market, sandwich shop, barber, dry cleaner and/or a convenience store in the first floor of something like this, even if it's only 4 stories total.
Dry cleaners I'm not so sure about as they have all kinds of piping and chemical whatnots that may screw up modern permitting (Obviously, this situation does play out in cities like NYC and some others, but how many towns/cities in the US "want" to give the OK for a dry cleaner?)
The last time I was in Portland, Oregon, there were some newer buildings where the ground or ground + mezzanine were a Safeway (grocery store chain out west, if ya dont have them) or a Whole Foods and whatnot, but those are "pure" grocery stores and not those monstrosities that Walmart like to build. But the usual case for stores like these is that they take up the entire block which may present some hurdles for those bigger stores and their "investment" in that ground floor retail space. For those businesses there's a big risk (not really, but ya hear many of them use rhetoric to this effect) in the ground floor, if the apartments/housing units above don't move.
And I've read about how a lot of the US population sees new public transportation as something that's implemented for the working class and exactly as something for everyone. So people with cars tend to keep using those.
That is because in many areas, our public transportation is unreliable. Just like we prefer Uber to our disgusting cabs, its going to take work to get most of us to come around to public transportation. My local public transportation, SEPTA, is so unreliable most employers frown upon hiring someone without a car because the delays in our buses and trains are the only reliable thing.
One thing I wonder is what prices these small stores can charge. I'm all for amenities within as I think that is a very sound idea; however are they going to charge less than Tescos direct home delivery?
Right now most food corner shops are gone; they just can't compete with supermarkets unless they are a good 30 mins from the nearest one and even then the local store might be more emergency/odd purchases not the weekly shop location.
The only things I see holding on are actual food outlets selling cooked/prepared food for consumption on site or for take-away. Even then if your home is one floor up it might just be too close to home for them to do well - again unless the price is very low.
I wonder how long term they will be in this age where supermarkets and the internet dominate the retail market.
The typical grocery store here out West has a micro bank, a Starbucks, and some sort of deli sandwich, in addition to groceries - so it's the same mix, but with just one set of doors outside. There is always going to be the desire to pick fresh produce, to have fresh pizza or coffee, etc.
And I've read about how a lot of the US population sees new public transportation as something that's implemented for the working class and exactly as something for everyone. So people with cars tend to keep using those.
That is because in many areas, our public transportation is unreliable. Just like we prefer Uber to our disgusting cabs, its going to take work to get most of us to come around to public transportation.
Uber is public transportation. The fact that it uses an app and cars are generally newer doesn't change the fact that it's a slightly more modern version of a taxi service.
jouso wrote: Uber is public transportation. The fact that it uses an app and cars are generally newer doesn't change the fact that it's a slightly more modern version of a taxi service.
It's also expensive as balls compared to a proper bus service and it's business structure can't be supported in less dense areas.
That's true of many things, which is why people tend to gravitate to towns and cities and why governments essentially have to subsidize universal service for inhabitants of rural areas.
And I've read about how a lot of the US population sees new public transportation as something that's implemented for the working class and exactly as something for everyone. So people with cars tend to keep using those.
That is because in many areas, our public transportation is unreliable. Just like we prefer Uber to our disgusting cabs, its going to take work to get most of us to come around to public transportation.
Uber is public transportation. The fact that it uses an app and cars are generally newer doesn't change the fact that it's a slightly more modern version of a taxi service.
I don't particularly count Uber (or taxi's) as public transportation. It is still one car driving one party to a destination, same as the person paying for it driving themselves. I mean mass transit, which are our buses and trains and subways.
And we have already touched on the issues with out taxis in a different thread.
JohnHwangDD wrote: It's not that hard to have small retail like a corner market, sandwich shop, barber, dry cleaner and/or a convenience store in the first floor of something like this, even if it's only 4 stories total.
Nobody's putting in a Walmart Supercenter on the ground level. More like having your neighborhood 7-11 and McDonalds in the suburbs. Rather than having a bunch of spread out houses, they're denser and walkable/bikeable.
