Buying a place.

[Bernard]

 

That is really all I have to say. We've expanded our budget by nearly 20%, which is a fucking lot of money! Still have squat to show for it. The last place we bid on, we offered $20k over asking and 40% cash down. We didn't even come close.

 

[elpollodiablo]

Fuck! I thought this was a buyer's market

[dieblucasdie]

It depends on where you are obviously, but in a lot of places Wall Street-backed investors are buying up places cheap by offering cash. (Pretty sweet deal: destroy housing market, get bailed out, then buy up real estate for cheap). Plus HAMP (which was designed to help homeowners in trouble, but in effect just allowed banks to squeeze a few more payments out of people before foreclosing) and the foreclosure-processing scandal and aftermath have meant that a lot of foreclosures have been slow to re-enter the market.

It's pretty insane that the housing market is in the state it's in, but there's an inventory shortage in many parts of the country. Thanks, plutocrats!

[Thermofusion]

40% cash down! Dang. If I had that much dough and still lost the bid, I'd buy a big fancy houseboat in protest, plop it down on some lake and be a skeezy dude who lives on a boat, down by the docks, like GOB Bluth.

[El_Josharino]

Yeah, that's nutso, you could probably buy a whole neighborhood here.

[cold before sunrise]

why don't you just find an abandoned house and squat? living by candlelight with harvested rainwater sponge baths and fresh produce bought daily is romantic and artsy. it'll give your daughter character.

[clare]

Yeah, even here where we're still in a crazy housing boom, 40% deposit'll get you in the door. Sorry to hear it's going badly for you B :-(

[mixed cats]

Yo b, that blows. Good luck with finding something, though!

[Bernard]

We saw a gorgeous place today and it came down to dinky things like the sound carrying too much with the open floor plan. Could we live with no noise after the baby's in bed? Probably not. She's a light sleeper, too.

 

[Bernard]

Yeah, that's nutso, you could probably buy a whole neighborhood here.

We could buy a mansion in Porter Ranch or something. What, you've never heard of Porter Ranch, Los Angeles? And then have a 2.5 hour commute to work. Or to a movie theater. Or any of our friends or family. Or bookstores. Or the natural history museum. Or Thai food, Korean food, Ethiopian food, the funky little ice cream sandwich shop that sells "fried chicken and waffles" flavored ice cream in glass pint jars. (I did not buy it. I bought salted caramel.)

[El_Josharino]

You could buy a mansion right smack in the middle of the utopia that is Omaha that meets all of those qualifiers except instead of a 2.5 hour commute it would be closer to 25 minutes for probably 200-300 grand, if that.

[Nick Ink]

You could buy a mansion right smack in the middle of the utopia that is Omaha that meets all of those qualifiers except instead of a 2.5 hour commute it would be closer to 25 minutes for probably 200-300 grand, if that.

Here, that just about gets you a smallish 3-bed terrace!

[clare]

I don't think you can get anything for that here...median price is 495K

2 bed apt in Queanbeyan is 200K

This place is described as 'entry level' at 530K, at the less desirable end of the suburb. and these are all being sold off the plans, yet to be built... it's fucking crazy

[elpollodiablo]

You can get a real nice 2 bedroom condo in our hood for about 600K

[Bernard]

You could buy a mansion right smack in the middle of the utopia that is Omaha that meets all of those qualifiers except instead of a 2.5 hour commute it would be closer to 25 minutes for probably 200-300 grand, if that.

I think it's more than 25 min from Omaha to Los Angeles! I'm about ready to give up. Dang it, what the heck.

[justinh]

Speaking of outrageous Aussie real estate, I went to a (rental) inspection this weekend for a place in North Melbourne that was $400/week (that's about 1700 a month).  This place was barely structurally sound--there were big pieces of the flooring trim missing, and the place had obviously been the home of a wild beast for a considerable period of time.  So obvious that the current inhabitant had shit all over the sink and they hadn't bothered to clean it before the inspection.  According to the sign, it had recently been sold for almost 600k. 

[elpollodiablo]

Dude, are there ANY advantages to living in Australia?

[jebreject]

The giant bugs

[Dick]

A Harmonious Union of Peoples with the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere in the year 2025.

[justinh]

Yep--awesome, chill, and friendly people; much more sane political discourse; excellent victorian architecture; lower gini coefficient, funny and amusing animals all around, very little crime, and they give scholarships for your Ed.D. 

[Captain]

Yep--awesome, chill, and friendly people; much more sane political discourse; excellent victorian architecture; lower gini coefficient, funny and amusing animals all around, very little crime, and they give scholarships for your Ed.D. 

This is quite convincing.

[Bernard]

We're moving to Australia.

Or maybe someplace in West LA. Putting in two offers today. A cheaper, smaller place with no yard that has a good price and fantastic location, and a bigger, more expensive place with a less great location (but not bad) and a lovely little yard. HOUSEHUNTERS LIVE.

[Anne the Man]

Huh. Over the ditch Australian political discourse looks gross in a lot of ways. Aborigine culture is pretty much invisible (as far as I know...Clare?); though Maori rights have a way to go and we have a lot of racism around NZ, most Pakeha (Europeans) at least know some stuff about the culture and language, and we have Maori electorates and so on. But then neither us nor Australia have Prime Minister hopefuls proposing moon colonies, so I guess it's relative.

[Good Intentions]

Why would you need a moon colony if you already have Alice Springs?

[justinh]

Oh yeah, the Maori are faring much better than the aboriginals of Australia.  But coming from the US, it's pretty much the same as the treatment of American Indians (although I've found that in some parts of AUS anti-aboriginal sentiment can be more shocking and obvious than what you'd find in the US).  

It's generally just nice to live somewhere that there is a general consensus that people ought to have access to health care and that lowering or eliminating taxes isn't the answer to every problem.