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I would buy my piece of ground separate from anything else, and then find a contractor to put a house together at a reasonable price.....
I would split or otherwise itemize, separating the would be money making entities from each other......
Then, my home purchase cost would land somewhere closer to the actual mean cost...... as opposed to landing on the "silly" cost of something that is already there..... marked up by some greedy huckster.
Thanks for the nice response. You bring up alot of good points.
We are looking to buy an old home....something built in the early 1900s or earlier, so we won't be buying into any of the new subdivisions responsible for the urban sprawl and overcrowding/burdensome issues.
But as for buying land and building...ok, say you do that. You hire locals to do the work, and buy materials from local suppliers, and invest alot of 'sweat equity'. In the end, you've helped the local economy and come out ok in terms of total expenditures. Now, several years later things change and you need to sell your home. How does that get priced? Commensurate with comparable homes in the area IE: Sq. Ft., Lot size, etc..., knowing those prices are 'grossly inflated'? Or do you price it according to original cost to build with a little profit added on, and have a ridiculously low listing price....all the while knowing you could get more, but choose not to, soas to avoid contributing to the 'greedy mentality' of the mainstream?
Like I said, for me, it's really quite a quandary. I'm having difficulty trying to figure out how to buy a home in a community and NOT add to the hardships of others in the community that are priced out of that same house. It just doesn't seem possible.
Ok, so, many people resent 'new money' coming into their communities, (myself included), driving home prices through the roof, making it impossible for longtime residents to buy. Adding insult to injury, these homebuyers aren't even working in the community. They are commuters that, as is the case in my area, drive 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours to work, where the wages are much higher. How can locals making 1/2 as much ever compete in that type of market????
I just don't see a viable solution here. What do we all want to happen to keep us happy? Where is the 'happy medium'? Stopping progress & growth isn't an option. It's just not going to happen. So what do we do????
I don't know...I'm just thinking out loud. And no, I'm not trying to be a Smart A** or Pi** anyone off...It just seems like a losing battle at this point. But then again, I'm surely no Real Estate/Financial analyst, so if there is an answer out there, who has it?
This web-site may have started with the intention of only good positive feedback. That said, welcome to reality check .com. SOME people have a negative feeling for those coming to MT, Its a little fact some whine over because its not "positive" for them. Not all care if a place has a tofu/starbucks etc feel. Myself I just want a good cup of coffee. They also dont stand for illegals, but thats a diff thread. For those that want to come here, you dont have to ask for permission or acceptance. Nor does anyone have to like it. For the most part we are VERY nice people, that I ask you please bring with you, Not attitude. Good luck.
You don't know how sad it is to see the places you use to ride your bike and fish, just get torn up and turned into shopping malls, subdivision and big box stores, some movie stars hobbie ranch, so some fat cats can make money and people rich or poor are just moving there for the sake of moving there are creating the same problem they left behind.
I just started reading this thread... but OMG! Fight the shopping malls and the big box stores and subdivisions! I HATE those things! And I live in a city!!
I'm all FOR density (which they probably fight in Montana) -- but there is nothing nicer than those European style shopping malls with the condo housing over them. If they have to put in more housing for Baby Boomers, vote for the Condos over the shopping areas! It's not awful and it actually creates that kind of "olde tyme" atmosphere like little Swiss towns. Plus Baby Boomers love living right over the Starbucks. These types of developments are a really nice exchange for more housing and more shopping -- plus they don't have to destroy all the wilderness areas to build them.
But I would never give in to an additional subdivision or more big box Wal-Marts.
You know, Wal-Mart is one company that has never learned how to build vertically. Costco has stores in Japan, where there is very little room, so Costco has learned how to build UP rather than OUT. Wal-Marts go into communities and they only build OUT. They build massive buidlings and then take up tons of acreage for parking. This is CRAZY because they can't do this in other countries! They can't do this in Manhattan either! Montana puts up with this crap because they "supposedly" have a lot of space -- but they don't have to! If the people in Montana would fight it, you could have compact Wal-Marts too!
Oh well... Off my soapbox... I just hate seeing communities turned into suburbs. I think I actually hate the idea of suburbs. I'm okay with cities and towns but I don't like sprawl.
Ladyflyfish....
Let me address some of your comments...."why don't I just move"... because this where I live, it's home, it's where my children were born, it's where their relatives live, it's where my friends are, job, etc are. I'm not just some foo-foo yuppie, who lives some free life style, and into moving somewhere to indulge my life style. You might say I have roots here, but if you are a transplant you might not be able to relate to that. Family and friends are more important than beauty and surroundings, I know I'm old fashion and dated.
Second I don't see where speaking up to express an opinion that more and more montanans are embracing these days is being angry. And I suspect you have enough sense to realize that, and also suspect that you use the reasoning to just win a point. It's a common technic.
