Stupid people spend more than 1/2 their income on housing

[Singular Intellect]

Oh, that's rich. You make a completely unjustified claim which you admit that you pulled out of your ass, and then you demand that I provide fully referenced evidence to disprove your claim. What the fuck is your brain damage?

I'm freely admitting that my arguement of owning a home as a generally superior choice to renting (for the reasons I stated) is driven by my limited understanding of the issue and more so by the seeming general consensus of alot of people I've talked to who own homes.

You're telling me this is incorrect. I'm willing to accept that my position is basically dictated by appeal to popularity and therefore I'm just asking for any helpful hints on your part on to how I can educate myself on why that isn't actually the case.

[salm]

My place is unlike any apartment I have ever seen. Although the fact that I have never seen a three-story apartment the size of a house, different from any other house only in that it shares its side walls, doesn't mean that such a thing doesn't exist...

...in any case, no, I couldn't rent a 'typical' apartment in this area for that money, either. Although I could probably find a guest-house or room to sublet within in a larger house in the area, for about that money.

You mean a semi-detached house?

[Kanastrous]

The townhouses at either end qualify as semi-detached, I guess, but I have a shared wall on either side. Just a regular townhome, I think.

[RedImperator]

Can townhomes stand on their own if the houses next to them are torn down? 19th and early 20th century rowhouses on the East Coast can (though sometimes they need to have the side walls buttressed).

[Kanastrous]

The place is pretty typical balloon-frame construction. If the neighboring units come down, I expect that mine would, too.

[ray245]

Is it good for USA to adopt a home ownership scheme?

Like what the British, Singapore and Hong Kong has done, in the past or in the present?

Where people can own the house even though they have no paid the house in full yet...and they can pay for the house monthly at a subsidised rate?

Basically, allow people to buy and OWN the house at a subsidised rate, and allow them to pay over a certain period of time.

And certain condition needs to be made, such as not allowing those people who did not paid for their house in full unable to buy another property?

Also, you might want to give a certain amount of quotas in regards to how many property they can own in regards to their income?

Since people are too dumb to look after themselves, the government should step in and put certain controls and benefits.

[Alferd Packer]

Another point to consider is that now that foreclosures are on the up everywhere, the cost to rent is skyrocketing. The rent on my townhome on my upcoming lease was going to jump around $75, and I live in a rent-controlled municipality! It's damn good thing I'm buying a house--my mortgage payment will actually wind up being $200 or so less than my current rent, and $275 less than what it would be if I'd re-signed my lease. When you factor in additional costs I will now have to pay because I own instead of rent--sewer, gas, property taxes, and so on--it works out to costing an extra $300 per month, which is well within the financial reach of my wife and myself.

The extra $300 I consider the price I have to pay for having a nice, fenced in backyard to barbecue and entertain friends in, a front porch from where I can scream at kids to get the hell off my lawn, and most importantly, for not sharing walls with shrill, braying cunts. I consider it money well-spent.

[Kanastrous]

I'm rather hoping that the falling purchase prices and rising rental rates will make it more comfortable, to rent out the present townhouse and get into a three-bedroom place in the same neighborhood, in the next year-to-eighteen-months.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

What about buying land and building a home on it?

[salm]

I'm rather hoping that the falling purchase prices and rising rental rates will make it more comfortable, to rent out the present townhouse and get into a three-bedroom place in the same neighborhood, in the next year-to-eighteen-months.

Why do you want a three-bedroom place? IIRC you don´t have any kids.

[ray245]

I'm rather hoping that the falling purchase prices and rising rental rates will make it more comfortable, to rent out the present townhouse and get into a three-bedroom place in the same neighborhood, in the next year-to-eighteen-months.

Why do you want a three-bedroom place? IIRC you don´t have any kids.

I thought that tons of people is acceptable living in a three bedroom house?

Hell, my family and I are living in a 3 bedroom house a single storey flat none the less, and most of us in singapore is comfortable with it.

There is a difference between luxury and comfort.

[salm]

I'm rather hoping that the falling purchase prices and rising rental rates will make it more comfortable, to rent out the present townhouse and get into a three-bedroom place in the same neighborhood, in the next year-to-eighteen-months.

Why do you want a three-bedroom place? IIRC you don´t have any kids.

I thought that tons of people is acceptable living in a three bedroom house?

Hell, my family and I are living in a 3 bedroom house a single storey flat none the less, and most of us in singapore is comfortable with it.

There is a difference between luxury and comfort.

Can you rephrase that? I have no idea what you´re saying.

[Kanastrous]

I'm rather hoping that the falling purchase prices and rising rental rates will make it more comfortable, to rent out the present townhouse and get into a three-bedroom place in the same neighborhood, in the next year-to-eighteen-months.