Well being exposed to the type of apartments built in Florida, now usually being built as 4 floor buildings in a gated community, this wouldn't work. And we are typically spread out around here. But in denser cities, sure, but we've seen that already.
There was a development in Jupiter, FL that I cannot remember the name of, that I visited once to see a friend. This was a self-contained housing/condo/apartment community with its own restaurants, grocery store, and even movie theater. We even closed down a bar that was mixed in with the condos and a short walk to their condo. It was pretty cool. Nothing in there was more than 2 stories, and the community was pretty spread out. You literally could spend all your time in there and rarely leave it. But this was built with that intent in mind, and where land was plenty available. I haven't see a place like it since. Its been some time since I went there, so I don't know how its holding up. There has been a pretty big migration from small towns to the bigger cities in Florida, and many of these smaller towns are starting to whither.
And I've read about how a lot of the US population sees new public transportation as something that's implemented for the working class and exactly as something for everyone. So people with cars tend to keep using those.
That is because in many areas, our public transportation is unreliable. Just like we prefer Uber to our disgusting cabs, its going to take work to get most of us to come around to public transportation. My local public transportation, SEPTA, is so unreliable most employers frown upon hiring someone without a car because the delays in our buses and trains are the only reliable thing.
Its not just that, but let's say I take a bus or train somewhere. In all likelihood, neither one is going to take me to the door of where I am going to, so then what? I have to find more transport. Someone on my team lives in NJ and commutes TWO HOURS into Manhattan each way every day using trains and subways. Screw that. Now that is certainly extreme, but I remember in college an idiot professor of mine said the state should build a high speed train going from Tampa to Orlando to alleviate the traffic on I-4, which gets backed up from all the moron tourists who can't drive around Disney. I was like, ok so I take a train into Orlando or Tampa and then what? It drops me off at a train station and then how do I navigate the many more miles I might need to to go where ever I am going? Orlando is a huge area. Trying to bounce around using buses or whatever would be really time consuming. And taxis are expensive. For the cost of a taxi to the airport around here, I might as well just drive myself and pay for extended parking. And then there is the weather too. We're known as the sunshine state, and it gets scorching hot here, but in the summer it also rains a lot. Would be a miserable trip.
I think most Americans and I feel that we don't have a lot of time as it is, and just don't want to spend any of it standing at bus stops, or even walking. And then there are those parents who might have to drop off or pick up kids from daycare and run errands after work or even at lunch and things like that. Might work in really dense areas where everything is in walking distance, but the thing about the US, is that it just isn't very dense. There is a ton of room here. So builders are building where land is cheap and that means things are pretty far from each other.
Maybe in 100 years there will be a lot more thought to zoning these things. But to be honest, I live in the burbs. I do not want to live over a business. I do not want to look outside my window and see a trash container. Or the smells. Messy sidewalks, etc. I am a nice 2.5 miles from a group of stores I can get all my shopping done at, and prefer to keep it that way.
And I've read about how a lot of the US population sees new public transportation as something that's implemented for the working class and exactly as something for everyone. So people with cars tend to keep using those.
That is because in many areas, our public transportation is unreliable. Just like we prefer Uber to our disgusting cabs, its going to take work to get most of us to come around to public transportation. My local public transportation, SEPTA, is so unreliable most employers frown upon hiring someone without a car because the delays in our buses and trains are the only reliable thing.
There's also the issue of time, public transport in most situations is way more time consuming. I did a course at a college that was 20 minutes drive away, but I had no car. It was also 20 minutes on a train, but once you add going to the station, waits for connections and the extra walking I was having to leave more than an hour before class started.
Was so happy when I finally got a car and got to cut out all that travel time on public transport. Not to mention getting to avoid mixing with the high proportion of feral commuters. Public transportation over here is considered for the working class because those are mostly the people willing to put up with the headache and wasted time, that and retired folk who have lots of free time and/or can't drive anyway.