I've also been to your part of the state, I use to live out that way, last I heard you are not immune to rapidy esculating realestate prices, a direct effect of it's close proximity of Bozeman no doubt, and a disire for the well-to-do to find their Montana Dream (our nitemare). And I'd suspect you'd be the first person to blow their top when they start putting in a Trout-View Estates across the road from you and crowding up your fishing hole. Your area is changing, if you been there any lenght of time you must realize that. The last time I went down to the Madison valley to fish, it was non-stop montana dream houses from Ennis to West Yellowstone. to find some peace I thought I'd hike back in to a small stream I use to fish their as a younger and more agile man....silly me, I didn't find much peace there either.
My comments about Missoula and it's people are as much in humor as they are in truth, people that live there make fun of it all the time too, just a thought to put my previous comments in better context.
Montana is not what it use to be only a few short years ago, any person living here more than a few years doesn't need anyone to tell them that. California and the northwest coast use to be open and free just like montana, and here's the important point, that was only a few generations ago, and as little as one in some cases.
Yes we do need change, we need to change what is currently happen here, that is the kind of change we need, we need a change of mindset before we lose everything we've got, or what little we have left. We've had some 15 years now of this growth mentality, and now it's time for a change. They had 15 years to make their money and expliot montana. Now it's time to change and preserve what is left. I think montanans thinking on my side of the fence have seen enough lose of their life style, their way of life, not to mention the financial hardship it will bring on our children who will need to find and buy a place of their own someday.
The government isn't going to do anything and neither are the realestate, developers or growth type people, they only thing they will do is passify use with silly notions of "controlled growth" and "affordable housing".
So I feel it's time for us everyday people just to be start letting it be known that we don't appreciate them, their type or their ways, and yes we don't want them here, we like our state the way it is or was. They had their turn now it's ours.
Ladyflyfish, you know if you live where you do, why you do, for it's peace, beauty and serenity, no doubt, well the Bitterroot and Flathead valleys use to be that way, less than a generation, a short generation ago, to be specific 20 years ago. I'm sure you wouldn't want your area to wittness those changes, now would you ?. But you are embracing the very ideas that will bring those changes about. I suggest that you try, for your own good, if not others, looking past the mountains that surround your valley, look over into the adjacent valleys, becasue they'll be coming for you and your life stlye next.
The USA went from 200 million to 300 million in population between 1960 and now -- that's an additional 1/3 growth in population. You didn't think any of those people would move to Montana?
You can pine as much as you want for the good old days, but they are never coming back.
UB50 I LIKE youre idea about wal-mart and such building up not out. I guess like most we got used to wider is better. What a light bulb just went on! I hope to see something like that, anywhere would be great. As to condos, I could never live that way, not even if im retired. I could share the land with my son or brothers but thats all.
UB50 I LIKE youre idea about wal-mart and such building up not out. I guess like most we got used to wider is better. What a light bulb just went on! I hope to see something like that, anywhere would be great. As to condos, I could never live that way, not even if im retired. I could share the land with my son or brothers but thats all.
Yeah, but for a lot of "Boomers" it doesn't matter. They are perfectly fine living in the best of areas on top of other people. I wouldn't mind living over a Starbucks myself!
A lot of these areas that don't like sprawl (which I also hate) should start looking into vertically developing downtown areas. They don't have to be awful! They can follow that European style where housing is put over stores! It's really quite quaint when you see it completed. You frequently have areas that are like plazas with "high rises" (like 3 or 4 stories high) with balconies overlooking the plaza area... It's really quite cool. Check out Pasadena California and the Mall that's on Green St. It has a Macy's and a big Grocery Store but the parking is underground and the living areas are built overhead. The Grocery store is part street level but also has an entry area in the parking garage. There is no street level parking for the Mall.
The best thing about building like this is that you leave all the nice mountains and the open spaces.
A lot of older people really don't want to take care of an acre of land or more.
the USA went from 200 million to 300 million in population between 1960 and now -- that's an additional 1/3 growth in population. You didn't think any of those people would move to Montana?
You can pine as much as you want for the good old days, but they are never coming back.
Another genius, actually some states do/did go down in population while the rest of the country went up, but that's besides the point here.
So UB50, how long did it take you to figure out "they are never coming back" ? .............you must be a very wise man, I could never have figured that out on my own.
Actually population growth and expansion AREN"T inevitable, if not for the imigration, legal and ILLEGAL the USA population would pretty much be stable. If you haven't seen the problems that this continuous growth and expansion mentality has caused, go ask an American Indian for a refresher course.
And you don't have to be genuis to know when "enough is enough", unfortunately alot of people don't see it that way and will sacrifice everything around them even their way of life to make a buck, of course once they get 'theirs' they're usually to first ones to buy the get-a-way mansion on Flathead Lake.
