Home buying thread

Haus

Haus

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Sanrith Descartes said:
Where people are buying these houses is also a big factor of price affordability.

Brand new sfh builds in the 1500-2000 sqft range on a quarter acre can be had in central Florida for low to mid 200's.

Instead people will pay double or triple to avoid the commute to Orlando or Tampa for work.
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What boggles my mind is how many will buy homes in much more expensive areas close in to town, and then work jobs which are predominantly remote. Hell, my current plan is buying somewhere an hour plus outside any notable city and moving there because I can do my job now remote for the most part and Starlink in Texas has the bandwidth to support that plan.


Palum said:
Lmao as if by magic

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This is a variant on my current plan. Find a place with an existing small or manufactured home on it (single or doublewide). Then leverage that space while I have the house I want built. Then afterwards, relocate into the main house and use the manufactured for my mom in all likelihood.
 
TJT

TJT

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OU Ariakas said:
I had friends that grew in stable middle class families that moved into trailer parks out of high school because it was cheap. The younger generation needs to be taught how to share housing, cook, and save their goddamn money for important things like a house.
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While I completely agree the starter homes today are not in the relative price range they are when I bought my starter home. If I were to do the exact same thing I did in 2005 in 2015 it would have cost me significantly more of the income I was earning than it did.

When I was 18 I joined the army and I saved prodigiously. My personal tastes were always cheap. When I got out in 2010 I rented cheap rooms with roommates both in university and when I first moved to Austin. Up until I had my own apartment alone for 1 year until I got my house in 2015. IDK how in reach a house would be because in the tech career path the entry level salaries are still $50k-$80k. You could probably reasonably expect something close to $70-$75k as a junior developer here in Austin. But I have also hired about a dozen fresh grads in the past 5 years and all of them got $70 or under.

Which just doesn't get you far right now, and this is coming from someone who had no student debt or any other obligation which is outside the norm as well.
 
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Falstaff

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lurkingdirk said:
I have the opportunity to buy a home in easy walking distance to Notre Dame. I could pay cash for it. I could rent it for sports weekends, football, hockey, and basketball (and the odd lacrosse weekend). Just by renting it I could easily pull in about $40K a year just in weekend rentals. The house would be unoccupied most of the time, giving me the chance to be in it and make sure everything is okay. But a while ago I sold all my rentals and declared I would never do it again. This feels different to me, and I'm contemplating it.

What do you guys think? Worth the risk of getting out of town people partying at a football game in for a weekend to make money while dealing with the consequences of tailgating?
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Yes absolutely. Notre Dame fans are the most insufferable pieces of shit but they will go bankrupt supporting that shitty school.
 
TJT

TJT

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Sanrith Descartes said:
Where people are buying these houses is also a big factor of price affordability.

Brand new sfh builds in the 1500-2000 sqft range on a quarter acre can be had in central Florida for low to mid 200's.

Instead people will pay double or triple to avoid the commute to Orlando or Tampa for work.
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A 90 minute or 2 hour commute both ways is truly AIDS of the highest order and a cancer upon life in our society.

I biked to work in Tech Ridge area of Austin for like 6 years. I eventually had to commute downtown, it was okay only because I was able to take the train and just read most of the way.
 
TJT

TJT

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lurkingdirk said:
I have the opportunity to buy a home in easy walking distance to Notre Dame. I could pay cash for it. I could rent it for sports weekends, football, hockey, and basketball (and the odd lacrosse weekend). Just by renting it I could easily pull in about $40K a year just in weekend rentals. The house would be unoccupied most of the time, giving me the chance to be in it and make sure everything is okay. But a while ago I sold all my rentals and declared I would never do it again. This feels different to me, and I'm contemplating it.

What do you guys think? Worth the risk of getting out of town people partying at a football game in for a weekend to make money while dealing with the consequences of tailgating?
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This seems like a nobrainer. My only experience with similar things is Texas A&M where houses near the stadium are equally as profitable. Make them pay an absolute premium for the place and keep it barebones so drunk antics don't set you back too bad.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

Sanrith Descartes

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TJT said:
A 90 minute or 2 hour commute both ways is truly AIDS of the highest order and a cancer upon life in our society.

I biked to work in Tech Ridge area of Austin for like 6 years. I eventually had to commute downtown, it was okay only because I was able to take the train and just read most of the way.
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Commutes are relative. The buyer has to ask a question. Buy a house in an affordable area or rent in an overpriced city. Over the long term the price appreciation of the house will in all likelihood exceed the cost of the commute. And then there is the quality of life question.

