The house I was born in sold for $4000 • Hacker News Board

Re: The house I was born in sold for $4000

#121

Post by dennisgorelik » Tue, May 28, 2013, 6:52 AM UTC

blazespin wrote: post #17

OP neglects to mention if there were any back taxes or water liens owed. Or if the house had been condemned. All I could find was one lot (not house) under 8K. http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Jamestown-NY/pmf,pf_pt/...

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/35-Barrows-St-Jamestown-NY...

Sold on 8/16/11: $3,955

There are multiple houses that were sold below $4K there.

You probably forgot to turn on "recently sold" filter on Zillow.

http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Jamestown-NY/pmf,pf_pt/...

Re: The house I was born in sold for $4000

#122

Post by sliverstorm » Tue, May 28, 2013, 6:55 AM UTC

dfc wrote: post #109

sliverstorm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really buy it. The hallmark of shantytowns is everything is "half-assed". I can't see tech workers breaking out the saws and sandpaper and building quality neighborhoods in their spare time, and nobody will invest real money and labor into something you intend to bulldoze in 3-5 years. You will also get a domino effect; people with money and the desire for a nice place to live will automatically avoid your sh…

"I can't see tech workers breaking out the saws and sandpaper and building quality neighborhoods in their spare time" I should have you over to my house sometime. I completely tore out the downstairs of my house. The guy that's helping me with the kitchen cabinets is an old cobol programmer. I think your experience with carpentry and people that enjoy carpentry might leave a little to be desired. (I don't mean any di…

People keep thinking I'm saying technical folks don't like wood, or something. I just mean when everyone already has a day job, and no one has real training or worthwhile experience, you are probably going to have trouble getting good results in a reasonable amount of time.

IMO this falls into the ol' boat of engineers thinking they can do everything just as well as people who were professionally trained. "Drilling for oil? How hard can it be!"

P.S. Unless frames come precut or premade these days, how exactly do you plan to build a house without some form of saw?

Re: The house I was born in sold for $4000

#123

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 28, 2013, 7:10 AM UTC

biot wrote: post #106

baby wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to google it, might be useful for others: 2900 miles = 4667km 3100 miles = 4988km

It could have read 2900 gribloops vs 3100 gribloops and, not knowing anything about gribloops other than it's a measure of distance between cities, the expected conclusion is the same: the two pairs of cities are roughly the same distance apart. Ergo, converting the units presents no additional information.

[deleted]

Re: The house I was born in sold for $4000

#124

Post by deadc0de » Tue, May 28, 2013, 7:13 AM UTC

dennisgorelik wrote: post #119

scarmig wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Financially, though, the fair comparison is whether the capital invested in a house generates more rental income (from yourself) than what the capital would make in equity, after accounting for property taxes, insurance, and upkeep. Most calculations I see suggest it's pretty much a toss up at that point, and which you choose should depend on factors like preference for mobility or stability.

It actually depends on location. Buy/Rent ratio is much higher in Bay Area and NYC than in Arizona/Texas/Florida/Kansas/... So in Bay Area it's generally better to rent, while in mid-America it's better to own.

Exactly. It's fairly entertaining to play with this model: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent-calcula...;

Basically almost anything in the bay area is not going to be profitable, in the south bay for sure.

Re: The house I was born in sold for $4000

#125

Post by sliverstorm » Tue, May 28, 2013, 7:19 AM UTC

waterlesscloud wrote: post #112

sliverstorm wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because as much as engineers tend to think they are experts in all fields, they aren't actually. So take a bunch of working professionals who just came home from an 8-hour day, and see how much quality skilled labor in fields they don't know anything about you can get. I mean, I like building things, yes. I make small tables, I replace parts on my car. But I can't really hope to raise a decent house, even if I had 20…

You only need a couple of trained architects to oversee the whole deal.

So we just cross our fingers a couple good architects want to live in our shantytown, whose main proposed draw is proximity to fiber?

