We have looked at about 10 houses at this point. Three of them have been absolutely perfect and beautiful and wonderful in every way except they were all on EPIC busy streets, totally not doable. Some of them have been scary hoarder homes with asbestos and naked wiring our realtor describes as "burn-the-house-down." Some of them have been nice but out in the middle of nowhere. Some of them have been perfect except they are way too deep a fixer-upper and that is just not our jam at this point in our lives. One of them had a huge oil painting of St. Sebastian with his guts pouring out.
Just a li'l update! Also we went and peeked in the windows of a house by our current house that just went on the market and Gary guessed it'd be priced at 300,000 and I guessed 500,000 and it was actually 589,000
being an American in the 21st century is an exercise in absurdity
Our realtor sometimes shows us foreclosure houses, and I just feel so strongly that I don't want to buy a house that way. If we're going to embark on the violence of owning private property I at least want it to be a consensual transaction. It's so dark to drive up to a house and then the realtor is like "now, the people in here don't want to leave, and the bank is gonna call the sheriff, so anyway we can't go inside." FUCK THAT. God.
That Rose City home looked like a friend's who has had health issues. But not! Foreclosures have bad juju. Same reason not to have heavy juju ritual objects like Nkondi at home.
I was wondering the same thing about that one, Miranda. A few others popped up in the past few days that made me wonder the same thing (one was for $299!). I think it must be a ploy to get people excited but then the winning offer comes in at like $60k over or something.
Good luck out there YT! Foreclosures do seem so dark. We're buying a house with tenants who don't want to leave and even that feels sort of bad. They cornered me before the inspection and started reciting their tenant rights.
So curious what the burn the house down houses are like that you've been seeing.
Some foreclosures are consensual. I know a guy who bought at the peak of the market in Springfield, because he couldn't afford Eugene. Then he got his dream job in Vancouver BC and couldn't sell. He evaluated all his options and eventually just walked away from it.
The main gnarly house we've looked at was this place that was in the ultimate dream location, I mean ULTIMATE, but was priced at like $320 or something, which seemed super low for this location/size of house. I expected it to be one of these houses that someone's been living in since 1947 and has never updated in any way, and I was right. There was this heinous green FILTHY carpet covering every surface even though you could tell rad hardwoods were underneath. It was one of those weird cramped floor plans of a previous age I associate with grandparents' houses, where like there's an inexplicable tiny warren-like "hallway" between the living room and dining room where it should be open, etc. Every room was STUFFED with huge furniture in that way they used to do in the 50s, and all the furniture was super super gnarly, cigarette burns on the arms, etc. Every window was totally covered with shit--those wooden frames to hide curtain rods, then those weird vinyl roll-down blinds, then on top of the blinds, frilly white curtains, and on top of those curtains, thick green velvet curtains. The house was like a black cave. You go upstairs and there are three small bedrooms, each done in UNBELIEVABLE wallpaper, like wallpaper with designs they'd use in a movie to convey a bad acid trip. Our realtor said "this wallpaper is making me nauseous" and he meant it. Like motion-sickness wallpaper. Meanwhile the floors upstairs looked 200 years old, like wood floors from the house in Blair Witch Project (I am perhaps exaggerating here, but seriously like a house you find in the woods and sneak into that no one's been living in for years). The windows were very old, single-paned, and still weighted with lead weights which clanked inside the walls of the house when you shook them. Nothing insulated; the heat would just pour outside in winter (hence the velvet curtains, perhaps).
The burn the house down stuff was down in the basement and up in the attic, there was all this exposed, frayed wiring going all over the place, into god knows how many appliances/sockets/naked bulbs/walls of the house. On the outside of the house there was ancient frayed wiring going into the actual meter. Our realtor kept whistling in awe and terror.
Down in the basement was an ancient oil tank that our realtor said was "an environmental disaster waiting to happen." Corroded almost all over; the lower half was just nothing but a big rust blob basically. Ancient boiler. There was also a stove from the 1950s and a ton of junk down there, including a church pew. Around a corner in the basement was a suddenly completely empty concrete room lit only by a creepy hanging construction lamp. In the center of the floor was an ancient, stained rocking chair. All three of us screamed, only half-joking. Realtor goes: "This is the room where you had to go recite your rosary when you were bad"
The worst part was that the house was full of all these jerry-rigged medical help devices clearly because an ancient old person had been living there and had clearly just died. Someone had bolted huge thick sturdy metal handles on every doorframe, on the bannister going upstairs, and strategically around the toilet and shower.
