What, the electric / ICE thread got locked, so we need summer reruns for entertainment?
What, the electric / ICE thread got locked, so we need summer reruns for entertainment?
Duke said:What, the electric / ICE thread got locked, so we need summer reruns for entertainment?
well, for what it's worth, i just don't see ICE's replacing EV's any time soon.
Toyman! said:Mt Pleasant, SC.
Oh, that's on the water. No wonder it's gone crazy.
Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:Toyman! said:Mt Pleasant, SC.
Oh, that's on the water. No wonder it's gone crazy.
Pretty much all of the Charleston area is on the water. I'm in Goose Creek now and still within a couple of miles of water.
The problem lies in the 30 plus people a day that move to the greater Charleston area and start looking for a place to live. From 2000 to 2022 the population grew by 280k people. That influx of people has not been a good thing for the area. It's driven housing prices through the roof, increase urban sprawl to the extreme, and created traffic problems that are never-ending. What was once a peaceful southern town is now filled with rude shiny happy people from other parts of the country.
The only thing worse than a tourist in Charleston is a tourist that decides to stay.
I just don't understand who can afford these prices? Are the vast majority of Americans just OK being house poor? Even with that I still don't get it.
In reply to z31maniac :
We were approved for $240,000 (in 2019.) There were some very nice houses at that price. We said berk that, and found a acceptable house for $179,000. $61,000 difference was not something we just brushed aside. That's a huge cushion.
There are some people who do the exact opposite.
No way in hell were we going to be house poor.
In reply to Appleseed :
We did the opposite in 2004. We maxed out what we could do, wiped out our savings to build our house. It was supposed to be our forever home (that got changed). We also spent the next 3 years scrimping, saving and busting our ass to rebuild that cushion. We went out to eat 1-2 time a month (after about a year we upped it a little), brought our lunch every day. Didn't take trips for 24 months, stayed home and enjoyed our house. We paid it off a 18 months ago early. Now with no debt we are looking good for the next home we will need because we likely won't be staying here.
Appleseed said:In reply to z31maniac :
We were approved for $240,000 (in 2019.) There were some very nice houses at that price. We said berk that, and found a acceptable house for $179,000. $61,000 difference was not something we just brushed aside. That's a huge cushion.
There are some people who do the exact opposite.
No way in hell were we going to be house poor.
I paid $156k for my house in Sept '17, if Zillow is to be believed it's now appreciated to almost $250k. I was approved for more than double that and it didn't include the now fiance's income. But I thought spending that much would be silly.
Even with my ex-wife when I bought the house she still lives in, I took the stance of only buying what we could afford on one salary. That way if something happens to one of us, many other things may change, but at least we would have a roof over our heads.
That proved useful this year when my fiance was laid off and it took more than 5 months for her to find another job.
In reply to Appleseed :
I'm currently looking to buy. Our apartment contract is up in a few months so we got prequalified to basically put us in the same square footage but with one more bedroom, and the mortgage on the place will likely increase our monthly expenses by $3-400. Top it off with living in one of the few spots in the country where rent is still increasing... house poor may be the only option.
In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :
You can do house poor correctly IMO. It's not always a negative thing. You just have to make adjustments. Make sure you don't have any other debt like CC's or car payments if you can and get what you can afford. Put money back and don't do the fun things for a while to build up a cushion. We didn't stop scrimping and cutting costs until we knew we had 6 months of bills to cover us if we both lost our jobs and couldn't get new ones quickly.
Toyman! said:Pretty much all of the Charleston area is on the water. I'm in Goose Creek now and still within a couple of miles of water.
The problem lies in the 30 plus people a day that move to the greater Charleston area and start looking for a place to live. From 2000 to 2022 the population grew by 280k people. That influx of people has not been a good thing for the area. It's driven housing prices through the roof, increase urban sprawl to the extreme, and created traffic problems that are never-ending. What was once a peaceful southern town is now filled with rude shiny happy people from other parts of the country.
The only thing worse than a tourist in Charleston is a tourist that decides to stay.
Raleigh grew steadily until it kind of filled up recently. During the same period, adjacent bordering towns like Cary, Holly Springs and the like also exploded. Soon, there was nowhere left to build. Then Apple and a few other companies announced that they were opening up facilities nearby.
I think what we're seeing now is a churn where land that wasn't available previously has passed out of the hands of long time owners and into the hands of developers. There is also an effort to raze older single family houses and either build bigger houses or mixed use development.