Re: The house I was born in sold for $4000

#126

Post by dfc » Tue, May 28, 2013, 7:30 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #122

dfc wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I can't see tech workers breaking out the saws and sandpaper and building quality neighborhoods in their spare time" I should have you over to my house sometime. I completely tore out the downstairs of my house. The guy that's helping me with the kitchen cabinets is an old cobol programmer. I think your experience with carpentry and people that enjoy carpentry might leave a little to be desired. (I don't mean any di…

People keep thinking I'm saying technical folks don't like wood, or something. I just mean when everyone already has a day job, and no one has real training or worthwhile experience, you are probably going to have trouble getting good results in a reasonable amount of time. IMO this falls into the ol' boat of engineers thinking they can do everything just as well as people who were professionally trained. "Drilling f…

It was the sandpaper part that sounded funny to me.

Speaking of framing, you know that aisle of 2x4x8s you walk past at home despot? They are not all 96 inches long. If you look close some are labeled "framing studs." They are precut to 92 5/8 precisely so that you don't need to cut down every stud when you are framing a wall.

Re: The house I was born in sold for $4000

#127

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 28, 2013, 7:44 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #125

waterlesscloud wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only need a couple of trained architects to oversee the whole deal.

So we just cross our fingers a couple good architects want to live in our shantytown, whose main proposed draw is proximity to fiber?

[deleted]

Re: The house I was born in sold for $4000

#128

Post by rdl » Tue, May 28, 2013, 7:45 AM UTC

dfc wrote: post #126

sliverstorm wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep thinking I'm saying technical folks don't like wood, or something. I just mean when everyone already has a day job, and no one has real training or worthwhile experience, you are probably going to have trouble getting good results in a reasonable amount of time. IMO this falls into the ol' boat of engineers thinking they can do everything just as well as people who were professionally trained. "Drilling f…

It was the sandpaper part that sounded funny to me. Speaking of framing, you know that aisle of 2x4x8s you walk past at home despot? They are not all 96 inches long. If you look close some are labeled "framing studs." They are precut to 92 5/8 precisely so that you don't need to cut down every stud when you are framing a wall.

I personally kind of hate stick-built stuff; my dream home is concrete and steel and glass, with textiles and strategic wood for sound and aesthetics.

Re: The house I was born in sold for $4000

#129

Post by dfc » Tue, May 28, 2013, 8:24 AM UTC

rdl wrote: post #115

dfc wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you going to get staff for the great medical care facilities? I'm dating a girl who just graduated from medical school and I can't imagine any of her friends wanting to move next to shantytown. Do you think the burning man-esque campus would work over a 2-5 year time period with burning man level of sewage treatment facilities?

Be within a medevac flight of Seattle or Austin.

Rotor wash destroys shantytown after dotcom mogul is medevaced to Seattle. News at 11.

Re: The house I was born in sold for $4000

#130

Post by brigade » Tue, May 28, 2013, 8:27 AM UTC

xyzzy123 wrote: post #117

acgourley wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe broadcast tools (like craigslist) and reputation tools (like social networks) make it a lot easier for people to spontaneously organize shared living situations. This makes it so easy to join or form 4-5 person cells to share a house that it takes out the demand for a larger and more formal commune. Maybe.

I'm finding these posts kind of surreal, I had no idea shared living was NOT the default in many places. I posted down a bit re: flatting, but in NZ it's a very common living arrangement for people in their 20s. The standard progression is: parents -> flatting -> house The way it goes is, first ask all your friends if they knew of a room going, failing that, see if you can find some friends to organise a lease with (…

HN is kind of a silo that isn't at all representative of the population at large. In particular, programmers currently make more than enough money to comfortably live alone pretty much anywhere in the US. Even fresh out of college, most of the time. That combined with the tendency for programmers to be asocial makes living alone the default around here.

Among my non-programmer friends and family, the standard after college is (and has been since my parents' time) to live with a close friend or two until someone gets married.