Everyone values things differently. Paying $700k at 7% interest for a $200k house to save an hour each way is worth it to some people. Not to others.
 
Kiroy

Kiroy

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TJT said:
While I completely agree the starter homes today are not in the relative price range they are when I bought my starter home. If I were to do the exact same thing I did in 2005 in 2015 it would have cost me significantly more of the income I was earning than it did.

When I was 18 I joined the army and I saved prodigiously. My personal tastes were always cheap. When I got out in 2010 I rented cheap rooms with roommates both in university and when I first moved to Austin. Up until I had my own apartment alone for 1 year until I got my house in 2015. IDK how in reach a house would be because in the tech career path the entry level salaries are still $50k-$80k. You could probably reasonably expect something close to $70-$75k as a junior developer here in Austin. But I have also hired about a dozen fresh grads in the past 5 years and all of them got $70 or under.

Which just doesn't get you far right now, and this is coming from someone who had no student debt or any other obligation which is outside the norm as well.
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I did the same thing in the navy - saved my ass off and bought a small fixer upper starter home when I got out. After an innitial fixing of some big problems just worked on it slowly over the next few years. I think a big problem is younger folks entering the housing market are incapable of even basic repairs and fixes, and unwilling to settle for smaller older homes. They'd rather just bitch and moan and rent. Pretty much everywhere I've lived there's been a shit ton of reasonably priced (relatively) "starter" homes that were small and needed work, but livable. Every younger person I knew who was looking wouldn't even think about getting into one of those. I honestly think the only market for those homes nowadays are tradesman and some of the few men who are into that shit.

It's a basic skill and literal entitlement issue. Another result of our society shitting on men for the last 4-5 decades.
 
C

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Kiroy said:
Pretty much everywhere I've lived there's been a shit ton of reasonably priced (relatively) "starter" homes that were small and needed work, but livable
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What places are these? There's a profound lack of starter homes in many areas because the economics of building are unfriendly to small footprints, and if there is a place that's small and cheap it's prohibitively far from employment, in a dogshit school system, or both. What would have been starter homes 20+ years ago are occupied by boomers aging in place and not for sale.

My wife and I skipped the starter home entirely. We found rentals where the cost of tenancy was below the cost of ownership, saved and invested the difference, and bought a more upscale house when we needed to settle down long-term for the kids. We're paying for premium real estate now, but we get 10/10 schools and that's still way cheaper than a private education for two kids. Plus it freed us up to job hop early on and get on steeper career trajectories.
 
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Falstaff

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TJT said:
This seems like a nobrainer. My only experience with similar things is Texas A&M where houses near the stadium are equally as profitable. Make them pay an absolute premium for the place and keep it barebones so drunk antics don't set you back too bad.
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And with ND you are more likely to get dads and their friends and families from Chicago burbs than you are to get college kids.
 
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Big Phoenix

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Gravel said:
Yeah, this is definitely a case of both being true. It's been the case for at least the last decade that people expect to live in a house as large and as nice as their parents did, while still in their 20s. Basically skipping all the starter homes.
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While true, is it any different from the mindset of the young people buying "starter homes" in the 50s and 60s? Starter homes then must have been lavish mansions compared to what most people's grand parents grew up in. For example my mom grew up in a house with no ac, no heat aside from a fire place.

 
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Lanx

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BoozeCube said:
Pretty much this, the idea of a starter house at least on the gulf coast of Florida here is long gone. It's either 500k+ 3bd/2ba 2000sq+ or apartments, and a few retirement trailer park communities.
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starter homes were fine, until mtv cribs and social media keeping up w/ jones

now milenials are embarressed that they don't have vaulted ceilings
 
C

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Big Phoenix said:
While true, is it any different from the mindset of the young people buying "starter homes" in the 50s and 60s? Starter homes then must have been lavish mansions compared to what most people's grand parents grew up in. For example my mom grew up in a house with no ac, no heat aside from a fire place.

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This is the real problem:

(Charts are little stale for these particular comparisons, but nothing substantive has changed. Note the first chart includes trailers, so it's really worse than that.)

harvard_jchs_housing_undersupply_hermann_2019_fig_1.png

4ef0c36becad04520d000011


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Fucker

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Captain Suave said:
What places are these? There's a profound lack of starter homes in many areas because the economics of building are unfriendly to small footprints, and if there is a place that's small and cheap it's prohibitively far from employment, in a dogshit school system, or both.
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The county here owns some land, and they are going to develop it. 100 homes at minimum $350k or $450k. It has owned the land forever, so the cost to develop is pretty low. They could easily specify $200-$250k homes, but 100% they are going to settle on $350k homes for more property tax. All of the houses will be sold moments within listing because the area is nice and has a short, easy commute to a city.

