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Ok, so call me Norty (LOL), I'll gander every so often at the houses I've either owned in the past, or grew up in. Just for giggles. It's especially fun when the house has been sold, so I get to see what changes have been made since I lived there.
What say you?
Have you ever snooped?
Ever been surprised by what owners have done to your old place?
All the time, however the people that bought our first house must love it. They have lived in it for 30 years now. I have looked up her facebook page and caught glimpses of where they seem to have painted the woodwork but our gorgeous wood floors (solid oak) remain. We know the only thing they have done is painted the shutters and garage barn doors. Not crazy over the color but if it pleases them. They also moved the shed we built and took down the fence and paved the driveway. We drive by when we go to visit family. We did a lot of work on that house. We bought it as an unfinished upstairs which my husband did most of the work himself. We removed a wall on the first floor between living room and original bedroom creating an arch support wall to create front to back living space. Added a door to dining room from the front door area. Built a deck and reworked the back step to go down toward the front and back with a landing at the door. He also built a two story detached garage building walls in the basement at night after work and putting them up on the weekends. Crazy times. It is nice to see though driving by and on google view that the house still looks nice from the outside.
California is a whole other animal when/if you've owned a couple of houses from back a few decades and look at their value today right?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zippyman
My parents sold their first house in Flint, Michigan in 1977 for I believe $16,500..
Zillow says it’s worth $17,000 today..
It ceaselessly amazes me, how the country has bifurcated over the past 20-25 years in housing price appreciation. Yes, Flint and San Francisco are opposing outliers. But take any midsized city in the Heartland, and any major metro on the Coasts, and the difference between the two, is staggering.
Recently I sold a house in the Midwest, to flippers. The flippers performed various renovations, and the house has been re-sold. Yes, I've taken voyeuristic interest in the process. The flippers did an admirable job of new finishes, landscaping and the like. But likely they left substantial foundation-issues and waterproofing issues unresolved. If so, then the new owners will find themselves eventually with nasty surprise. If I'm wrong, and the flippers duly repaired the foundation, then it boggles the mind, as to how they'd have managed to recoup their costs.
Elsewhere in the country, the house in which I spent several of my formative years, is now claimed by Zillow to be worth about 10 times of our original purchase-price. It has been thoroughly redone, with a large addition over the garage and wrapping around the house. As with the aforementioned Midwestern house, the finishes are beautiful and splendid. But I do wonder about the structural engineering.
Comparing the real estate market and the stock market, I am nothing short of flabbergasted, as to how stocks are democratized and broad-based. Any villager in Ethiopa (or in Flint, Michigan) can invest in the S&P 500. But real estate is so much a matter of luck, in having been born in the right town, or relocated to the right town upon starting one's career.
I once created a Google map of all the houses my father's extended family lived in from 1880 to 1960 with census records of who lived where. I also had a file of all the webpages I could find with photos of the properties. They were a large family, who tended to play musical houses. Sometimes, sisters moved in with sisters, and children moved in with aunts and uncles when hardship came along. It turned out to be a very interesting study on the growth of my hometown, and my dad absolutely loved it!
Yes! The worst was a house we raised our sons in, had a beautiful yard and garden, etc. and it was for sale last summer as a “flip” because it had been neglected so badly. It made me very sad. The listing only showed the exterior so the interior must been terrible.
I also found a house from my childhood that looks exactly as I remember it-very well kept.
Another of my childhood homes was on a farm that became a golf course. I see it on tv when they play tournaments there (Hazeltine near Minneapolis).
I felt forced to sell my house in Provo, UT due to various circumstances last year (job loss, wanting to at least move closer to Salt Lake City, uncertainty about where my next role would be, eviction moratorium making it infeasible to keep the house as a rental, difficulty of maintaining a mortgage on unemployment, etc)
After being stuck on a temporary contract role that I was pressured to accept (due to requirements to accept the first job you're offered while on unemployment) I've been working this year but haven't had any stability, so I couldn't buy again, and all the while, I've been looking in despair at how much property values have gone up. I should be getting a permanent position soon, but going into the current market is distressing.
...My old house is up 50% *in one year* and it feels like I'm going to be stuck in rentals for the rest of my life.
Last edited by gsilver; 10-26-2021 at 08:03 AM..
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