2023 Real Estate Observations (Lexington, Canton, Medway: nursing, cats, Americans)

[newenglandgal123]

Originally Posted by robr2

Back to houses - this house I posted a few weeks ago in Burlington at $1.975 is now under agreement:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5...57050608_zpid/

Congrats to the soon to be, proud new owners of the biggest and most expensive home in the neighborhood!

[ca1337]

Originally Posted by redplum33

One of the biggest mistakes people make is thinking they're smarter than everyone else.

I didn't say I wasn't in the 99%.

But you do seem and act like a smartass for sure. Probably another boomer who will treat me like a king IRL when I overpay for his house.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by newenglandgal123

Congrats to the soon to be, proud new owners of the biggest and most expensive home in the neighborhood!

I think Oscar Wilde would consider you a cynic.

I'd venture the value of a real estate purchase is 90+% what you get from personal use and at most 10% the monetary value you get when you sell 10 or 20 or 30 years later. Someone found a house they liked a price they could (likely) afford. Maybe if you are flipping or inexplicably selling every 5 years that percentage climbs, but most people are better off "overpaying" for a house they'll love for a generation than getting a steal on a house they hate living in.

Originally Posted by ca1337

I didn't say I wasn't in the 99%.

No, you implied you weren't in the 99%. You also misrepresented MikePRU, because he only said that 99% of people didn't understand some obscure thing specifically related to his field of employment. I doubt he thinks that is the dividing line between dummies and people that are at least not stupid.

Originally Posted by ca1337

But you do seem and act like a smartass for sure. Probably another boomer who will treat me like a king IRL when I overpay for his house.

I'm guessing you've never bought a house before, because we interacted exactly once with the boomers we bought our house from, at closing, and no one treated anyone like a king.

[MikePRU]

Originally Posted by jayrandom

No, you implied you weren't in the 99%. You also misrepresented MikePRU, because he only said that 99% of people didn't understand some obscure thing specifically related to his field of employment. I doubt he thinks that is the dividing line between dummies and people that are at least not stupid.

I don't know that I would call the correct way to calculate square footage "obscure" but you definitely got my point. It's something a lot of people don't know or understand . . . and why would they? 99% of their lives it's useless knowledge but for people in the real estate industry like appraisers, agents, assessors, architects, etc. it's important to know this. I don't think anyone who is not aware of the proper way to do this is stupid. They just don't know. There are I'm sure plenty of things you all know from your job that I have absolutely no knowledge of. If I had a dime for every time someone told me the square footage I was providing was wrong and then proceeded to tell me how they calculated it in the absolute wrong way, I'd be a rich man.

Anyway, I find it odd that ca1337 is comparing how they measured the house vs. how the agent measured the house. It's quite rare to see an agent measure square footage. Most of them are quite lazy and just take the figure quoted in the tax records. In fact, in my experience most agents don't know how to properly measure square footage. Additionally, the floor plans we provide are for marketing purposes and not exact representations of the house (there's usually a disclosure at the bottom spelling that out) unless you've been provided with an architectural drawing which usually only happens with new construction.

I'm not saying the square footage in the listing couldn't have been wrong. However, it's quite unusual for an agent to generate that number. It's typically pulled from someplace else and the number came from someone much more knowledgeable than the average agent.

[msRB311]

This place has gone down the tubes

[newenglandgal123]

Originally Posted by jayrandom

I think Oscar Wilde would consider you a cynic.

I'd venture the value of a real estate purchase is 90+% what you get from personal use and at most 10% the monetary value you get when you sell 10 or 20 or 30 years later. Someone found a house they liked a price they could (likely) afford. Maybe if you are flipping or inexplicably selling every 5 years that percentage climbs, but most people are better off "overpaying" for a house they'll love for a generation than getting a steal on a house they hate living in.



No, you implied you weren't in the 99%. You also misrepresented MikePRU, because he only said that 99% of people didn't understand some obscure thing specifically related to his field of employment. I doubt he thinks that is the dividing line between dummies and people that are at least not stupid.



I'm guessing you've never bought a house before, because we interacted exactly once with the boomers we bought our house from, at closing, and no one treated anyone like a king.

I presume a lot of the FOMO bidders who have been putting their homes up for sale recently and taking a loss aren't saying that (see the examples that have been posted on one of these threads last week...they are homes where folks paid ~100K over just a year or two ago and now it looks like they'll be lucky to break even or more likely take a loss). To think you'll live in a house for a generation and overpay pay for it doesn't seem smart....so much can happen causing people to have to sell sooner than expected (job loss, divorce, death, etc.).

[redplum33]

Originally Posted by redplum33

One of the biggest mistakes people make is thinking they're smarter than everyone else.

Originally Posted by ca1337

I didn't say I wasn't in the 99%.

But you do seem and act like a smartass for sure. Probably another boomer who will treat me like a king IRL when I overpay for his house.

Not a boomer, not selling a house...and based on what I've read here, you're not even making competitive offers on houses. No idea why you think anyone would treat you like a king.

[matrix5k]

Originally Posted by msRB311

This place has gone down the tubes

If you don't like it you can always leave. I hear South America is nice.

[msRB311]

Originally Posted by matrix5k

If you don't like it you can always leave. I hear South America is nice.

You'd love it there with all those generations living under one roof together.

[matrix5k]

Originally Posted by msRB311

You'd love it there with all those generations living under one roof together.

Why would I leave? I have no issues with this place. I like it.