Everyone has big ideas, and no politician wants to staple their name to a development of cheap, affordable houses.
 
M

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The easiest solution is the tax code needs to accurately assess multiple home ownership with a simple sliding scale. If a mom and pop wants 1-2 houses to rent fine, but make it a premium. If an LLC has 50 and the built in maintenance and managers, then make it more. Homes are like any asset, if you can afford it you should buy it. But homes are also needed for a functional society, and policy needs to be promoting availability of housing for people to, you know, actually live in and be part of a community.

Just in this thread alone, how many are land lords? How many bought that either in times past when it was much cheaper, inherited it, or have cash to outbid locals? Nothing wrong with any of that mind you, but it eats housing stock without giving the next generation a chance. And if you can afford it great, but tax it accurately.

A lot of young people suck. A lot of old people suck. Those statements do not alter that unequivocally houses are astronomically more expensive relative to any income metric at any time since the 1950s, save some brief periods around 07-08. You can Google this and find any source. Many who claim to could not pull yourselves from your bootstraps now without doing a lot more than you did.

Society in many cities is only functioning due to legacy real estate. Nurses, teachers, sanitation workers on average cannot afford homes in communities they work based on income unless they bought 3 years ago. That’s a problem.
 
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OU Ariakas

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MrSpitz said:
The easiest solution is the tax code needs to accurately assess multiple home ownership with a simple sliding scale. If a mom and pop wants 1-2 houses to rent fine, but make it a premium. If an LLC has 50 and the built in maintenance and managers, then make it more. Homes are like any asset, if you can afford it you should buy it. But homes are also needed for a functional society, and policy needs to be promoting availability of housing for people to, you know, actually live in and be part of a community.

Just in this thread alone, how many are land lords? How many bought that either in times past when it was much cheaper, inherited it, or have cash to outbid locals? Nothing wrong with any of that mind you, but it eats housing stock without giving the next generation a chance. And if you can afford it great, but tax it accurately.

A lot of young people suck. A lot of old people suck. Those statements do not alter that unequivocally houses are astronomically more expensive relative to any income metric at any time since the 1950s, save some brief periods around 07-08. You can Google this and find any source. Many who claim to could not pull yourselves from your bootstraps now without doing a lot more than you did.

Society in many cities is only functioning due to legacy real estate. Nurses, teachers, sanitation workers on average cannot afford homes in communities they work based on income unless they bought 3 years ago. That’s a problem.
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I don't think you are getting it. The people that rent "starter" houses from us are not getting pushed out if the market by high prices. They are either unable to qualify for a home loan or move jobs/towns enough that owning would cost more than renting.

The people that should be buying our 2/3 bed 1/2 bath houses would not look twice at them because they are older and small. They are the ones going into crippling debt buying city suburb houses with 4 bedrooms, an office, and a bonus media room when they are newlyweds because that is what they have been told they deserve.

Taxing landlords more would lead to vacant houses, not some sort of home ownership Renaissance.
 
moonarchia

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Haus said:
I'm in a similar situation. Mother lives alone in the house my grandparents purchased in the 50's. She's getting to the point where she might have to move in with us soon which I want to put off, not because I don't love her, but because I know it will drive the woman who makes my dinner slowly mad over time. Same plan here, property mgmt company will rent out that house.

My one alternative plan is to execute the "moving to the country , gonna eat me a lot of peaches" plan. Buy land in the country, something with a small house or single/double wide on it. Build my forever home there, move mom into previously existing house, and move us into new house which would be less than 100 yards away. Property mgmt to then rent out both her house, and the house I currently live in.
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Sir, unless you are waiting for at least 2028 you will not become a President of the United States of America.
 
Haus

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moonarchia said:
Sir, unless you are waiting for at least 2028 you will not become a President of the United States of America.
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Maybe not, but every year as I eat the peaches I prefer I take the pits from them and have been throwing them in dirt. Each year this seems to result in around 6-10 peach saplings. I've been accumulating them in planting containers in my back yard right now. So at some point this year I need to find some land to go plant them on. So some day.. in the future... You might eat peaches that come from a can, and were put there by a man, and that man might in fact be me.

As for presidential aspirations... I have no desire to be president of THIS country. Now... Say things should arise which cause a certain state I live in to once again decide it needed to be it's own country. THAT might be of interest.
 
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