[Senior Member]

You want a large supply of cheap houses? Come to Baltimore. You can buy one of these for a dollar.

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Ohio too.

 

[DrivinAW8]

Labor, regulatory, concrete and lumber cost the same regardless if the intent is to build lower priced vs upper end homes. You can save a bit building slightly smaller homes on lower priced land, but that's typically located in less desirable locations and thus what you gain in potential buyers is partially offset by those unable or unwilling to move to those locations.

dont underestimate the contributing roles of speculative capital in real estate (“flip” lending or land purchases) “investing” as a major driver of housing costs in urban metros. gentrification station

the tract-home greenfield stickbuilds being sold in the dozens (sorry,, hundreds and thousands, nationwide) for $350/400 a square foot hurt ever fiber of my sensibilities and business ethics, and sure, any major new development effort is going to incur regulatory and local zoning variance counsel/litigation costs.

housing is mostly expensive bc of capital markets and the Banking Industry

 

[DrivinAW8]

You want a large supply of cheap houses? Come to Baltimore. You can buy one of these for a dollar.

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dont threaten me with a good time

 

[mrothwell]

You want a large supply of cheap houses? Come to Baltimore. You can buy one of these for a dollar.

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Haha, I grew up just outside of Baltimore, I’ve definitely considered buying a rental property there. My aunt is actually a realtor in Baltimore. Maryland tenant laws are terrifying though, and despite their excellent returns, I’m still a bit intimidated by class D rentals.

Are these homes actually inhabitable though per HUD rules? I’m assuming they’d rent section 8, which means they get periodic inspections by the housing authorities.

 

[HI SPEED]

Americans are Hood Rich, news at 11.

The amount of junior people in my company that have Tesla Y performance, or new Tacomas with $10k in suspension is crazy to me.

One thing that has changed, is that the stigma of living at home until your 30s is basically gone now, so people have expensive tastes while top toeing into their mom's house as a fully grown adult.

However there are just as many people who just pile on debt.

 

[Silly_me]

Americans are Hood Rich, news at 11.

 

[Greg8]

Everything in the 10-15K have like 100-150,000 miles. I am not gonna spend $15K for a 2013 model year car with 90,000 miles. I don't care what it is.

I just went through this ordeal in late December. Autotrader was my friend. I searched a 50 mile radius and found 12 cars that were under 50,000 miles and $17,000. The first was sold before I showed up. Three were time capsules. The first recent model that I could test drive, I bought on the spot for asking price. I spend a lot of time searching. It is rough out there.

 

[2 doors]

Haha, I grew up just outside of Baltimore, I’ve definitely considered buying a rental property there. My aunt is actually a realtor in Baltimore. Maryland tenant laws are terrifying though, and despite their excellent returns, I’m still a bit intimidated by class D rentals.

Are these homes actually inhabitable though per HUD rules? I’m assuming they’d rent section 8, which means they get periodic inspections by the housing authorities.

Some of them don't even have roofs! They are just empty brick shells. The steps are marble though.

 

[AZGolf]

Some of them don't even have roofs! They are just empty brick shells. The steps are marble though.

The city I used to live in condemned a neighborhood where virtually every house was falling down and failed building code. The city bulldozed the entire neighborhood and sold the bare land to a developer who put in a high density apartment complex, which seemed appropriate since the area needed dense, affordable housing that wasn't 50 year old falling down shacks. The city then got sued for what lawyers for some organization or another because they argued that cities can't eminent domain housing to turn around and give it to a housing developer. While that wasn't exactly what happened, it ended up halting the rest of the city's revitalization efforts.

So now a small part of that city is still a mixture of bare lots that were condemned and torn down and 70 year old shacks that only barely manage to stay out of the city government's hands. But the net effect is that revitalization of the area ends up being impossible because unless and until someone (city or private) can manage to take possession of the entire neighborhood for redevelopment it remains unfixable. Nobody wants to build a new home next to falling down shacks, and the people in the falling down shacks refuse to sell, even though they're living in homes that haven't been up to code for 50+ years.

I'm sure Baltimore, Cleveland, and plenty of other places could revitalize much more easily if it were legal to just eminent domain buy out the home owners of a falling down neighborhood but it isn't legal, and it isn't worth buying the properties one at a time because (1) You have no way of knowing how long it will take to buy them all and (2) the price you would have to pay keeps going up and up as there's fewer holdouts, leading to massive cost overruns on acquisition. So instead you end up with areas that can't be eminent domained, can't be redeveloped, and just waste away. It would probably take new federal law to make truly massive scale forced redevelopment legal.

So long as the US has undeveloped land somewhere else in the country, people just end up moving away instead of redeveloping the old places.

 

[CTK]

Well the other issue with places like Baltimore and Cleveland are jobs. A lot would have to happen at the $ame time for them to revitalize just right. And even then it's unlikely they'd get a diverse and stable base of jobs and industry. America grows more and more bifurcated everyday and it sucks

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[zerind]

Lol @ prices coming down

 

[mrothwell]

Well the other issue with places like Baltimore and Cleveland are jobs. A lot would have to happen at the $ame time for them to revitalize just right. And even then it's unlikely they'd get a diverse and stable base of jobs and industry. America grows more and more bifurcated everyday and it sucks

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I can’t speak for Cleveland, but Baltimore has tons of jobs with easy commute distance, the federal government is right down in DC and there’s a ****load of highly paid jobs related to it on the Maryland side. I could easily pick up another 20k/year by moving there but I’d never convince my wife to move that far north.

 

[Senior Member]

Lol @ prices coming down

$948,500 compard $950,000 is still down.

 

[2 doors]

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/18/1163278082/car-prices-used-cars-electric-vehicles-pandemic

Article stating what’s been said here

 

[CTK]

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/18/1163278082/car-prices-used-cars-electric-vehicles-pandemic

Article stating what’s been said here

You know what's funny. Pre pandemic was 2019. If you annualize the inflation they show, it's only 6.5% per year. Obviously higher than normal, especially with the speed with which it ramped up and all the related ****ery, but not completely out of control.

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[tinygiant]

I would find it hard to justify a payment over $200-250 a month. So i continue to keep our old cars alive. Which my wifes 2013 rav has been problem free (knock on wood) and my 85 vw cabriolet Is my daily but also a hobby and doesn't demand much for maintenance at this point.

add in that i have a truck from my employer that i get to use for my trips to and from work with gas covered. Any car payment in my situation seems like a complete luxury.

If i had to have a payment i would probably go for a base corolla, but still the payment would be higher than i would feel comfortable with. Could I afford higher, probably. Would I pay more, nope.

 

[Senior Member]

I would find it hard to justify a payment over $200-250 a month.

Welcome to 1987.

 

[tinygiant]

Welcome to 1987.

Maybe thats why i drive a 1985 (which is a year younger than I am)

 

[HI SPEED]

$200 a month won't even get you a lease on a stripper economy car.

 

[Smigelski]

$200 a month won't even get you a lease on a stripper economy car.