Why do you want a three-bedroom place? IIRC you don´t have any kids.

1 bedroom-as-master-bedroom

1 bedroom-as-studio-space (workstations, render farm, drafting/painting/etc space)

1 bedroom-as-guest-and-entertaining space. Or kid's room, should one appear.

It's also possible that we'd use one extra bedroom as my workspace, and the other as my wife's; right now we are sharing our second bedroom as a joint office, and it's a little bit tight.

[Kanastrous]

*edit*

We'd also like a library room. Our present solution (16' shelves+library ladder in the dining room) works, but cuts down the size of the dining room a little bit more than I'd like.

[salm]

I'm rather hoping that the falling purchase prices and rising rental rates will make it more comfortable, to rent out the present townhouse and get into a three-bedroom place in the same neighborhood, in the next year-to-eighteen-months.

Why do you want a three-bedroom place? IIRC you don´t have any kids.

1 bedroom-as-master-bedroom

1 bedroom-as-studio-space (workstations, render farm, drafting/painting/etc space)

1 bedroom-as-guest-and-entertaining space. Or kid's room, should one appear.

It's also possible that we'd use one extra bedroom as my workspace, and the other as my wife's; right now we are sharing our second bedroom as a joint office, and it's a little bit tight.

Oh, makes sense. I wasn´t aware that bedroom = any type of room. I though a three bedroom appartement was three bedrooms + 1 living room + study or something like that and was wondering what a pair of dinks would do with three actual bedrooms.

[Kanastrous]

Oh, makes sense. I wasn´t aware that bedroom = any type of room. I though a three bedroom appartement was three bedrooms + 1 living room + study or something like that and was wondering what a pair of dinks would do with three actual bedrooms.

Screw in a different bedroom each night, on a three-night rotating schedule...?

Well, okay, I think of 'bedroom' as a room defined by the design as a bedroom (that is, with a clothes closet, space for a bed, with attached or adjoining bathroom). So our present place is two bedrooms, two bathrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, garage, patio. The next place, ideally, will be three bedrooms, two-three bathrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, garage, patio and/or lawn. Like that.

[ray245]

Why do you want a three-bedroom place? IIRC you don´t have any kids.

I thought that tons of people is acceptable living in a three bedroom house?

Hell, my family and I are living in a 3 bedroom house a single storey flat none the less, and most of us in singapore is comfortable with it.

There is a difference between luxury and comfort.

Can you rephrase that? I have no idea what you´re saying.

In essence, I am saying that it is a luxury for most of us to get a 3-BEDroom , exculding the living room, dinning area and a kitchen.

And my house is filled with kids daily..with 5-10 kids running around the house, as my mom teaches abacus at home.

Hey...if you can live in a 3 bedroom flat, with kitchen, living room and dinning area...it is good enough.

A bigger hosue means you are living in luxury.


Hell...for those of us living in a country or place with a limited amount of land and expensive houses in general...you americans have no idea that most of your houses are considered to be a luxury for the rich.

If your house is two storey high, with its own yard and parking garage, that is considered to be a house for the rich down here.


It is easy for us to forget what is considered to be a luxurious house and what is a decent house to live in.

[AniThyng]

I'm rather hoping that the falling purchase prices and rising rental rates will make it more comfortable, to rent out the present townhouse and get into a three-bedroom place in the same neighborhood, in the next year-to-eighteen-months.

Why do you want a three-bedroom place? IIRC you don´t have any kids.

I thought that tons of people is acceptable living in a three bedroom house?

Hell, my family and I are living in a 3 bedroom house a single storey flat none the less, and most of us in singapore is comfortable with it.

There is a difference between luxury and comfort.

Dude, the question is why he needs so much space when he has no kids, not "What is wrong with having many people stay in a 3-bedroom place".

[Darth Wong]

Regarding house size, our standards have become seriously skewed. I grew up in a small 3-bedroom house which didn't even have a garage; it had a carport. And this is with a nuclear physicist father in management at Ontario Hydro, and a mother who eventually went back to work in a hospital lab.

This phenomenon of people with "bleh" jobs like "mechanic" running out and buying spacious luxury homes for their first dwelling is pretty new. Just look at old houses built in the 1940s and 1950s; everything is smaller.

[RedImperator]

Regarding house size, our standards have become seriously skewed. I grew up in a small 3-bedroom house which didn't even have a garage; it had a carport. And this is with a nuclear physicist father in management at Ontario Hydro, and a mother who eventually went back to work in a hospital lab.