Public transport seems to work better in Europe where more people are packed in to smaller areas closer to their place of work, or where public transport can travel to/from major hubs that actually spit you out somewhere useful. The town where I lived in the USA was spread out enough that the buses clearly had issues covering a useful amount of area, even the folks I knew without cars didn't really rely on public transport.
Formosa wrote: Would a cap not just mean that most houses would be the top end of that cap?
In theory a regional based cap based on the local economic situation could allow local people to purchase properties within the area instead of being forced into rental or moving out of the region. The problem is that sellers won't want a cap as they want the best possible sale price. Furthermore as a cap essentially lowers the price it must come with other restrictions and legislation as well; otherwise rental groups would just buy up all the capped properties anyway - it would benefit them as the houses would be more affordable.
Like many issues its not just fixable with a simple slap on a cap; esp in today's world where you can even buy overseas properties with relative ease. Rental is a very attractive market because provided that you approve the right kind of person you can make quite a considerable to a massive income without having to do vast amounts of work (good properties in the right location will basically print money - yes you do have maintenance costs ontop, but the rents should still be able to cover them if managed correctly).
It's all a balancing act as the market does also need rental properties (and they are at least active housing and not as bad as second homes which can take properties out of the housing market and puts additional pressure to build more housing).
BuFFo wrote: No. It is morally offensive to have "Force" dictate what I'm allowed to do with my property.
Ooh, how cute, a libertarian extremist. I'm glad we have people like you to lobby for the rights of individuals to use their property for toxic waste dumps in the middle of densely populated areas, and I support you 100% in abolishing all government that could possibly hinder your private property rights.
I hate to sound critical of the poor guy,but he should probably have been more active in overseeing the property as soon as the weeds in the backyard started growing; that's always a bad sign.
I've seen even worse from renters paying full rent - try a house where rooms are full of bags of trash, and dog poo all over the basement. I've also seen section 8 renters leave a property in better shape than when they moved in after they made many small repairs. In the end, some renters have no respect for the owners at all, no personal pride, and all sorts of odious habits that make them a nightmare to rent to. It's not restricted to section 8 renters by any means.
I do think that section 8 housing should be subject to minimal-notice inspections. That might help the situation a bit...
JohnHwangDD wrote: It sounds like the problem was that he followed the law.
That is very subjective to localities tho. . . The house I was renting out, the property management company had it in contract that they could inspect the house while rented at minimum once a month.
I'm with Vulcan here. . . People are people. There are gak people who pay full price as much as there are amazing people who need assistance, and every range in between. If you're going to rent a property, it helps to know and understand your rights as a property owner for your location.
So remember my earlier posts here about the costs of owning a home beyond the mortgage and all the things that can break? Last weekend I went out to cut my grass and noticed the valve for my reclaimed water was leaking and spraying water all over the side of my house. I was sick with the flu, its was over 90 degrees out, and that is the last thing I wanted to deal with. So had to go to home depot and buy replacement parts. I did a really nice job with the new plumbing, only to find small amounts of water coming out of the new valve handle (manufacturer fault). Are you kidding me. Just not going to deal with that right now. For those that don't know, reclaimed water only costs $9 a month.
But then on Sunday I noticed my hot water heater has a leak. Its the original that came with the house so I can't complain. However a new one runs $600-700, then there is the cost of having it installed with usually runs another $300. I am lucky tho to have a family friend down the street who will install the new one for $75. So actually going to spend a little extra on a really nice unit.
I assume the hot water heater leak and valve leak are linked, probably due to the county kicking up the water pressure in my area. As more and more houses are built, they have to jack that up a bit, and if you have weakness in your pipes, sprinkler lines, etc, that will certainly let you know.
But again, this is the crap that pops up that people do not think about, let alone are prepared for. And many have no choice to whip out a credit card.
If you do not have thousands of dollars set aside for this stuff when you get a house, or are unable to set money aside to build that up while owning a home, DO NOT OWN A HOME. They can be amazing, I love mine, but to say they are expensive and take a lot of responsibility is just scratching the surface.
