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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

#151

Post by robotresearcher »

declan wrote: post #111
robotresearcher wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| And mortgage interest is tax deductible. In some jurisdictions. Not Canada.

Quite right. What's interesting is that the Canadian homeownership rate is similar to that of the U.S., last I checked, even despite the different tax treatments.

My theory on this is that the prices adjust to cancel out the benefit from the tax break. The out-of-pocket expense to the buyer is the same and the general taxpayer is subsidizing a higher price for sellers. It's a cash transfer from taxpayers to established landowners cunningly disguised as a legup for the middle class.

I think the prices must adjust in this way since the supply of housing close to the supply of paid work is limited.

If anyone can point me to a decent analysis of this, I'd be grateful. But this is my pet theory.

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

#152

Post by bradleyjg »

robotresearcher wrote: post #101
declan wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a single-family house on the San Francisco peninsula which I bought three years ago (and spent the summer of 2010 remodeling it and the summer of 2011 landscaping it). What others have said elsewhere in this thread is true: owning a home limits your flexibility in terms of moving for another job. It ties up a lot of your assets, for most people, in a decaying pile of lumber that needs maintenance and upkeep and…

| And mortgage interest is tax deductible. In some jurisdictions. Not Canada.

Do they tax the forgone rental income from owner occupied housing?

I know Switzerland does.

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

#153

Post by dfc »

rdl wrote: post #132
dfc wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I lived in a GP Medium tent next to (100m) a medevac HLZ. Even a Chinook isn't a big deal if you set it up properly. You don't land right on top of the tents. Any kind of terrain feature helps, or just distance. I don't see why people assume "can have your own housing in a high density area" is inherently shoddy construction; 4 x 20' containers and about $20k in work could build something quite nice. "Writer's cabins…

I was running with the shantytown line just to be a pain.

I dont hate the idea. I actually think it would be cool if you changed the "DIY/bring your own shelter" to a rehab existing structure and used the program as part of a city program to clean up decrepit neighborhoods.

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

#154

Post by rdl »

lostlogin wrote: post #150
rdl wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What I'd really like is a hangar with some vault/storage space nearby, so the hangar can be reconfigured for various projects (with tools/etc. on roller carts to a great degree, or in side partition areas with roller doors so they can be opened up to the main hangar space).

Steel span structures are fairly cheap, but I suspect I could buy an old factory (ideally something fairly clean) for less than construction cost somewhere. A shotcrete shell with steel mesh would be fine too.

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

#155

Post by rdl »

dfc wrote: post #153
rdl wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in a GP Medium tent next to (100m) a medevac HLZ. Even a Chinook isn't a big deal if you set it up properly. You don't land right on top of the tents. Any kind of terrain feature helps, or just distance. I don't see why people assume "can have your own housing in a high density area" is inherently shoddy construction; 4 x 20' containers and about $20k in work could build something quite nice. "Writer's cabins…

I was running with the shantytown line just to be a pain. I dont hate the idea. I actually think it would be cool if you changed the "DIY/bring your own shelter" to a rehab existing structure and used the program as part of a city program to clean up decrepit neighborhoods.

The benefit of greenfield is not being part of a current political system. There is almost always a political/demographic/cultural reason someplace becomes Detroit; it's not in a vacuum. I'm pretty sure I could go to counties in Central WA or parts of TX and get an almost Disneyworld level of autonomy, being allowed to run local utilities, sheriff, ems, etc. if it got to that scale, with only minimal county and some state/federal oversight.

I have no faith Oakland or Detroit would leave a high-net-worth enclave alone.

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

#156

Post by bdcravens »

general_failure wrote: post #100
bdcravens wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a world of PaaS and the cloud, and amazing communication capabilities like Skype and Google Hangout, why? What about CA or NY makes them more talented? They're there because the work is there, not vice versa. Also, you don't have to be in the middle of nowhere. There's plenty of large American cities where you can buy a nice house for less than $150K. I realize that the SF reality distortion field would suggest th…

What you are saying makes total sense as a founder. But for an engineer there us no motivation to move to an area where there are not many opportunities.

I say that as someone who has remained gainfully employed for several companies, only one of which was local, over the past several years.

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

#157

Post by nilkn »

declan wrote: post #83
jluxenberg wrote: post #15

Homeowners of HN: how do you justify tying up a large percentage of your net worth in a home?

I own a single-family house on the San Francisco peninsula which I bought three years ago (and spent the summer of 2010 remodeling it and the summer of 2011 landscaping it). What others have said elsewhere in this thread is true: owning a home limits your flexibility in terms of moving for another job. It ties up a lot of your assets, for most people, in a decaying pile of lumber that needs maintenance and upkeep and…

If you're willing to disclose the data, how much did your house cost?

The cost of housing is one of my major deterrents to moving to the Bay Area. Otherwise I'd be there in a heartbeat if I could bring my SO along.

I just feel like with the typical developer wages quoted on Hacker News for the Bay Area I really don't see how I could afford a $1M home, which seems to be the going rate there. I'm in Houston and could get a $100k-$150k house here if I were willing to commute. Even if my salary doubled going to SF, it'd be hard to swallow the fact that housing would go up to nearly seven figures.

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