It was so intense and emo. Felt so weird to be in there like "THIS IS HORRIBLE" and "YOU'D HAVE TO TEAR OUT ALL THESE WALLS AND WINDOWS" and stuff, thinking about the person who'd spent decades living in there, who we know nothing about.
House-histories are so weird to think about, and mysterious. Imagine how horrible it would be if someone created an app (prob already exists) where people could record their house stories and then the new owners would get access to those house stories as soon as they moved in. I REALLY don't want to know the stories of the meth-using dog owners who lived in my house previously.
But anyway, it's so exciting to be looking! Send us links!
Quite a few cute ones under $400k have come up in Portland in the past few days. When I was looking 2 years ago it was "under $300k" for the same houses. Crazy.
this one is one block from where we're living now. We saw the "for sale" sign and went and peered in the windows. It's pretty ramshackle, but an epic location.
I mention it only because Gary thought it'd be listed for $319,000!!!!!! Which frankly is about what it ought to be listed at. We came home and looked, and, well...it's not $319,000
I really don't know who buys all these half million dollar and 1.3 million dollar homes that get listed in this area. There's only one head basketball coach, you know? Who else has that kind of money, around here? I wonder if it is all ritzy New Yorker second homes???
Doctors, dentists, lawyers, business people, financial people...? I have no idea who lives there tho. If you have a couple each making 6 figures, a million dollar home doesn't seem too unrealistic if you put down $200k or something.
I guess you're right. Six figures seems so hilariously high to me! But I guess not to some industries. However, when I was being squired around at my interview everyone told me this is an academic town and prices are geared toward that fact, which is not seeming to be very much the case...
For the record, dentists definitely do NOT buy million dollar homes, typically, unless there are (as you say) two in the family and they've both been saving for quite a long time. I know because my sis is a dentist and that's really not a way to make big money.
Most internal med docs don't make that kinda money either. Specialists do, though, eventually.
If US News and World Reports can be trusted, I stand corrected. My sis does work in public health dentistry...
But then there's this to remember:
"According to the American Dental Education Association, the average dental student graduates with upwards of $241,000 of student loan debt—an increase of over 66% in the last decade and an amount vastly exceeding the national average."
Although, I have to say, I never have understood how even enormous school loan debt gets docs/dentists into trouble. If they live on the $20k (or less, actually) I lived on for much of my adult life, they'd have their debt paid off in no time.
That is a truly wild amount of debt. But you can still imagine that fifteen or twenty years in, as a dentist hits their biggest earning years, they can really start to accumulate the moolah.
Dentists should use Income Share Agreements to pay for their college. No traditional "debt" and their friends and family could profit from supporting them.
nope! there's still nothing really on the market. We looked at another totally bombed-out wreck right in the most perfect dream location the other day. It's a great house--it's got "great bones" as they say--but it looks like squatters have been living in it for 20 years. It's incredible what happens to the insides of these houses. It's in such a ritzy neighborhood but the inside is heinous. Crazy burns and water damage and big sections of flooring ripped up, holes in the wall, etc. It's on the market for $365,000 (!!!) even though you'd have to re-do literally everything and I also have to assume the wiring and whatever else is also bad. Anyway we're keeping an eye on it for fun.
We moved into our new house last Sunday! Did I tell you guys that in like, 2008 I randomly went to an open house at THIS VERY CONDO and fell in love with it? I talked about it with Mike and my family and friends and showed them all pictures and legitimately looked into whether I could buy it. And now I LIVE THERE!! "You never know."
We got keys tonight and met our new neighbor who is "Uncle Reo" AKA Snoop Dog's uncle. His daughter fights in the WWE. He was wearing a fine wale, brown, pinstriped corduroy track suit with matching loafers and invited me to play keys in his gospel choir. VERY COOL NEW NEIGHBORS.
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https://www.redfin.com/OR/Portland/3116-NE-59th-Ave-97213/home/26551579
Just a li'l update! Also we went and peeked in the windows of a house by our current house that just went on the market and Gary guessed it'd be priced at 300,000 and I guessed 500,000 and it was actually 589,000
being an American in the 21st century is an exercise in absurdity
Our realtor sometimes shows us foreclosure houses, and I just feel so strongly that I don't want to buy a house that way. If we're going to embark on the violence of owning private property I at least want it to be a consensual transaction. It's so dark to drive up to a house and then the realtor is like "now, the people in here don't want to leave, and the bank is gonna call the sheriff, so anyway we can't go inside." FUCK THAT. God.
So curious what the burn the house down houses are like that you've been seeing.
