Posted on 08/21/2004 12:27:52 PM PDT by lowbridge
For many Americans, bigger is better when it comes to their homes. The facts speak for themselves: According to the Census Bureau, the average home size has swelled 40 percent since the early 70's.
According to National Association of Homebuilders, 19 percent of homes built in 2003 were 3,000 square feet or more. But the appetite for larger and larger homes has run afoul of some. Namely those who've watched super-sized structures crop up next door.
How can you fight "McMansion" expansion where you live? Here are today's 5 Tips.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
I've even been looking at culvert-things (don't know what to call them), like a huge concrete pipe sold in sections. I'd just need one section--
!!! Really? That's a crushingly high unemployment. My county has 9%.
My favorite thing on my custom house (built three years ago--2700sqft) is my central vac and the complete absence of carpets (a few rugs, though). The floors do get dusty and gritty, but at least when they're clean, they're clean. Swiffers are my good friend, too.--signed, the Housewife.
I don't think it takes jealousy to think those 4,000 square foot houses on a 6,000 square foot lot are eyesores and destroy the neighborhood.
Besides it comes down to keep them out or they'll be getting rid of you later.
Except college tuition--no matter how much it goes up, or how poor a value people get for their money, there's no "consumer reports" or "consumer activism" on the outlandish rise in tuition
I do too --- one way to keep the city out might be for everyone to get pigs and goats --- sort of a self-defense mechanism and make sure the zoning gets written that pigs and goats are permitted. That tends to keep the wrong type of people away. If they move in, the first thing they try to do is force everyone to start living like city people.
An uneasy sense, not any financial savvy, is what tells me--"There's a disconnect here between what is being bought, and what can sensibly be afforded." I'm afraid of some hard reckoning, but don't know what form it will take.
"Big" is a relative term. The biggest may be old Victorians in the city centers or smalll towns that are enormous and cost much to renovate and update...not to mention the cost of heating them. A 3000 + sq ft home may be more cost efficient than a 1500 sq ft home. It all depends on the construction, materials, and latest technology used in the siting and building.
I wonder why she forgot to point her critical finger as well at Ted Turner, he of the thousands of acres and mega mansions.
That's downright anti-American.
It has always been between 12-16 percent... always. They pay people on welfare to leave the county.
I didn't feel this way a year ago
But I am starting to think that I want to get my hands on some liquid cash soon so not to miss out on some really good deals when people start freeing themselves up from such burdens.
Homes and real estate went for diddly in Texas after the crash--some speculators did well--but Texas is not CA. Guess it would depend on where you'd live if you sold out?
Just make sure you face it south, with an open front (glass as much as you can.. Use a compass, but find out about magnetic deviation, for the most effective use of solar heating/exclusion. The U of Minnesota has done a lot of research on energy efficient construction, and this is a good way to go! The ground temp is the same all year round, so the only interaction, with nature, is on the south side...
You have the opportunity. Do you have the will?
Here's what's behind rising real estate prices:
1. For the last few years, Wall Street and savings banks have not been the best place to invest. So people put their money in real estate.
2. The immigration flood.
3. The loss of jobs in less urban areas (where home prices have been dropping like rocks), and the ensuing migration of rural people to urban areas in the hopes of finding work.
In effect, the money lost on real estate in one place, gets added to the price of real estate in another place--zero sum gain, or almost.
4. The panic of first-time buyers, who believe if they don't buy something now they will never be able to buy anything.
5. Low mortgage rates.
The rising price of homes for those who already own homes, makes those people "feel" rich despite the sluggish economy.
Because they "feel" rich, they re-mortgage their homes and spend the money on things, which props-up the economy
Because this Ponzi scheme has been propping up a faltering economy, those in power would fear to raise interest rates.
(They would also fear to slow the flood of immigration, by the way; all those people converging on cities need a place to live, which further increases demand for housing, drives up prices, and props up the miserable economy.)
As for your behemoth houses--if an old guy bought his house years ago and if it is in one of the lucky areas, it's worth many times what he paid for it.
He then sells it to a desperate first time home buyer, takes the profit and uses it as down-payment on a McMansion.
The resulting mortgage is probably no more than he had been paying on his old home.
So his being able to afford the payments is not because his career is suddenly paying workers like him more.
Of course, there are a handful of others who can afford to buy a McMansion because they "stepped in it"--but a large percentage of those who have been making a lot of money will find sooner or later that the world changes, and their particular little money making job is bye-bye.
Life is rarely that easy.
Real estate has always been a good investment in the long run.
However, I strongly suspect that is changed.
Our modern world is too unpredictable.
There are too many new possibilities that could upset current housing markets, for real estate to be much of a sure long-term investment any longer.
And by the way, I don't believe at all that people are getting richer and richer all the time--not by the usual measure of wealth.
And not by my measure of wealth--which is broader than money.
Our whole economy seems to be one in which the majority of people who are "are getting richer and richer all the time" are the haves and not the have-nots.
Indeed, keeping down the interest rates for fear of inflation is really one way of preventing the redistribution of wealth.
I do believe, such a redistribution is one benefit of inflation.
Keeping inflation down, protects the status quo.
And anyway Thoreau and his one-room cabin surrounded mostly by vacant nature, was richest of all, because he was freest of all.
sw
What was that- Plano TX? or Austin? I don't know? Dallas is a good town and it would seem that real estate would expand in every direction forever... but it didn't.
I am a salesman. Its the only place you make what you are worth! I am self-employed.
Why do you swear at me?
I share what seems your dislike of carpets.
It's insane for people to walk around outdoors, then enter a house and walk around on something like a carpet.
Imagine taking off your coat, putting it on the floor, and having people walk on it all day. Gross!
Floors should above all be easy to keep clean because they are the places that get the dirtiest the fastest.
(I also believe, like those in other cultures, that one's shoes should be removed on entering a house; I switch to slippers.)
I was thinking that like 2000 they wait until after the elections to release the really bad news to protect the the incumbent's seats.... I suspect that after these elections there will be a gradual decline of some type- or rapid.... it doesn't matter after the general elections.
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