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The house I was born in sold for $4000

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

#141

Post by michaelochurch »

fearless wrote: post #73
michaelochurch wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you might think that, the way things are going, by 2025 a person born without VC connections (i.e. an EIR position earmarked for him when he's in the womb, somewhat like a trust fund) will have to live in a shantytown in order to have a shot at surviving in VC-istan. Well, I'm here to tell you that you're wrong. He won't have to inhabit a shantytown. He'll have a nice storage cell to live in.

Is there anything that is not somehow VC-istan's fault?

I was actually half-joking. I don't actually believe that software engineers will have to work out of storage cells in 12 years. It was a Snow Crash allusion.

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

#142

Post by rdl »

lostlogin wrote: post #139
rdl wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be influenced by living from 2004-2010 in either bombed out wrecks or "camps" in warzones, where this kind of stuff is routine.

Wondered if you were going to fess up and admit that you see anything better than a war zone as luxury. Out of curiosity, what's your ideal home?

Well, the thing I'm trying to solve is density of hackers vs. cost. A suburban area completely taken over by hackers might also work.

My ideal home is something that is less than 10% of my net worth.

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

#143

Post by Maert »

lostlogin wrote: post #120
biot wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It put things into a frame I understand though.

You don't understand the concept of somewhat longer units of length than those you are used to?

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

#144

Post by baby »

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.

I really have no idea what 200 miles represent. It's like if I start talking in Yen to you, you would have to convert that to the US$ if you're not familiar with it.

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

#145

Post by userulluipeste »

rjdagost wrote: post #60

This post struck a chord with me as I'm from the central NY region, not too far from the OP. I get back to my hometown every year or two and the decline is more apparent every trip. Everything from my youth- the places I worked part-time, the schools I went to, the places I used to hang out at, the major local employers, they're all gone or in major decline. Many houses are boarded up, abandoned, and are being slowly…

I grow up in a place that went through a steep decline (after the collapse of USSR). The good thing is that in any decline there is allays a bottom line (although I suppose that most people aren't prepared to acknowledge this idea, especially when it's personal in some way). Things adjust a bit, that's all.

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

#146

Post by biot »

baby wrote: post #144
biot wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I really have no idea what 200 miles represent. It's like if I start talking in Yen to you, you would have to convert that to the US$ if you're not familiar with it.

No I wouldn't. If you complain to me that you make 1000 Yen per hour but your coworker with the exact same experience doing the exact same job makes 2000 Yen per hour, I don't need to know the value of a Yen to understand that you're being shafted because you only make half of what your coworker does.

In the original comment, the point was that Europe was small but the USA is big. To rephrase what was written, the distance between the two American cities is 1.07 times the distance from the UK to the Middle East. The actual measurement, whether expressed in planck lengths or lightyears, is entirely irrelevant.

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

#147

Post by userulluipeste »

gridmaths wrote: post #65

I zoomed in on google map, was hoping for streetview [ in which I fantasized seeing Jack Reacher walk past for some reason ] From the OP, I assumed this would be literally 100 miles from the nearest drugstore/711.. but its bang in the urban grid of a small town. Shouldn't some of the bailout money be towards loans for people to do up cheap homes like this? It would seem a good investment for the future at low cost to…

Such bailouts and programs for average Joe don't really work. When real estate price is in decline, housing becomes in time more affordable. In this conditions you may actually get a chance to buy a house without a loan. It's a natural evolution. Now suppose the government steps in, throwing easy money - what do you think will happen next? I don't live in USA, I live in Romania, EU. Here the real estate prices jumped threefold after the government started „the first home” (literal translation) - a program that wanted to support young families in getting a home. I don't say there weren't any benefits for involved parties - the program actually spurred a lot of construction around, the banks made a lot of profits, and some young selected couples had in the end the privilege to be supported in buying overpriced living places. For everyone else (most of us) the entire thing made the housing more expensive. I don't want to see such things happen again.

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

#148

Post by nknighthb »

YokoZar wrote: post #137
actuary wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an excellent question. First, note that you will always need a place to live. If you rent, you have no option but to pay market rents forever. Another way to put this, in the language of finance, is that you are "short" housing. Purchasing a home covers this short position - a homeowner must pay their mortgage, but need not be exposed to market fluctuations in the cost of housing. In this sense, the purchase…

This cannot be right. Buying a house surely increases your risk, because the price of your house now affects a majority of your wealth. If you didn't spend all that money taking on debt to purchase a home, you could have your assets spread across a far less risky portfolio. That's not even counting all the risk you expose yourself to by being locked into a particular house in a particular neighborhood, such as not be…

You're thinking about this as purely a financial investment, but that's not all it is. It's a solution to another problem entirely: One way or another, you must have shelter.

By paying for it with a mortgage, you get shelter and a valuable asset at a set cost, and, once the mortgage is paid off, that cost drops to taxes, maintenance, and insurance.

Paying rent, you get only temporary shelter, for which you must pay whatever the market price is, forever. Your rent is unlikely to fall, can rise dramatically, and you don't come out the other end with an asset, that money is just gone. You didn't put it in a diverse portfolio.

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

#149

Post by baby »

biot wrote: post #146
baby wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really have no idea what 200 miles represent. It's like if I start talking in Yen to you, you would have to convert that to the US$ if you're not familiar with it.

No I wouldn't. If you complain to me that you make 1000 Yen per hour but your coworker with the exact same experience doing the exact same job makes 2000 Yen per hour, I don't need to know the value of a Yen to understand that you're being shafted because you only make half of what your coworker does. In the original comment, the point was that Europe was small but the USA is big. To rephrase what was written, the di…

Well good for you then.

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

#150

Post by lostlogin »

rdl wrote: post #142
lostlogin wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wondered if you were going to fess up and admit that you see anything better than a war zone as luxury. Out of curiosity, what's your ideal home?

Well, the thing I'm trying to solve is density of hackers vs. cost. A suburban area completely taken over by hackers might also work. My ideal home is something that is less than 10% of my net worth.

Now that would be nice - the house my wife and I life in is about 175-200% our net worth. I'd never thought of a condition like that.
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