I would rather we make a law that property has to be lived in for a certain time rather than sit there. When I was in Santa Cruz, we has houses bought up by the Chinese for investment, that just sat there. So you had tons of houses that could be lived in for students, the poor and so on, but nope.
Second home, for example my parents split their time about 60/40 between their house in Ealing, west London and their cottage Beaminster, west Dorset. They bought the cottage after retiring.
I think there is merit in your idea but there are also potential problems.
For example, lots of people in the UK buy holiday cottages and let them out for half the year, while keeping a few weeks for their own holidays. These cottages are registered as businesses and pay no council tax (used to support local services like rubbish collection and road repairs.) Is seven months of occupation enough to qualify?
Due to a legal loophole, they also pay no business rates if the annual turnover is less than £12,000. Obviously this loophole is a modern peculiarity of UK law, but it illustrates the kind of things you need to think about when designing laws that need to balance the varying demands of housing, taxation and property ownership.
I would say the basic problem is the massive inequality that has built up over the past generation, which gives the top 1% the ability to buy all sorts of property while making it very difficult for the bottom 50% to buy any property at all.
Yes people do that, it's a huge problem and is decimating many rural and island communities, so tbh you'll struggle to find anyone except people who own second homes who cares if policies intended to make housing more affordable also end up making owning second homes untenable.
My point is that it isn't as easy as just saying let's have a policy to make owning second homes untenable.
My parents, for example, are "good" second home owners. They pay full council tax at both houses, and take full part in the local communities, going to church, buying things in local shops, visiting local attractions, employing local people as cleaners and plumbers and so on.
A no second homes policy will wipe them ut, but it won't affect the "bad" second home owners who've purchased their properties through company vehicles.
A policy to deal with "bad" second home owners will wipe out the private rental sector including holiday cottages, student halls of residence, and so on, unless very carefully worked out, with lots of caveats and probably loopholes.
Kilkrazy wrote: Second home, for example my parents split their time about 60/40 between their house in Ealing, west London and their cottage Beaminster, west Dorset. They bought the cottage after retiring.
I think there is merit in your idea but there are also potential problems.
FWIW I agree with this last bit. . . Obviously if we the members of Dakka were the governing body of the planet and discussing this issue, we'd need to carefully craft any law like this such that the wrong people aren't punished.
IMHO, the "intent" behind the idea is a good one, lets prevent outside "investors" from buying up hundreds of properties at a time that then let them just sit, creating a shortage and price increase, and then swoop in all heroically while raking in the dough. I'd read an article fairly recently about how theres a neighborhood in Vancouver BC that is 90% owned by Chinese investors. At the same time as these properties are basically all owned by outsiders, apparently only 50% of them are currently occupied all while rental rates keep increasing due to "shortage".
I don't think many of us have too much issue with mom and dad having a summer cottage, or a winter cabin or whatever that they actually use for a decent part of the year. What I think many people do take umbrage at, are situations like I mentioned above, where someone buys a property purely as an investment with absolutely no intention to occupy it, and with potential aims of starving the market for a while to increase their personal profits.
Kilkrazy wrote: Second home, for example my parents split their time about 60/40 between their house in Ealing, west London and their cottage Beaminster, west Dorset. They bought the cottage after retiring.
I think there is merit in your idea but there are also potential problems.
Obviously if we the members of Dakka were the governing body of the planet and discussing this issue, we'd need to carefully craft any law like this such that the wrong people aren't punished.
You know guys, I really think Dakka should be the governing body of the planet. We should start a world revolution and make it so.
Kilkrazy wrote: Second home, for example my parents split their time about 60/40 between their house in Ealing, west London and their cottage Beaminster, west Dorset. They bought the cottage after retiring.
I think there is merit in your idea but there are also potential problems.
Obviously if we the members of Dakka were the governing body of the planet and discussing this issue, we'd need to carefully craft any law like this such that the wrong people aren't punished.
You know guys, I really think Dakka should be the governing body of the planet. We should start a world revolution and make it so.
Well there is some nightmare fuel for me. Dakka shouldn't govern anything...ever..
