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It is all about location. I live in the San Francisco bay area and prices very high I believe the median home price for the whole area is $700k in some counties it is over $900k and your average middle class family has a very hard time finding a housing they can afford. But if yougo to some flyover state you can find nice modest homes for $100k or less. When I retire I will be selling my overpriced home and moving to a flyover state when I can buy a house and still have plenty of money left over.
So the problem is not the price of the house it is the price of the house exactly where you want it.
You have no concept of how the real estate market works. Got it.
I don't care what hipsters think I want a city that's 30-70 degrees. For example Eureka and the rest of Humboldt is a perfectly acceptable area in my opinion.
I die in temperatures above 80.
I've been looking to buy my first home and it's tough where I live. I understand supply and demand and that some areas will always be more pricy. All I wish is that the government or whoever would limit the amount of properties than investors can buy or money laundering wealthy foreigners, etc. By all means, people can still make money from real estate, but the greed is out of control. I just want to buy a place to protect myself from the damn rent raises and I probably would've done so already if I was competing mainly with other middle class workers and not investors. For the record, I work in a shipyard and make decent money but still not enough to buy much out here.
"The government or whoever," eh not so much. They're actually not a big machine, apparently, but rather a confederation of fiefdoms most of which are politically motivated and always scrambling to grab their place at the public trough. Seldom do they coordinate well enough to accomplish as much as one might think. Witness the disastrous state the TSA is in currently.
I watch how University of Washington and Bellevue College are run, here locally, it's pretty obvious how the racket works. I'd survive maybe a week in any place driven more by politics than competitiveness.
House near mine is closing for 9% over asking. That's pretty wild, considering what the asking was. This market is basically "extreme" at this busiest time of year, to be sure. It's comparable to mine, another real estate agent has been semi-stalking me until I responded with an Austin Powers Dr. Evil quote for what I'd take to move: "One...MEEEEELLION...dollars!" That shut her up. For the moment...
"Greed out of control" grates on me, though, implying that somehow it's wrong for capitalists to purchase investment properties from the fruit of our labors in (in my case) the 1990s? My now-ex neighbor is a physician in his 50s, who spent quite a bit on medical school twenty five or so years ago getting bit of a late start. He's obviously done well enough. I've been to grad school, paid for in-part with a government loan (thank you Uncle Sam). I paid my student loan back, being smart enough to select a subject with high probability of significant payoff vs. basket weaving, "ethnic studies," or whatever gibberish kids today are whizzing away money on. My neighbor, the good doctor, took a large profit from his home investment and split. I'm sticking around, having no place better to go and assuming I'll work another 10-15 years in this money-printing racket I call a living (management consulting, tech).
The people who bought said-neighbor's home, however: I haven't met them yet, but supposedly are Chinese nationals w/suspiciously rich parents. Wouldn't surprise me if it was an all-cash deal, they closed in under 30 days. Who says Communism doesn't pay? That's right inline with what's occurring all over this area, and in Vancouver BC. The most crooked country on Earth, by a wide margin, probably really is laundering our cash right back at us. The irony is inescapable. That, actually, I "would" support our governments cracking down on (US, Canada). However, considering they're all on the take, too, can't see it happening.
The people who bought said-neighbor's home, however: I haven't met them yet, but supposedly are Chinese nationals w/suspiciously rich parents. Wouldn't surprise me if it was an all-cash deal, they closed in under 30 days. Who says Communism doesn't pay? That's right inline with what's occurring all over this area, and in Vancouver BC. The most crooked country on Earth, by a wide margin, probably really is laundering our cash right back at us. The irony is inescapable. That, actually, I "would" support our governments cracking down on (US, Canada). However, considering they're all on the take, too, can't see it happening.
My sister lives in Vancouver. The houses on either side of hers were sold for $1.5 million, scraped off the lot, and replaced with new construction of the same physical dimensions which is what Vancouver zoning allows. Granted, the Canuckistani Peso crashed but these transactions happened before that when the currencies were more or less at par. Pretty much nobody does expensive kitchen and bathroom remodels in Vancouver. Why would you? The Chinese will just knock the thing down minutes after they buy it. Both those houses have both a kitchen and a separate wok kitchen with a blast furnace gas stove top and hovercraft motor exhaust fan.
My sister lives in Vancouver. The houses on either side of hers were sold for $1.5 million, scraped off the lot, and replaced with new construction of the same physical dimensions which is what Vancouver zoning allows. Granted, the Canuckistani Peso crashed but these transactions happened before that when the currencies were more or less at par. Pretty much nobody does expensive kitchen and bathroom remodels in Vancouver. Why would you? The Chinese will just knock the thing down minutes after they buy it. Both those houses have both a kitchen and a separate wok kitchen with a blast furnace gas stove top and hovercraft motor exhaust fan.
The Bay Area is absolutely insane. I was just looking at zillow -- You can get okay places in the New York City area half what a median Bay Area house costs. It's got to be one of the most outrageous housing markets in the world.
The Bay Area is absolutely insane. I was just looking at zillow -- You can get okay places in the New York City area half what a median Bay Area house costs. It's got to be one of the most outrageous housing markets in the world.
A few years ago an old high school buddy of mine found himself with a blended family of 6 kids and 2 adults. He was an over-the-road driver, but left the road and bought a house in Minot - 6000 sf 8 bedroom 4.5 bath for $165k, and went to work for a defense contractor. That was before the Bakken boom. You can still find reasonably priced housing in areas with stable or declining population. Contrary to popular mythology, there are jobs everywhere that allow a comfortable middle class existence.
All our kids own where they live in the tristate area.
They all found places that fit their income. The places range from upscale scarsdale in westchester ,one of the most expensive towns to live in the country . To howard beach queens a squarely middle to upper middle class area in nyc and then one in new jersey , an upper middle class neighborhood there
All 3 kids and spouses earn very different incomes and all found housing that fits their budgets
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