People will **** and moan over and over again about what has happened to their cities, while they take whatever they have to offer, and then wanna move someplace like Montana and start the whole process all over again. I said it before and I'll say it again..............A local politican quite in touch with the community told me "80 percent of the people here would be perfectly happy if all this growth would just stopped"..........call it the will of the people.
"Pine for the old days"..........I think of it as more like, we'd like to live in a decent place, you know something like the "last best place"......but the "last best place"........has been turned in to "Just another place to make a buck by developers".
Say what you want but in 30 years........99 percent of the people will be wishing it was still "like it use to be".......and no "managed growth", "controled growth" doesn't work, if it did we wouldn't be having this converstation. It's like managing a tumor, which is not a solution to the problem.
If you've paid any attention in life you've probably learned that there is a certain phenomena that occurs in some human beings, where they will beleive anything they have to believe and anything they have to that sooth their conscience in order to get or do what they want........and such is the mind set of the expansionist.......they all know they've turn our cities into open sewers of debris, human and otherwise, and yet they continue on, all for the sake of a buck. Enough said "A word to the wise is sufficient".........for all the rest, all the words in the world won't knock a lick of sense into their heads.
And why am I so mad, you might ask.........well i'm not, i'm actually very calm and sincere in my writting.
Another genius, actually some states do/did go down in population while the rest of the country went up, but that's besides the point here.
So UB50, how long did it take you to figure out "they are never coming back" ? .............you must be a very wise man, I could never have figured that out on my own.
There actually is one very positive thing about this growth and that is the fact that it helps to even out the age spread in the overall population which tends to keep our number of workers versus retirees in balance. Let me explain what I mean. Many European countries and Japan have very low birth rates and as a result they have a huge number of citizens approaching old age and a shrinking number of young people entering the work force to replace them. This is creating a future where there's not enough workers to fill the jobs and so many seniors that they can't afford to take care of them. It's something they're very concerned about and they should be. You've made some good points about how we depend on growth too much to sustain our economy and I agree with alot of that but there is a positive side to the situation as well.
There actually is one very positive thing about this growth and that is the fact that it helps to even out the age spread in the overall population which tends to keep our number of workers versus retirees in balance. Let me explain what I mean. Many European countries and Japan have very low birth rates and as a result they have a huge number of citizens approaching old age and a shrinking number of young people entering the work force to replace them. This is creating a future where there's not enough workers to fill the jobs and so many seniors that they can't afford to take care of them. It's something they're very concerned about and they should be. You've made some good points about how we depend on growth too much to sustain our economy and I agree with alot of that but there is a positive side to the situation as well.
MTguy....good point on your side too..........
MTguy do you mean, as is the case in our country with the problem with social security, where we don't have enough young workers to pay into the system ?
But I'd say if we don't have enough workers to fill the jobs than that would force wages up...yes/no ? I would think so, in which case with higher incomes they would be paying more into social security.
I'm also one, who for better or worse, doesn't beleive in a social security system, the government takes away our own money and gives it back to use (in a round about way), I for one feel like I could save my own money and take care of myself, I don't need 'big brother' to do it for me, as I feel no one has my interest at heart better than I do, bear wittness to the current situation.
Actually there is NO problem with our or other social security systems, it's just one of those government phoney problems. They will do what they have always have done, just give us less, but make us think it's more. With the phoney inflation rate the government reports it has already screwed over the Great Generation, by not making their payments keep pace with the real inflation rate. It was a crime how they screwed them over, witness my parents, your's too. And as far as this generation is concerned, they simpley won't give you as much..........it's the same old story, And if push really does comes to shove, they'll just print more money, that is to say borrow money thru sales of Treasury Bonds, and carry the balance foward with re-financing indefinetly, with no intentions of ever paying it back. It should be obvious that's what they are and have beening doing. They will inflate away our social security and their own debt, like they always have. Telling us there is problem with SS is just another big governemt trick to make us feel we are all in debt to them for are own well being and we need them. Nothing new there. You know darn well if there was a real problem there they'd never tell us about it. Mark my words one day with a slight of hand and no real action taken they will declare the SS system fixed....you'll be screwed over and appluading them for doing it.
So I respect you point of view, but would simply challenge it with my own.
it's the same old story, And if push really does comes to shove, they'll just print more money, that is to say borrow money thru sales of Treasury Bonds, and carry the balance foward with re-financing indefinetly, with no intentions of ever paying it back. It should be obvious that's what they are and have beening doing.
Many of these $$$ are ending up in the pockets of Asians, who, loaded with $$$, come over here to invest and spend them. This is part of what drives the cost of real estate in California. I own stock in a Chinese company and another shareholder (Chinese) was explaining to me that there are more Chinese millionaires (numerically) than there are American millionaires. The only way for Asians to spend those dollars is to spend them here.
A lot of people in California complain about Spanish-speaking immigrants but I don't believe many of them have paid attention to the areas that are becoming predominantly Asian.
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