Kilkrazy wrote: Second home, for example my parents split their time about 60/40 between their house in Ealing, west London and their cottage Beaminster, west Dorset. They bought the cottage after retiring.
I think there is merit in your idea but there are also potential problems.
Obviously if we the members of Dakka were the governing body of the planet and discussing this issue, we'd need to carefully craft any law like this such that the wrong people aren't punished.
You know guys, I really think Dakka should be the governing body of the planet. We should start a world revolution and make it so.
Well there is some nightmare fuel for me. Dakka shouldn't govern anything...ever..
To keep those updated on various housing expenses, I am getting the pavers around my pool cleaned and re-sealed this week. 2-3 years ago it was $700, and will prob be a little more now. This is routine maintenance. I had no idea when I got the house that you even had to reseal pavers, but even still, with all the rain we get here in summer, a lot of black mold gets in the cracks as the sand wears away and it starts looking like crap anyway.
Again, not something you think about when pricing the monthly mortgage payment.
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Oh, and my neighbor who helped me replace my hot water heater was denied home insurance renewal until he replaces his roof, as its hitting close to 20 years. He has no leaks, but they want him to replace it anyway. So he is looking to get a home equity loan to do it. Sounds like a total scam.
And I know of another guy who was selling his home in Miami, and the home inspector failed the house because the roof was 20 years old. Again, no leaks. But this killed the sale, and now he has to replace the roof in order to sell the house.
My neighbors just replaced their roof. The estimates were all over the place, but they settled on a company that did it for $11k. I swear the whole crew looked like illegal immigrants.
I assume I will need to do the same soon as well. And I have never had a leak.
So someone in my neighborhood was able to get the county to replace some of the sidewalks in front of people's houses since the oak trees that line our street are starting to lift some of them up. I have one myself and it did cause some of it to lift, but the county came by and shaved some of it off to smooth it out. Well, that wasn't good enough for a woman who lives in our neighborhood, so she got the county to come out and completely tear up the sidewalk in front of over a dozen houses, cut the roots back, and lay out a new sidewalk. Thus, I got a new sidewalk.
However, in the process of cutting back the roots, they cut right through a sprinkler line. I swear, if you've followed any of these posts you'd see its been one thing after another with my sprinkler system. I didn't have to pay for the contractor to come out and fix it, but the grass around the sidewalk looks like crap from all the action thats been going on there. I would have fixed it myself too, I am not one to make a big deal, but the pipe that needed to be replaced was UNDER the new sidewalk. So I let them dig everything out.
No cost to me, but just goes to show how things can happen.
Also, I have had planter boxes I made on my back patio for years and was all set to build new ones as the old ones were starting to rot (I like plants), but honestly I am sick of this, and this would be my third time building them. I went for pots instead. Normally I detest shopping for stuff like this, and Lowes and HP really have crap when it comes to planters, but I found a couple of local shops that sell some high end stuff. So I dropped over $800 on some really nice glazed pots that should last forever. So between the paver cleaning and sealing, and the new pots and layout, my pool area look brand new.
Also, last winter some raccoons got into my patio area, well, I leave food out for them, and tore up a little of the cushion covers of my really nice wicker sofa out there. I contacted the store I bought them from and they come special ordered from Canada. Well, they screwed up the order and sent me the wrong ones, however, I liked the new ones which were much better quality much more than I did the old ones. So knowing he wasn't going to make any money, he offered to finish off the whole couch for a discount. So for $400 I got 6 new covers. Sounds expensive but this was cheap considering the actual cost of the covers.
So the cost of redoing my pool area is 700 + 800 + 400 and I have still some more pots to buy, and I want to replace my patio table and chairs, which could run $3k.
Pricey I know, but what is the point of having a nice patio and pool if you aren't going to make it look nice. But again, you don't think about these things when you are signing the dotted line.