This phenomenon of people with "bleh" jobs like "mechanic" running out and buying spacious luxury homes for their first dwelling is pretty new. Just look at old houses built in the 1940s and 1950s; everything is smaller.

I grew up with a family of four living in a three bedroom/one bathroom split level with no garage at all. Until relatively recently, that's how I thought all middle-class people lived; I thought those huge houses that started springing up like mushrooms all over South Jersey in the mid-90s were for rich people.

Another anecdote: Newark, Delaware is a college town, with the University of Delaware right in the middle of downtown and neighborhoods of tightly packed, prewar, two-story frame homes, brick duplexes, and wood frame rowhouses around it. Just about all of these houses are shoddy looking, because they're student housing owned by absentee landlords (even catastrophically poor inner city neighborhoods usually have one or two houses on any given block which are well cared for), and for the longest time I didn't think too hard about how they got there. But UDel didn't have a huge student body until the latter half of the 20th century and wouldn't have needed anything like this much off-campus housing, and Newark used to be an industrial town. Those run-down houses were where regular people lived. The frame homes were company housing for the workers and the brick houses were where managers, professionals, and junior executives lived. Can you imagine a factory middle manager or a successful dentist living in a brick duplex today? In present-day Newark, they all live in giant McMansions on the edge of town.

[ray245]

Why do you want a three-bedroom place? IIRC you don´t have any kids.

I thought that tons of people is acceptable living in a three bedroom house?

Hell, my family and I are living in a 3 bedroom house a single storey flat none the less, and most of us in singapore is comfortable with it.

There is a difference between luxury and comfort.

Dude, the question is why he needs so much space when he has no kids, not "What is wrong with having many people stay in a 3-bedroom place".

Oh ok...totally misread that sentence. What the hell is wrong with me recently...

Mike, in regards to house, you don't need to go back into the past to say how bad the the sistuation is..or the fact the people want a smaller house in the past.

Hell, my parents live in a rather small house, as both taiwan and singapore isn't that rich in general in the past.

And guess what happened? My parents still dreamed of a bigger house when they think they are able to afford it.

It seems that me and my brother is against the idea...as personally, I am happy with the way things were.

I don't need to live in a smaller house to appreciate how much comfort I have right now...

Moreover, when you compare the middle-class among the world, and the amount of land they have...you will notice that even though people may have the same income and standing in the social/economic ladder...people around the world won't mind a smaller house.

And from the pictures I've seen of your house mike, I can say your house is definetly bigger than mine, and I have no intention to live in such a big house...even though the size of my family is the same as yours.

Hmm...although the size of living in a big house with so little people DO creep me out.

I hate house to be big and empty...there is a lack of human touch if your house is too big...

[Kanastrous]

Hmm...although the size of living in a big house with so little people DO creep me out.

Yeah, sharing a mansion with a bunch of leprechauns would freak me out, too.

[ray245]

Hmm...although the size of living in a big house with so little people DO creep me out.

Yeah, sharing a mansion with a bunch of leprechauns would freak me out, too.

Not because of ghost or lepreachauns...I simply hate an empty enviroment.

I LIKED my house to be totally noisy, with tons of people around...and small enough to hear people's voice or feel the presence of others.

If the ghost or lepreachauns are friendly, I can get used to it...

However, where it seems like you are living in a vacuum...where your enviroment is so empty...that is the thing that bothered me.

I gives me the 'alone in the world' vibe which I hate to experience.

[Alferd Packer]

Regarding house size, our standards have become seriously skewed. I grew up in a small 3-bedroom house which didn't even have a garage; it had a carport. And this is with a nuclear physicist father in management at Ontario Hydro, and a mother who eventually went back to work in a hospital lab.

This phenomenon of people with "bleh" jobs like "mechanic" running out and buying spacious luxury homes for their first dwelling is pretty new. Just look at old houses built in the 1940s and 1950s; everything is smaller.

Quite true. The house I'm buying was built in 1934, and it's one of the smallest ones we looked at, and on one of the smallest lots (.13 acres or somesuch). But since it's just the two of us and the dog, there's really no reason to have anything bigger. We looked at much larger houses that we could afford, and we realized that we would literally wind up only using half the house. And even though we're moving in to what is by all modern definitions a small house, we'll still have more room than we know what to do with right now.

[Broomstick]

Another point to consider is that now that foreclosures are on the up everywhere, the cost to rent is skyrocketing.

Skyrocketing?

Between foreclosures, tornado, and floods there are no rental units left in my town. They're gone, full up. You can't get one for any price.

We're going to wind up with empty, foreclosed homes and homeless people living on the street - or squatting in vacant buildings.

I'm in a good situation because I've been where I am for a decade... but trying find a place NOW would be awful.