Friendly Neighborhood Housing Crisis
Jun. 18th, 2012 01:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabid1stSo, we went out on one of our townie photography trips today, looking for nice houses to feature on our wallpaper at home. We like to scout out neighborhoods we might want to live in someday. So, we found this gem of a suburb with old trees and nice brick houses on expansive lots. And one of the homes, a beauty made of red brick with white shutters on a corner lot, was for sale. We pulled over to study it and noticed that it has recently had an open house, so there were fliers in a box telling us all about the home. It had a pool. A two-car garage. A huge living room and master bedroom. It was a great house. So, we were guessing the cost. The SO guessed $225,000. But, thinking they might be desperate to sell, I guessed $189,000. It turned out this house is going for $159,000. And it is a beauty. WOW! I wish I had that in cash right now. I would have a new house.
But here is the funnier bit. We drove about four blocks and there was a new subdivision, obviously hit hard by the housing collapse. Here the houses look like crap to me and many of them are decaying ruins, only half finished. The SO seems to want to see the place, so we press on, but I have never been able to see living within easy spitting distance of a neighbor...not at those prices. They want $250,000 plus a homeowner's fee to basically live in what appears to be a cardboard box that they built 5 feet from another cardboard box. All of the houses looked exactly the same...tan on beige stucco finishes with high arched windows and sad, sad little plots of land. But the most humorous thing was we stopped at the end of a culdesac and my SO sees a sign that reads "Nature Preserve" with a few cars parked in front of the sign.
"Oh, nice," he says craning the neck a bit to look for the path to the wonderful "preserve." I am looking past the sign to the eight lane highway about 20 yards away and clearly visible through low brush. I say, "Honey! I think that's a drainage ditch." He frowns at me and shakes his head, "No? There are cars here." I say, "I think those cars are for these two houses crowded on either side. And the nature preserve is a drainage ditch by a highway." We drive on, both of us a little uncertain, and sure enough, we come to another "Nature Preserve" sign. This time on an empty lot between two houses. No chance it was anything but a lot waiting for development, you could see the installed foundation stuff and again, the highway beyond the trees. These people had the unmitigated gall to rip off their home buyers and then spit in their face by putting up signs calling empty lots and ditches "Nature Preserves." Going in to that development I could feel the despair these developers feed on. Obviously, they thought anyone who bought their homes at those prices must be stupid, but I didn't appreciate having that low opinion of home buyers spelled out so completely.
But here is the funnier bit. We drove about four blocks and there was a new subdivision, obviously hit hard by the housing collapse. Here the houses look like crap to me and many of them are decaying ruins, only half finished. The SO seems to want to see the place, so we press on, but I have never been able to see living within easy spitting distance of a neighbor...not at those prices. They want $250,000 plus a homeowner's fee to basically live in what appears to be a cardboard box that they built 5 feet from another cardboard box. All of the houses looked exactly the same...tan on beige stucco finishes with high arched windows and sad, sad little plots of land. But the most humorous thing was we stopped at the end of a culdesac and my SO sees a sign that reads "Nature Preserve" with a few cars parked in front of the sign.
"Oh, nice," he says craning the neck a bit to look for the path to the wonderful "preserve." I am looking past the sign to the eight lane highway about 20 yards away and clearly visible through low brush. I say, "Honey! I think that's a drainage ditch." He frowns at me and shakes his head, "No? There are cars here." I say, "I think those cars are for these two houses crowded on either side. And the nature preserve is a drainage ditch by a highway." We drive on, both of us a little uncertain, and sure enough, we come to another "Nature Preserve" sign. This time on an empty lot between two houses. No chance it was anything but a lot waiting for development, you could see the installed foundation stuff and again, the highway beyond the trees. These people had the unmitigated gall to rip off their home buyers and then spit in their face by putting up signs calling empty lots and ditches "Nature Preserves." Going in to that development I could feel the despair these developers feed on. Obviously, they thought anyone who bought their homes at those prices must be stupid, but I didn't appreciate having that low opinion of home buyers spelled out so completely.
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-06-18 10:52 am (UTC)The older house on the other hand, sounds lovely. You need to win the lottery post haste.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-06-18 01:21 pm (UTC)I hate developers. Ever since they tore down an old farm house I used to rent and tore up the 229 acres and put it into houses I can't deal. They named it box elder homes for the box elders they cut down.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-06-18 11:14 pm (UTC)Yeah, a lot of the new McMansions are terribly built, so they just fall apart when they're left vacant by foreclosure -- or never having been bought in the first place.