sheesh...

[telophase]

You know why I like watching House Hunters on HGTV? Because invariably you get a couple saying things like "Now that we have a baby on the way, we're finding that four bedrooms just aren't enough for us, so we're looking for a larger house" or saying that they're on a limited budget, so they'd like to keep it under $250,000.

I like to mock them.

Comments

[mscongeniality.livejournal.com]

*tries to imagine finding a one bedroom condo for that price*

*tries again*

Nope...even my imagination has limits.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Well, I didn't mean to imply that the four-bedrooms-are-too-small people were the same as the $250K-is-a-small-budget people. I probably should replace the "and" with "or".

I can't actually comprehend buying a house for anywhere near $250K.

[mscongeniality.livejournal.com]

A couple of years ago, you could get townhouses for that price--in areas that weren't too scary to live in, even. Not so much with that anymore, though.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

You can get houses around here in decent neighborhoods for $100K or less, as long as you're willing to live in one of the suburbs.

[octopedingenue]

Mock me, for I am young and foolish...are you saying that one bedroom condos are more expensive than $250,000?

[mscongeniality.livejournal.com]

Where I live, absolutely.

[octopedingenue]

Oww.

Where are the cheap places to live hiding at least the ones with readily available manga stores?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Return to Texas! You can live in a loft in downtown Fort Worth for under $1000/month! It'll cost you $250K to buy it when it goes condo, though. That's what happened to friends of mine - they lived in a loft and paid, I think ~$750/month for it, but it went condo and that's the price they were quoted. They decided they wouldn't drop that amount of money for a mere apartment, so moved to just out of downtown.

[mscongeniality.livejournal.com]

To give you an idea, two years ago when the efficiency I lived in went condo. As a resident, they offered me a reduced price on my (unrenovated) unit for $167K.

[octopedingenue]

OWW.

And newspaper articles continue to wonder loudly why so many people of my generation move back in with our parents.

[mscongeniality.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair, housing is priced that way because people can still afford to buy it--even at those rates.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Can we say "housing bubble"?

[pzb.livejournal.com]

Eh, sorta. While it's dropping here a little bit, the bubble will never really pop. This is why we moved out of California.... $600k for a medium sized house....little much, thanks. Here, they run about $250. While it's definitely slowed, CA will never be back down to the $200ks, even in the ghetto. I actually just got off the phone with a friend in CA who said two neighborhoods over, they're building $6,000,000 to $13,000,000 homes. (I just had to type out all those zeros...made it more jaw dropping. XD)

[maxineofarc.livejournal.com]

Tragically, having moved from a place where a million bucks would get you a fixer-upper ranch in certain suburbs to a place exactly like it, I can *completely understand* how $250K would seem like a budget price. XD

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I mean, I understand that it's all according to the location, but I have friends that recently bought a 3-bedroom house with living room, den, diningroom, and enclosed porch for $150K in Dallas (technically Richardson), and even that seems a bit on the high side to me. :D Mind you, my parents bought a house and 8 acres of land for $100K and eventually the next 5 acres for $50K just outside the city I grew up in, so it's hard for me to comprehend spending that much money for a lot less than one acre in size.

But it's the house hunters who find that four bedrooms is juse not enough for themselves and a baby that drive me crazy. Especially when both partners work outside the home. They also usually wander into a bedroom that my entire apartment could fit into and complain that it's too small.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

We've got a 4-bedroom in Saginaw (N Ft. Worth) for less than 150k. Back in California we couldn't buy an outhouse for that much . . . because if one came on the market it would be bought, torn down, and replaced by a three-story five-bedroom mcmansion.

[maxineofarc.livejournal.com]

Understood. My partner lived in Wylie before moving out east to be with me; her house was something like $110K. Supply and demand, like everything else... around here we don't have any free land to build on, so $250K sounds like a bargain to us. XD

[cicer.livejournal.com]

I just like that show because the people inevitably end up picking the house I liked the least. XD It happens every time. But then I live in an area where a nice three-bedroom house goes for a million bucks easily, so I dunno.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

See, I would have goggled at $250k as a price point six years ago. Even three years ago that would have been just starting to become the norm around here. Nowadays, yeahhhhhh $250k will get you a flipped 1920's bungalow. You can still find homes from the 20's for under $150k but they include lovely little side notes like, 'cracked foundation' and 'needs new wiring/plumbing'... Why yes, I DO browse mls.ca in my free time. XD

[seajules]

The first group of people make me roll my eyes until they fall out of my head. I feel for the second group, because the show is often filmed in California and you really are on a budget if you have to keep it under 250K. Also, you're frequently out of luck.

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

Around here, you can't get a 2/1 bungalow for $250K. Median home price in this town is $370K, and I assume average home price is somewhat higher.

I looked at buying a house when I first moved out here, but I didn't have the capital to put down on a crappy condo, much less a sticks & bricks residence.

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

Wow. Ohio is cheap compaired to all of you. If you live in a suburb slightly closer to the scary side of town you can get a 3-bedroom house for $60 K. Living closer to the nicer side (where we are) is about $90-110K

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Oh gods, I can't imagine trying for a house at $250K. Our studio apartment was about $150K-- I don't think another hundred thousand would even make a down payment on an actual house on this street, especially given that they tend to be non-subdivided grand old Victorians with gingerbread and turrets, and that the quoted price on the carriage house at the end of the block was $500K.

On the other hand, we live in Cambridge, MA, and the housing's been getting higher for like fifty years now. The plan is actually to sell the place when the housemates finish grad school, pool resources, and buy a gigantic house a ways out of town, because the prices aren't quite as batshit.

[pzb.livejournal.com]

We could get a reasonable house here for $250....a nicer one for the something into the $300s. (There's a house right behind us that went for $225, one across the street from them that's trying to sell for $315...) So it really is all about where you are.... Hell, after California, I'd be happy to find a nice place on a "budget." XD

[literaticat.livejournal.com]

I love HOUSEHUNTERS!

"This has a lot of light - but only four bedrooms, for me and Schnoodle?"

It inspires both laughter and rage.

Eat the rich.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Or they gaze across a backyard the size of a football field and decide that it might be big enough to have a dog. Hon? You can have a dog in a much smaller yard if you're actually willing to, ys know, take it for walks and otherwise play and interact with it!

I really like the occasional House Hunters International thatr comes around, because they're so stupendously rich that I can't comprehend it, so I completely forgive any of their requirements. Because if I were droping $6million+ on a townhouse I'd totally insist on a swimming pool in the basement, a wine cellar, and an underground tunnel to the garage, just because I could. XD

[tygerr.livejournal.com]

This has nothing to do with housing prices. It's all about the Icon Love.

*loves telophase's icon*