61–70 of 162 posts
This is still a far cry from "affordable", but it's a change of pace from the last six years.
I just built a home. One thing I noticed: Some builders are really stupid about reading the market and knowing what people are willing to pay. They load homes up with luxury features and then wonder why their homes sit vacant. My builder has a vacant home in my neighborhood. He ran Ethernet to all rooms, and put in other silly features, and just couldn't comprehend why his price was too high.
I don't know the details of this home you refer to, but I'd pay more for a home with ethernet in all rooms
Anecdote: I realized how out of the mainstream I was when recently viewing a video produced by a high-profile gamer on Youtube showing off the specifications of his desktop gaming rig via Windows Task Manager. Yes, he had gobs of memory, many cores, and dual RTXs. But what caught my eye was that the network chart showed he was using wireless networking. On a desktop PC with two RTX 2080s. It make me laugh a bit; it made me cry a bit.
"Some home builders are so desperate to attract interest they are offering agents the chance to win Louis Vuitton handbags or Super Bowl tickets with round-trip airfare, if their clients buy a home." That seems like a serious conflict of interests.
It is, but incentives for the buyer's agent are already messed up. They want to close the deal, they don't really care about the price because the bump in their commission for a few extra thousand is nothing compared to the risk of not closing. Buyers will talk up their clients and seller will talk theirs down.
That said, of course there is a group of agents who sweep problems under the rug to close. In my experience, there is a higher than average amount of agents like this among the top producers. But the group is not that big.
Doesn't surprise me, younger millenials won't have a home to sell and will thus have a hard time affording a home in an inflated market. Compounded with the fact that median wages haven't increased that much the last 30 years. Prices have to fall for that group to afford a home.
Eventually there are a ton of empty houses on the market without buyers, sellers are forced to lower their prices. People in upside down mortgages cannot sell as housing prices are lowered and foreclose, further dragging down the price. Market crashes. People with capital swoop in and buy up houses to rent out, driving up rent further as they can set the price.
This collapse will be slightly quicker than the last as the market is not as propped up with sub prime style loans. If salaries don't keep up with inflation a crash is inevitable. Deck is stacked against people without a strong financial base (upper middle class parents) but hey, they can stay on their parents health insurance for longer now, so that's nice.
Doesn't surprise me, younger millenials won't have a home to sell and will thus have a hard time affording a home in an inflated market. Compounded with the fact that median wages haven't increased that much the last 30 years. Prices have to fall for that group to afford a home.
I really feel like this is it. Debt was introduced to parents of millennials. But it took some time to become institutionalized. Now millennials are in debt right as they get out of college. No matter what college you leave, you can have debt if your parents didn’t pay for your tuition. On top of that, wages have been stagnant. Then there is the credit card debt that is very easy to accumulate is you aren’t careful w…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know the details of this home you refer to, but I'd pay more for a home with ethernet in all rooms
So would I, since wired networking is my jam. But I get the point the GP is making. The pool of potential buyers who would appreciate the value of that additional investment is small and (presumably) only getting smaller with time. Anecdote: I realized how out of the mainstream I was when recently viewing a video produced by a high-profile gamer on Youtube showing off the specifications of his desktop gaming rig via…
If the house isn't already wired for CAT5, wireless makes sense.
I am quite convinced it would be possible to build a pleasantly-looking development of $25,000 sale-value housing at 50 or 70 miles away from the urbanized area and connect it with a fast transit rail to the main urbanization. Empty land should be cheap. Buyers should be plentiful. The reason why this does not happen, is because the bureaucracy prevents it. There seems to be a strong political necessity to make accom…
I'm guessing from your comment that you've never actually done the budget on what it costs to turn "cheap" land into somewhere you can build a nice residence.
I just built a home. One thing I noticed: Some builders are really stupid about reading the market and knowing what people are willing to pay. They load homes up with luxury features and then wonder why their homes sit vacant. My builder has a vacant home in my neighborhood. He ran Ethernet to all rooms, and put in other silly features, and just couldn't comprehend why his price was too high.
Isn't this normal by now?
My house is only a few years old but wasn't particularly expensive. When I bought it, it was already wired up with ethernet - I just had to replace the wall plates (they were RJ11 outlets instead of RJ45) and hook up an ethernet switch.
From what I've seen of other homes, it appears to be common for electricians to use ethernet for phone lines. Why wouldn't you? The difference in material costs is neglegable.
Why should this significantly increase the cost of a new home? Re-wiring an old home is annoying, but I don't see any reason why it should cost much for a new home.