Beepster


Seriously though this place was third world. I'd have been better off in a tent in Mooch's garage.

The tent isn't THAT bad .....AND ......she lets me in the house for dinner 30 minutes every evening......AND.....Saturdays I get to come in for 90 minutes to watch Saturday night live 




The chosen one is the best thing that has ever happened to me 

Guitarhacker


I have heard that the City of Detroit...or was it Cincinnati (?) are selling houses for ONE DOLLAR to anyone who is willing to move in and fix them up and live there....

I think the problem is... they are located in areas where most folks don't want to live..... hence the empty houses to start with.... 

But just wanted to let you know about the super deals in those towns.   After watching Hardcore Pawn Shop.... I don't think I'd want to live there. 

Yeh they just did that recently in South Bend IN as well.   Bad areas. 


I think one of the stipulations were to live in it for 5 years at a minimum.  (Hell ya might get shot by then)


Heck of a deal but Im one that believes not all money is good money    and thats one of 'em

The tent isn't THAT bad

Mooch4056

Beepster


Seriously though this place was third world. I'd have been better off in a tent in Mooch's garage.

The tent isn't THAT bad .....AND ......she lets me in the house for dinner 30 minutes every evening......AND.....Saturdays I get to come in for 90 minutes to watch Saturday night live 




 The chosen one is the best thing that has ever happened to me 

In that case I'm in. I gotta warn you though... I like to snuggle.

As far as the purchasing a house thing goes it ain't gonna happen. I just don't have the money behind me and even if I did I couldn't physically maintain a property.

I THINK I may have found something nice but it's not exactly where I want and it'll leave me wicked broke but it's a super nice building with a view. The challenge now is  getting them to accept my sorry gimp arse. I guess I'll tell them I'm a writer... which is mostly true. I just don't get paid for it... yet. 

*crosses fingers*

Beepster I can't imagine being in your situation and I wish you the all the best.

I can relate to Herbs views even though there are so many issues with the housing
market I've never understood and never will.

The biggest reason is because of the conventional design. It's just my opinion that people
live in dwellings that have the same dumb design problems from the day we moved out of caves. ( I know that some aren't facing "common" issues)

I could very easily make a list of every stupid thing about a conventional home. Then it is
magnified to an amazing level of insanity when people are stacked on one another. (opinion)
I believe it is much like the viewer in the stands can see the play much better than those
on the field.

Money is without doubt the factor that controls ones selective options.
Then one is faced with choices due to location and availability.

At a young age I remember the impact that "a mans home is is castle" had on me.
By the time I was 18 I could have tested (and passed) to be a plumber and/or a general
electrician. I had the carpentry skills and drafting skills to build a home. There wasn't
anything to do with building a conventional "castle" that I couldn't do and didn't do.

So I helped a friend build his first home. It was a big home on a good size lot...to long ago
to remember the exact dimensions of either.
What I do remember is thinking about how stupid many of the conventional code enforced
requirements where.
We talked and I recommended many alternatives but our hands were tied because we had
to meet inspection requirements and my friend didn't want to spend the time trying to get
our/my modifications approved.
The main issue was that he was borrowing the money from a bank and they would not finance a "custom" home. Simply if he faulted then they figured it would not be easy to
sell it/recover the money.

So....I knew that my "castle" would be at the mercy of conventional stupidity unless I
had the cash and property to do it as I thought it should be done. I wanted control of not
only which direction my front door faced but also what was under my floor and inside my walls...etc. ( so plumbing under concrete is smart conventional design? You have to be nuts to think that is smart....IMO) ...oops...I'm getting wound up now LOL.

From my point of view Beepster.....you are in a position that would scare the living hell
out of me.
First.....not having the cash to avoid all the crazy and down-right stupid issues with a "home".
Secondly....I have always felt that I could face most anything if I had a home base to work from and no reason to worry about losing it.

Unfortunately I never got the opportunity to build ( but it's not over) but I did get a
home base and it's mine. Luckily I got it grand-fathered in so it's also property tax free.
So there is only one cost associated with the house and property which is a city tax of about 17 dollars a year. (excluding utilities naturally)

With this you can understand why your position is so scary to me and that it is complicated
in the fact that should you find a place it is by design to be the thing that irritates me to the bone....it will be a structure that is flawed beyond any logical reasoning mind. It will be
a conventional work of fart.

This situation of yours is not the first I've heard...

Some years back I had a very good friend, he has passed, and we were talking about this as one of his friends had a family and they were struggling with finding a home.

I thought about things for a few days and drafted up a gated community project.
It was designed to include a small non-profit store for basic needs, a community laundry.
A family park that would be in view of all the "homes".
The homes were nothing as we know as conventional. They were shelters designed to withstand tornados. (and ideas I don't care to post) 
The funny part is he got to moving to quick..while he was working on getting the property
he told his wife he was going to clear a large part of their property to build a prototype
dwelling. She went nuts!
Then he passed...after services is when she questioned me if all that was my idea...

So now...I feel for you and wish you the best as I have learned to keep my serious suggestions to myself...and for myself.

jbow

I watch that show my wife really likes on HGTV where they are buying homes, or sometimes renting....and I can not believe the prices in some of those places.