KTG17 wrote: So someone in my neighborhood was able to get the county to replace some of the sidewalks in front of people's houses since the oak trees that line our street are starting to lift some of them up. I have one myself and it did cause some of it to lift, but the county came by and shaved some of it off to smooth it out. Well, that wasn't good enough for a woman who lives in our neighborhood, so she got the county to come out and completely tear up the sidewalk in front of over a dozen houses, cut the roots back, and lay out a new sidewalk. Thus, I got a new sidewalk.
However, in the process of cutting back the roots, they cut right through a sprinkler line. I swear, if you've followed any of these posts you'd see its been one thing after another with my sprinkler system. I didn't have to pay for the contractor to come out and fix it, but the grass around the sidewalk looks like crap from all the action thats been going on there. I would have fixed it myself too, I am not one to make a big deal, but the pipe that needed to be replaced was UNDER the new sidewalk. So I let them dig everything out.
No cost to me, but just goes to show how things can happen.
I find it ironic that it's always local governments who are big on the "call before you dig" and can fine you if you hit a water line. . . yet they didn't "bother" to check for any lines on your property??
Strongly related, in a few weeks, California will be polling whether to repeal the law that bans rent control. It's one of the more garbage props that I've seen come up, and is unlikely to pass.
Yes, housing is bad in California, but adding rent control will only make things worse.
Do you live in California? From what I read it sounds like a tough place to live as far as owning a home. The amount of money I read people paying makes me queasy. What is worse the materials these homes are made out of, and many are old homes, are the same as everywhere else. Wood, brick, concrete, etc. Its all the same gak. All that extra money is going to location. And then the taxes are pretty high too.
I have pretty much crossed Cali from my list of places I would be interested in living in. But now I hear Oregon and Washington are starting to have issues too.
I have pretty much crossed Cali from my list of places I would be interested in living in. But now I hear Oregon and Washington are starting to have issues too.
I can speak a bit to Oregon and Washington's issues. . . So, in the case of Washington, we have a booming housing construction market. . . There's 3 new home developments being graded or actively built (graded meaning they are laying the sewer lines, prepping the lots/ground for eventual permitting/construction of homes) within 2 miles of my house that I know of, and there's signage for about half a dozen beyond that. The problem is that literally all of the new construction is "luxury" apartments or other similar buzzwords in single-family homes, and thus the majority of the prices are simply out of reach for a lot of people. Combine that with the simply higher cost of living than many other places (I think that much is getting like California). I'm also seeing that the increased pricing on new construction has been having a sort of dragging effect on older (and much older) homes in that their prices are continuing to rise as well. I went on Zillow a couple weeks ago, and there are a number of properties that I can sort of loosely describe as "former meth labs" in Tacoma proper that were 700-800 sq. ft. with a listing price of $280-500k. Now, I bought my home outside of Tacoma, it was new construction when we bought at the end of 2013 beginning of 14, our house is 2400 sq. ft. and we bought for 250k. There just isn't really a "reasonable" option around here. Even my wife's co-worker just bought a house. . . he got a double wide trailer on 2.5-3 acres (or something like that, landwise) for just a bit more than we got our "big" house on tiny land for.
On the Oregon side of the border, it appears quite different. . . Taking the largest "markets" in the state, being Salem and the Portland Metro area, and what I've seen is a zoning/permitting problem. . . In short, they've built all the houses they can based on the zoning, city limits and other legal type things. . . While at the same time, companies like Nike, HP, and others are still hiring more people, so there are still people coming in with a small amount of population growth, but there's no real new housing going in. Obviously this shortage is gonna drive prices up.
Well that means that lenders are going to have to lower their standards on what qualifies for a mortgage loan too, which is going to cause a whole host of issues down the road.
The main reason I post all the crap that gak has costed me recently is to try to drive home the point to those who want to own a home how much more expensive it is beyond the mortgage payment. It’s not like renting. You are responsible for all of it. If you buy beyond your means to save and maintain it, you will drown in debt. A home is probably the most expensive thing you will ever buy and there is a lot to consider.
This week I am off work and guess what I am doing? Repainting my house. And I am doing it myself rather than hire other peeps to do it and it will still cost me hundreds of dollars and time.