The main gnarly house we've looked at was this place that was in the ultimate dream location, I mean ULTIMATE, but was priced at like $320 or something, which seemed super low for this location/size of house. I expected it to be one of these houses that someone's been living in since 1947 and has never updated in any way, and I was right. There was this heinous green FILTHY carpet covering every surface even though you could tell rad hardwoods were underneath. It was one of those weird cramped floor plans of a previous age I associate with grandparents' houses, where like there's an inexplicable tiny warren-like "hallway" between the living room and dining room where it should be open, etc. Every room was STUFFED with huge furniture in that way they used to do in the 50s, and all the furniture was super super gnarly, cigarette burns on the arms, etc. Every window was totally covered with shit--those wooden frames to hide curtain rods, then those weird vinyl roll-down blinds, then on top of the blinds, frilly white curtains, and on top of those curtains, thick green velvet curtains. The house was like a black cave. You go upstairs and there are three small bedrooms, each done in UNBELIEVABLE wallpaper, like wallpaper with designs they'd use in a movie to convey a bad acid trip. Our realtor said "this wallpaper is making me nauseous" and he meant it. Like motion-sickness wallpaper. Meanwhile the floors upstairs looked 200 years old, like wood floors from the house in Blair Witch Project (I am perhaps exaggerating here, but seriously like a house you find in the woods and sneak into that no one's been living in for years). The windows were very old, single-paned, and still weighted with lead weights which clanked inside the walls of the house when you shook them. Nothing insulated; the heat would just pour outside in winter (hence the velvet curtains, perhaps).
The burn the house down stuff was down in the basement and up in the attic, there was all this exposed, frayed wiring going all over the place, into god knows how many appliances/sockets/naked bulbs/walls of the house. On the outside of the house there was ancient frayed wiring going into the actual meter. Our realtor kept whistling in awe and terror.
Down in the basement was an ancient oil tank that our realtor said was "an environmental disaster waiting to happen." Corroded almost all over; the lower half was just nothing but a big rust blob basically. Ancient boiler. There was also a stove from the 1950s and a ton of junk down there, including a church pew. Around a corner in the basement was a suddenly completely empty concrete room lit only by a creepy hanging construction lamp. In the center of the floor was an ancient, stained rocking chair. All three of us screamed, only half-joking. Realtor goes: "This is the room where you had to go recite your rosary when you were bad"
The worst part was that the house was full of all these jerry-rigged medical help devices clearly because an ancient old person had been living there and had clearly just died. Someone had bolted huge thick sturdy metal handles on every doorframe, on the bannister going upstairs, and strategically around the toilet and shower.
It was so intense and emo. Felt so weird to be in there like "THIS IS HORRIBLE" and "YOU'D HAVE TO TEAR OUT ALL THESE WALLS AND WINDOWS" and stuff, thinking about the person who'd spent decades living in there, who we know nothing about.
Anyway that's why the price was so low
http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/real-estate-2015
House-histories are so weird to think about, and mysterious. Imagine how horrible it would be if someone created an app (prob already exists) where people could record their house stories and then the new owners would get access to those house stories as soon as they moved in. I REALLY don't want to know the stories of the meth-using dog owners who lived in my house previously.
But anyway, it's so exciting to be looking! Send us links!
Quite a few cute ones under $400k have come up in Portland in the past few days. When I was looking 2 years ago it was "under $300k" for the same houses. Crazy.
I mention it only because Gary thought it'd be listed for $319,000!!!!!! Which frankly is about what it ought to be listed at. We came home and looked, and, well...it's not $319,000
http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Northampton-MA-01060/house_type/57021797_zpid/58234_rid/1-_beds/days_sort/42.404953,-72.469769,42.252918,-72.778759_rect/11_zm/0_mmm/
I guess you're right. Six figures seems so hilariously high to me! But I guess not to some industries. However, when I was being squired around at my interview everyone told me this is an academic town and prices are geared toward that fact, which is not seeming to be very much the case...
Most internal med docs don't make that kinda money either. Specialists do, though, eventually.
But then there's this to remember:
"According to the American Dental Education Association, the average dental student graduates with upwards of $241,000 of student loan debt—an increase of over 66% in the last decade and an amount vastly exceeding the national average."
https://www.redfin.com/OR/Lorane/26080-Siuslaw-River-Rd-97451/home/26229984
https://www.redfin.com/OR/Glide/23049-N-Umpqua-Hwy-97443/home/25809187
MAYDAY
eep
I feel similarly about my husband