Raleigh, NC growth:
1990 212,092 41.2%
2000276,093 30.2%
2010403,892 46.3%
2020467,665 15.8%
2022 (est.)476,587 1.9% (filled up)
Durham, NC
1990 136,611 35.1%
2000 187,035 36.9%
2010 228,330 22.1%
2020 283,506 24.2%
Cary, NC:
1990 43,858 101.5%
2000 94,536 115.6%
2010 135,234 43.1%
2020 174,721 29.2%
It looks like Charleston is growing between 20-25% a decade, but I'm betting the nearby municipalities are also exploding.
1990 80,414 +15.2%
2000 96,650 +20.2%
2010 120,083 +24.2%
2020 150,227 +25.1%
I didn't look to see how many square miles each city/town had, and that's certainly a factor with how many people they can confortably hold. Crazy times.
bobzilla said:In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :
You can do house poor correctly IMO. It's not always a negative thing. You just have to make adjustments. Make sure you don't have any other debt like CC's or car payments if you can and get what you can afford. Put money back and don't do the fun things for a while to build up a cushion. We didn't stop scrimping and cutting costs until we knew we had 6 months of bills to cover us if we both lost our jobs and couldn't get new ones quickly.
Since most Americans are terrible at planning and saving being house poor is generally one of the only ways they grow their wealth. I dont advocate for it but Ive seen it work out for more than a couple people, flip side is Ive seen a bunch of people lose homes because of it
I feel the most sorry for first-time home buyers around the years 2021/2022. Because before then, a reasonable income could buy a single family home in most areas. Now, not so much.
The house I owned in Raleigh, NC from 2011 to 2013, which I paid $186k for, sold for $500k in 2022. I didn't make that much money back then, but was able to secure a nice place. Now, I could barely afford a $500k home and my salary has more than doubled since 2011.
Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:Toyman! said:Pretty much all of the Charleston area is on the water. I'm in Goose Creek now and still within a couple of miles of water.
The problem lies in the 30 plus people a day that move to the greater Charleston area and start looking for a place to live. From 2000 to 2022 the population grew by 280k people. That influx of people has not been a good thing for the area. It's driven housing prices through the roof, increase urban sprawl to the extreme, and created traffic problems that are never-ending. What was once a peaceful southern town is now filled with rude shiny happy people from other parts of the country.
The only thing worse than a tourist in Charleston is a tourist that decides to stay.
Raleigh grew steadily until it kind of filled up recently. During the same period, adjacent bordering towns like Cary, Holly Springs and the like also exploded. Soon, there was nowhere left to build. Then Apple and a few other companies announced that they were opening up facilities nearby.
I think what we're seeing now is a churn where land that wasn't available previously has passed out of the hands of long time owners and into the hands of developers. There is also an effort to raze older single family houses and either build bigger houses or mixed use development.
Raleigh, NC growth:
1990 212,092 41.2%
2000276,093 30.2%
2010403,892 46.3%
2020467,665 15.8%
2022 (est.)476,587 1.9% (filled up)
Durham, NC
1990 136,611 35.1%
2000 187,035 36.9%
2010 228,330 22.1%
2020 283,506 24.2%
Cary, NC:
1990 43,858 101.5%
2000 94,536 115.6%
2010 135,234 43.1%
2020 174,721 29.2%
It looks like Charleston is growing between 20-25% a decade, but I'm betting the nearby municipalities are also exploding.
1990 80,414 +15.2%
2000 96,650 +20.2%
2010 120,083 +24.2%
2020 150,227 +25.1%
I didn't look to see how many square miles each city/town had, and that's certainly a factor with how many people they can confortably hold. Crazy times.
Those numbers are interesting. After spending time in Southern California, the bay area, and NYC, I thought OKC was small (and it is small population wise). 1990 to now?
440k to 700k people, and that doesn't include the MSA. More than 100k people just between 2010 and 2020, which includes me since I came from Tulsa.
This thread made me look.... the E36 M3ty town that destroyed my retirement plans went from 960 people in 2000 to almost 12k people in 2020. The town we voluntarily joined to keep the E36 M3ty town out of our pockets went from 7k to 30k in the same time frame. The one south of us was a little slower, 9k to 28k.
Just checked Zillow to see what my current home price is- I paid $125K in 2021, and I've uploaded no images of the interior or told anyone in realty about the improvements I've made like new doors and windows, interior, LVT flooring, or anything. Zillow says by streetview it's now worth $210K. Ha ha, wow and people still think it's not an absurd market that's pricing people out of homes today.
In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
Just checked Zillow to see what my current home price is- I paid $125K in 2021, and I've uploaded no images of the interior or told anyone in realty about the improvements I've made like new doors and windows, interior, LVT flooring, or anything. Zillow says by streetview it's now worth $210K. Ha ha, wow and people still think it's not an absurd market that's pricing people out of homes today.
