this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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Housing Bubble 2: Return of the Ugly
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What is this doing to the housing market?
I am 40 and single. I make 90k a year, I have 130k in total proceeds from the sale of my previous house I owned for 17 years which will go towards the down payment and initial repairs/upgrades with hopefully 10k to savings, and I have very good credit.
I cannot find a house I can afford. If it's less than 350k, it's either a complete disaster on the inside requiring 50k or more to make decent, it's under 1500 sq feet and very claustrophobic inside, it's a cheaply built house in a cookie cutter neighborhood that's already showing it's quality, or it has less than 2 full baths and a 1 car garage. Or the taxes in the area are over 7k a year.
And a LOT of the houses have the same gray vinyl flooring that's as ugly as it is cheap.
Your comment shows American relationship with space of their homes. I live in <1500 sq feet home with my girlfriend and I wouldn't call it claustrophobic.
It's really dependant on how the layout is. Generally 1500sqft isn't a problem however if it has 5 rooms squeezed into the house it begins feeling cramped especially if you have a large family. I have 1800sqft and the first floor has plenty of space but upstairs has a low ceiling (6.5ft) and about a 2ft wide hallway leading to 2 full bedrooms, a full sized bath, and a small guest room that's only slightly bigger than a broom closet. There isn't a way to have rooms downstairs so I consider my upstairs cramped but my overall living conditions fine. Now imagine a single floor utilizing that space needing just as many bedrooms and it begins getting cramped with the kitchen, living room, dining room.
How often do you host dinner parties? How often do more than 4 guests attend? Do you want to have family over for the holidays? Do you ever plan to have kids? These are pretty common reasons to need at least 2 baths and 3 bdrms.
Mass market single family housing is a disease that the developers have perfected. Using the cheapest materials, in the cheapest way, with the laziest inspectors.
It's even worse when you get outside of the cities into the county. At least here in Texas, that means there are no building inspections. You just have to trust that the builder made it right.
And don't depend on the warranty to save you. The common 10-year warranty is a lie. It's 1-year cosmetic (there are no visible cracks in the wall), 2-year functional (there are cracks, but everything still works), and 10-year structural (the doors no longer close, the wiring is failing, and the foundation is more like gravel now, but the building hasn't actually been condemned - which it won't be because there are no inspectors).
I work in the development department of a city that's and enclave for the ultra-rich. Literally every household in the city is millionaires or better.
Every house in the city is unique. Every build site requires civil and structural engineering. Every home has an architect designing it to be a unique structure. The average new build here is 8-10 million dollars, with the big ones being 50 million+.
We're talking tennis pavilions on the roof, indoor arboretums and galleries, the works.
And they're all built cheaply and fall apart within a decade.
They're shitty houses, but when people are dropping 8-figures on them, they can afford to drop a couple million more on a remodel every 5-10 years.
You can't buy a quality house anymore.
I'm starting to think the play is to buy undeveloped land and just bite the bullet on the cost of building a house/a road to the nearest govt maintained road.
Unless you're physically building it yourself, it's still gonna get corners cut at every stage.
Also, don't underestimate the drainage and erosion control engineering required for a home and a road. Those cookie cutter neighborhoods have regional drainage and detention. Your undeveloped land won't.
I'm sure with some research you could find a company willing to follow your specifications and instructions, but obviously that comes with cost.
To your second point, thanks for the heads up. There's plenty more research that I need to do before I worry about drainage, but I'll keep the thought in mind.
Septic and Drainage should come before any kind of detailed architecture. It'll save you 30 grand in Engineering revisions if you don't have to re-do the drainage plans.
Also, never let an architect be in charge of a project. It's like having the font designer be in charge of office software.
Where are you looking?
NW ohio, no more than an hour from work.
How many baths can you be in at once?
I think it means he can't reasonably rent a room if the tenant doesn't have their own bathroom.
I'm trying to think of resale value, especially since 1.5 baths around here stay on the market for a very long time.
So you want house with a high value but don't want to pay for one. That's your complaint.
Bro makes 90k a year, he's barely scraping by and is living paycheck to paycheck. Having 2 bathrooms is like the minimum that you need in a house. Anything less is like third world country living.
I sometimes wonder if I'm living in an entirely different America than other people
Have you checked? Sometimes I don't know what the fuck species I am.
If you have to ask, you're probably some form of goblin or orc.