Priced right too.
Posted on 08/07/2006 2:31:31 PM PDT by freemarket_kenshepherd
Leave it to “60 Minutes” to find a negative development in a tide of American prosperity lifting all boats.
“The Joneses, that mythic family America vainly tries to keep up with, are setting an impossible standard,” correspondent Morley Safer complained on the August 6 program. “It’s the house, dammit. The size of the average new house in this country has grown almost 50 percent in the last 30 years while the average family has shrunk.”
“Like some alien weed, houses are growing from sea to shining sea,” the Canadian-born journalist said before opening a story with footage of a house being razed.
“No, this is not the aftermath of Katrina, it is the prelude to a monster,” griped Safer. “Across the country, perfectly sound and cozy houses are being torn down. The empty lots then get filled up” with larger houses.
“I just don’t know why people need that much space,” complained Chevy Chase, Md., resident Pat Rich.
Safer went further in his attack on “McMansions,” quoting Virginia Tech architecture dean Paul Knox, who ripped large middle-class houses as “a new national suburb he calls ‘Vulgaria.’”
Yet for all the media hype, an official with the National Association of Realtors (NAR) told the Business & Media Institute the “McMansion” market is small and irrelevant.
In a telephone interview with BMI, Walter Molony, who studies industry trends for NAR, said the so-called McMansion market is “too small to be statistically measured” and is “the least important part of the market.”
“The more relevant end of the market is entry-levels,” argued Molony, adding that “McMansions” owners don’t just appear out of the blue. They start out earlier in life owning small houses, later selling them and trading up for more expensive digs.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessandmedia.org ...
I prefer a small house but couldn't care less if my neighbor lives in a castle.
Wanting anything more than a bowl of cold rice under a thatched hut is GREED?
"I just can't understand why millions of Americans don't want to pay $2 million for a one-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village! Why do they need more than 500 square feet? Who needs a kitchen? And grass? And a place to park a car?"
If housing is a normal good, one would expect that people would demand larger and better housing with increasing real income. Also there are lots of old houses occupying realestate that is now too valuable for them. Not surprisingly many of these old homes have been bought just for the real estate so a new house can be built on the existing lot.
Why do they need a car that has to be parked?
How big is Morley's house(s)??????
He's just mad because I don't want to live in a 1500 sq foot "rancher".
30 years ago in the suburbs people used to buy a small house on a large lot -- now they buy a large house on a small lot. Land is so tight around here that they are tearing down the small house, splitting the lot, and building two large houses in touching distance of each other.
THE ivy-draped, turn-of-the-century stone cottage with its aromatic herb gardens, rolling lawns and granite swimming pool could easily be in the south of France. Behind the garage there is even a wood-framed playing field for the Provencal game of petanque, also known as boules, which is a French twist on boccie.
Two hours from New York City and along the Connecticut River, this is the weekend home of a resolute Francophile, Morley Safer, the correspondent for the CBS television program "60 Minutes." Mr. Safer and his wife of 25 years, Jane, come here to read, to garden, to paint (Mr. Safer works in watercolors and acrylics) and, of course, to cook.
"This is Morley's kitchen," Mrs. Safer said as she gathered cotton napkins for lunch. The couple's expansive kitchen, which opens to a sun-drenched dining area, has a 10-foot-long wooden table, wide-plank wood floor and copper cookware dangling overhead.
Priced right too.
That's part of the problem in Chevy Chase, MD, a suburb of DC (it's about 2-5 miles outside northwest DC). People living there now who have lived there 35, 40, 50 years and are retirees. They like their quaint old houses and the old neighborhood but of course they are finding younger professionals, both couples and young families, moving in to cut down on horrendously long commutes into D.C.
If liberals were consistent, these people should be lauded for wanting to live closer to work in the city rather than buying cheaper, spacier housing 45 miles out in Frederick, MD or in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia.
After all, the shorter commute times cuts down on "greenhouse gas" emissions.
They don't. In fact, you don't need the space your home provides either. Sell your house and get a 600 sq. ft. place, then we'll talk.
Sheesh. Control freaks.
Waterfront or waterview?
Buy some former farmland and build a house. That's sprawl and it's bad.
Buy some inner city property and upgrade it. That's gentrification and it raises the price and taxes for other owners in the area and destroys the neighborhood's "charm" and that's bad.
Buy a property in a "nice old" neighborhood, tear down the old house and put up one I want. That's a McMansion and it's bad.
Own a property in a "nice old" neighborhood that some developer friend of a city council member wants to tear down but refuse to sell to him. That's standing in the way of progress and holding down the tax base and that's bad.
Buy a house in a neighborhood which pays for its own security. That's living in a gated community and turning your back on the problems of the community. That's bad.
(Of course none of these rules apply if you are actually a member of the Left.)
>Why do they need a car to be parked?<
Well, the other night I heard Jerome Corsi say that the Mullah Jones who keep an apartment in Iran drive right onto the elevator, press "going up", and park outside their unit's door. Now that's something to work for, eh? Incidentally, if he appears in your town, be sure to see Dr. Corsi. He is well worth listening to.
People who buy things just to "keep up with the Jonses" are idiots of the lowest order. They're so pathetic they don't even have their own desires, they just want what everybody else wants.
Safer is trying to hype Euro-style envy-thy-neighbor attitudes. Won't work.
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