That's two different things- the market being absurd and pricing people out of homes. I completely agree that the market has been absurd the last couple years- but just about everything has been absurd. I don't think saying people are being priced out of homes is accurate. The homes are selling, so by definition people are buying them. If they weren't, they wouldn't be increasing in value. There may be a shortage of homes in the area, but that doesn't look like it changed recently. There is decent growth in your general area, but nothing crazy. Roughly the same of percentage of people who didn't own homes homes in 2021 don't own homes today- the absurd market had little impact to the overall numbers.
Your house as an example is an extreme outlier. While your market has had larger than average increases- around 8% a year- if Zillow is accurate, you are looking at around 35% a year. While that is possible is some extreme situations, no area in the country has experienced anything like that. The largest increase for an area in the country last year was just over 20%. So you either bought really low, Zillow is very high, something significant changed in your immediate area, or some combo of all the above.
In reply to bobzilla :
I would have not guessed Indiana would have that kind of population growth. Or is it people fleeing Indianapolis?
bobzilla said:This thread made me look.... the E36 M3ty town that destroyed my retirement plans went from 960 people in 2000 to almost 12k people in 2020. The town we voluntarily joined to keep the E36 M3ty town out of our pockets went from 7k to 30k in the same time frame. The one south of us was a little slower, 9k to 28k.
These are just such small towns I find it fascinating. When I was in Stillwater for college, I think there were 24k enrolled in town, and this was 2004.
I can't imagine living somewhere so small.
z31maniac said:I just don't understand who can afford these prices? Are the vast majority of Americans just OK being house poor? Even with that I still don't get it.
I wonder that often. I'm working in Portsmouth, NH right now and occasionally look at houses... a small, 4BR/2BA ranch on a small lot with no garage is $435K. Oh... and your backyard is I-95. Then there are the new condos priced around $900K.
I make a pretty decent salary by most metrics and I can't even concieve of paying that much.
Then there's pure insanity. Like this house for $1.1M. That doesn't have central air. News flash folks: it gets berking hot in NH these days.
On the very small "affordable" end of the spectrum, there is this trailer for $165K. I've driven past this property and it looks like a tiny-house enclave. Without the character. And a $545/mo HOA fee (that is more than half as much as the mortgage and tax payment).
And my coworkers wonder why I don't want to move to NH...
GIRTHQUAKE said:Just checked Zillow to see what my current home price is- I paid $125K in 2021, and I've uploaded no images of the interior or told anyone in realty about the improvements I've made like new doors and windows, interior, LVT flooring, or anything. Zillow says by streetview it's now worth $210K. Ha ha, wow and people still think it's not an absurd market that's pricing people out of homes today.
Is a $125k house typical price in 2021 Omaha?
In reply to Scotty Con Queso :
It is Indianapolis growing. I know Bob hates it, and I would too if I were in his shoes, but it didn't happen suddenly - he's right off of the major route from Chicago to Indianapolis, and only 20 miles from the center of Indianapolis.
My aunt lives about 10 miles from city center. It used to be basically all farmland, at least the part of the town/village that they lived in was. But every trip I can remember - about once every 6 months - it got a little bit more developed. I think the last farm in their neighborhood was gone by 2006. Now you don't know where their former nearly-rural suburb stops and Indianapolis begins.
And it's happening just about everywhere. We just don't have the housing inventory. We have added about 80,000,000 net people since 1990. They gotta live somewhere.
On the mortgages and home prices - we were approved for $385 or $400. Maybe $415?
I worked out that we could afford $350. That would make us just shy of house poor. We bought the best neighborhood we could, which was difficult because any home in our price range was immediately bought by a contractor and torn down. That was 2016.
7 years later and homes bigger, nicer, and in better condition than ours are being torn down. One down the street was sold for $540. There is a fence around it now and a small backhoe. Looks like the going rate for a lot is $540k.
It is, quite simply, unsustainable insanity.
I predict in a year that prices will have dropped because of the interest rates, but I doubt they'll drop to a reasonable amount. I am just thankful we aren't buying today.
In reply to mtn :
E36 M3, man, when I look back on the timing of us buyin a house, it feels like we won the lottery. If I used up all my luck, I'm glad it was when we did.
Appleseed said:In reply to mtn :
E36 M3, man, when I look back on the timing of us buyin a house, it feels like we won the lottery. If I used up all my luck, I'm glad it was when we did.
No kidding. I am thankful for quite a few things when it comes to our home purchase and the timing. Especially that I had figured out the max we could spend if we dropped to one income. Because we did, and we did that three separate times because life likes to E36 M3 on us.
EDIT: I guess I should say that I'm most thankful that my wife is happy eating proverbial ramen night after night when things have been tight. At one point, well over half of our household income was going to the mortgage/taxes/insurance. She would ask about the situation, but never complain.
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