161–170 of 410 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This sounds great but you have to factor in that up to very recently Has that changed? I assume you get the actual property, not just the house sitting on it. The land is what japan generally values.
Houses are depreciating assets. It's the land that has value most places.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Detroit: If you have a credit card and a want to own an apartment building, it is the place to be. Just needs some elbow grease. There MUST BE opportunity at $5 USD per square foot -- but it is hard to visualize. https://www.point2homes.com/US/Multi-Family-For-Sale/MI/Detr... [I think you can talk this guy down to $10k].
If they’d throw in a working visa I’d be intrigued
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrat...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Saying it's the place to be seems a bit an overreach. That building, as an example, is in a neighborhood that is just block after block of wasteland, with derelict abandoned houses falling to disrepair, and the empty lots where they removed them before. This particular building likely has no furnace, pipes were probably removed, and almost certainly requires many tens of thousands in upgrades. It seems like illusory…
No furnace is not a big deal by itself, but likely no windows, no wiring, no plumbing, no fixtures. What remains likely has mold, lead paint, and other hazards. It's at best a gut-to-the-frame-and-rebuild. If severely weather damaged it might even be a tear-down.
Maybe if you really, really wanted that land for some reason.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it just me or is the prospect of working from home in the middle of nowhere terrifying? When you work from home, you wanna leave home often, where do you go if you're in the middle of nowhere? I work from home in the middle of a dense city, pay a premium for it! You leave home and there are about 100 places (cafes, theatres, museums, parks etc.) I can go to that are walking distance. Is that possible in say rural…
> Is it just me or is the prospect of working from home in the middle of nowhere terrifying? My wife dragged me kicking and screaming to a rural area that's a popular vacation area. (I must admit that I wanted to end up in a different rural area that's also a popular vacation area.) My neighborhood is excellent, and there's plenty to walk to. Rural areas still have dense spots with plenty of things to do. There's jus…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, you're right, for a person like you or me it could be terrifying. But huge swaths of the population enjoy this lifestyle - in the USA they mostly depend on cars, ATVs, or horses to get around (speaking from my Texas experience). It's not city life, but it's life. It's just a little bit "slower" sometimes. It can be relaxing in its own way. I mean, I live in the core of SF, but how often do I go to the theater or…
Personally, I am looking to buy a place in Llano or Blanco (between Austin and Fredericksburg, basically) in summer of 2019 and then spend a lot of time camping and visiting people and travelling. Just because you're remotely based in the sticks and use property there as a place to park equity and a place to keep your big stuff (I have a lot of tools and music equipment) doesn't mean you have to stay there if you're…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've clearly never lived in a shitty neighborhood.
Yes I have[1][2]. It's really not bad unless you drive yourself nuts worrying about things that will probably never happen to you. Yes, you see and hear the effects of crime everywhere but as long as your not know by your neighbors to be an ass, your house is harder to rob than most of the nearby ones and you don't associate with the wrong people you'll be fine. It's not like there's stray bullets coming through your…
>the median income for a family was $57,245. Males had a median income of $47,350 versus $37,921 for females. The per capita income for the city was $22,972. About 14.6% of families and 19.4% of the population were below the poverty line
Compare this with an area like Greenspoint in Houston, where middle class office workers are regularly warned of muggings outside their office buildings
>nearly half of Greenspoint residents have an income of under $25,000 per year, well below the Houston median of over $44,000 per year
Respectfully, while you may not have been in a pristine gated community, I think you underestimate what it means to live in a truely shitty area, and I think your advice, while reasonable on the surface, does less than you think to prevent being a target of violent crime.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes I have[1][2]. It's really not bad unless you drive yourself nuts worrying about things that will probably never happen to you. Yes, you see and hear the effects of crime everywhere but as long as your not know by your neighbors to be an ass, your house is harder to rob than most of the nearby ones and you don't associate with the wrong people you'll be fine. It's not like there's stray bullets coming through your…
murder is rare. assault, robbery, and burglary are not. I prefer those things not happen to me
I know this is a topic that tends to bring out hysteria instead of rational assessment of probability but seriously, it's not as bad as people think. That said, the upper class crowd should feel free to not move in. The added pressure from gentrification would probably not make things better if SF is any indication.
My point here is that you can live cheaply in these neighborhoods and while there are trade-offs the trad-off is not the "living in a war zone" that many people would have you believe.
So wait, there are places where there are houses being given away (e.g. US, Japan and Italy as far as I know) and I'm a person that has the ability to work remotely. Am I missing something? Is this my ticket to cheap housing and a more stress free life? At what point am I going to be scammed and/or disappointed?
these houses should probably go to extremely low income people, not a software engineer
The US saw similar efforts in Detroit and other Rust Belt cities. That mostly just resulted in asset flippers hoarding houses and letting them fall into further disrepair. I wonder what steps Japan is taking to mitigate that possibility.
I'm absolutely certain that the abandoned houses are abandoned because they are literally not saleable. Even perfectly good houses that were built in the last 20 or 30 years sit on the housing market in my area for years before they even get a single offer. Houses that cost $300K end up selling for around half that price, even after waiting for years to sell it. That's how non-existent the used housing market is in Japan.
And this is not to say that housing is flat. Empty lots sell relatively quickly. Nobody wants a used house. That's the reality of the market.
I don't know exactly what this programme is, but I would venture to guess that they will give you the house/land as long as you knock down the existing house and build a new one. This will cost you the aforementioned $300K, at which point you can flip it for $150K. That's how they mitigate that possibility :-)
So wait, there are places where there are houses being given away (e.g. US, Japan and Italy as far as I know) and I'm a person that has the ability to work remotely. Am I missing something? Is this my ticket to cheap housing and a more stress free life? At what point am I going to be scammed and/or disappointed?
The houses from what I saw looking through translated listings seem to have no insulation, ancient (ie nonexistent) plumbing, and "traditional" toilets (hole in the ground) with no heating/cooling. You're buying a badly insulated cabin in the woods more or less.
I think one of the main pain points in renovating the houses is going to be actually getting materials to the house. Some of these are rural to the point of not having real roads and being hours away from civilization. If you need to truck in a new water heater, you might be building your own gravel road first.
If you're looking to be really remote and more or less build a house, this might be an awesome opportunity - just realize this is more akin to buying a plot of land than "a house" per say.