 
+1 Herb.
 
They never have anything close to normal housing. I don't know how anyone lives in some of those places like Toronto or California. They show these small sorta dumpy looking homes that are jammed up against the next house then say that the price is 500k, I'm like WHAT? Either that or it is some palatial estate.
The prices around here are great for the buyer. I shoud have started a "Duck call" business... but it is what it is.
 
J
 
 
 
 

My wife watches those shows and I'll occassionally sit with her through one.  I've asked the same thing - where are the "normal" housing buyers?  these shows only show the ones in the very high housing markets and they're horribly overpriced.  My home is modest but even it is better than some of those houses they're getting 300k to 500k for!  and mine's only worth about 100k!

Wow!  That was almost a Danny Danzi-esque post there Michael! 

(BTW - I've had one of my homes on HGTV...  That's a story for another time and cost me a good chunk of money!   )

@spacey... I used to do construction and reno work before my body gacked out on me and yes... building codes, although important for some things, are WAY over complicated and oppressive. It's a racket to drive up the price of materials and labor.

The thing that I find the worst is the fact that materials have essential triple in price in the past couple decades while the quality has gone straight down the crapper. 2x4s that aren't actually 2 inches by four inches, all twisted and knotty and munched from shoddy milling to the point it takes a half hour to dig through the entire pile at the lumber yard just to get enough decent ones to frame a simple wall. Sheets of plywood that cost $40-50 a pop. Duct and vapor barrier tape at $20 a roll. $50 a can for any kind of decent paint. Blah blah blah. It's horrendous. 

Then there is the overinflated price of homes because of unscrupulous bankers, developers and politicians that crashed the entire economy and made people lose EVERYTHING but the prices are STILL outrageous and the shenanigans are starting over again. People getting screwed because new by laws and building codes in more an more instances don't allow for grandfathering in existing structures so people who could afford their homes at one point no longer can because they're being forced to do tens of thousands of dollars of upgrades on homes that are perfectly safe and habitable as it is then when grandma and grandpa can't afford to do the repairs they are forced to completely abandon everything they worked so hard for over their lives. 

For the first time in god knows how long houses are a POOR investment that'll just suck you dry and the only people that benefit are bankers, realtors and shady contractors/developers. Add to that skyrocketing property taxes and utilities and the American (and in my case Canadian) dream is slowly being killed off. Houses that used to sell for $100 000 are now selling for $500 000. For what? Are they better? Have our wages increased in relation? No. Biggest scam going.

As far as those HGTV shows they drive me NUTS. They have bred an entire generation of homeowners who think just because they watched some clowns on TV completely reno a craphole in a half hour that they are experts on construction. They end up screwing up their homes and then have to hire real pros to come in and fix it (I made a good chunk of my money back in the day from those situations). My mom is kind of like that. I go over there and she's taken perfectly acceptable rooms and made them dumpy and half finished because she's CONVINCED she knows what she's doing. Then she'll hire these guys who work for "cheap" (they are not cheap but a little less expensive than the usual) and THEY screw stuff up and leave things half finished, make a terrible mess everywhere and are kind of jerks (well the boss is... his helper is cool).

So what can you do? Not buy a house, right? Well with governments scrapping rent control and letting landlords get away with murder you pay through the noise with next to know protection if things go wrong. 

Blerg... makes me so mad. 

"So what can you do?"

Now that is the question.

Without cash one is at the mercy of laws and regulations.
With cash and depending on location- one can avoid work around them both.

That is when it pays off to know the important and smart ways to contruct a
real home. And with cash...for about 1/3 the cost of having another build it wrong.

I'm most certain now that you and I could list many of the stupid and silly things that
people take loans out for at 3 times the value and windup making payments for their
life in order to own it...if they make it.

Should we post that list it may hurt or insult. Very good reasons not to do so.

Craig...LOL....
 
I applied for a job- well actually I applied for two different jobs that I didn't want- what I
wanted was the knowledge I would get from doing them.
 
One was at a fiberglass tub manufacturing plant- I had the plans to build a car and it needed
a fiberglass body.
The other was at a wiring manufacturing plant. - I wanted to gain contacts and some other benefits.
 
One of the ladies interviewing me stated.."you've had a great number of jobs...a jack of all trades?" and I replied, "No...most all of them I set the bar but don't like the self appointed title of master".
I didn't get the job but I learned and got all that I would have gotten anyway.
It's hard to take a job when one is smarter then the one they'll be working for....and that is just
to easy to have happen for most of us.
The reason....many years ago that many here may not realize is that when I started working and
the way it was before then, a man would get promoted for being good at completing tasks. Then
it all changed....when a worker got good at something they couldn't afford to move him so they would
promote the ones that were in the way and a hassle to fire.
A complication brought on by the winds of change.

I don't even have a credit card (by choice) I hate the credit racket so much. If I were to ever buy a car or a house I'd want to have all the cash on hand so those vultures don't even get the slightest chance at screwing me. That however pretty much means unless I write a hit album or best seller book I'll never own a home. The car I might be able to swing one day but there's another overpriced money pit.