People Who Live In Suburbs: Classy, Icky, or Dudes?

also anecdotally i was talking to a dude outside a bar and he was jazzed to move out of DC because he wanted to "own land" and he was such a tool so I think that people that are really into the idea of "owning land" are probably tools or at least exhibit tool-ish attributes.

Also I think you're missing that the current market is pushing more people into renting, which in turn is lowering vacancy rates and gradually turning other rental markets outside NYC into much more of a clusterfuck

stock market indices xp

Also I think you're missing that the current market is pushing more people into renting, which in turn is lowering vacancy rates and gradually turning other rental markets outside NYC into much more of a clusterfuck

― click here if you want to load them all (Hurting 2), Tuesday, July 10, 2012 5:52 PM (23 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a weird ass argument

'the current market' is a problem, in any case

anyway as far as 'super great investment' goes, here's the expert back in 2007:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/09/real_estate/shiller.moneymag/index.htm

Question: So how rich can you get on real estate?

Answer: From 1890 through 1990, the return on residential real estate was just about zero after inflation.

My suburb lies where the orbital fumes sweep across the intercity line, just past the sewage plant where the exclusive golf course shades into the top secret missile range. It's a gnome-strewn wonderland of poisonous greenhouses, twinkling solar panels, speed bumps, and privet hedge condoms. We rise with the lark and turn in with the screaming ailerons of the Luton queue.

I'm not going give you any map references, though; there's already a rush of hipsters ruining the place. I see them browsing The Oldie in Sainsburys, a whole generation of gaga ladies with blue hair and ear piercings who think they have a god-given right to affect "ironic" seventies and eighties fashion (tiger prints with Eiffel Towers on, gothic roses, non-functional ribbons) just because they've really hit their seventies and eighties. I'm torn between creeping out at night with my spraycan to stencil "DIE YUPPY SCUM!" on Acacia Avenue, or just waiting until nature takes its course.

stock market indices xp

― iatee, Tuesday, July 10, 2012 6:52 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You do realize that the S&P is at roughly 1999 levels in NOMINAL dollars right now, right?

you said 'super great investment historically' not 'the most perfect, safe, investment ever'

the best investment is to have a hundred million dollars.

Well that's a good point, if you want to compare investments, you have to compare risk and volatility, not just appreciation.

I mean there are lots of other reasons the comparison doesn't make sense, e.g. the fact that, at least in the shorter term, real estate as an investment allows you to use leverage, and also that housing costs = money you have to spend regardless. If renting and buying costs are roughly equal, housing is at least putting your money in a generally inflation-protected, relatively low risk place while renting is not an investment at all.

Like it's not "do I take my housing money and buy a house, or should I put it in the stock market"

real estate is not an investment. your house is not going to turn into an ipad factory, it's going to turn into a worse house. and the 'leverage' that you are using is 'leverage' in the same way that a credit card is 'leverage'. and while you are losing risk in terms of 'where will I live' and 'how much will I pay per month', it comes at an enormous price.

like the fact that the word 'investment' even come up today is lol. it can be seen as an extremely low-return savings vehicle. in some markets it probably is a 'good decision' cause the price-to-rent ratio is fucked up - the fact that it *can* be cheaper has to do w/ the national shortage of cheap rental properties, which has to do w/ the fact that it's currently illegal to build them...almost everywhere that you'd want to build them. if I were giving advice to a middle class person who is planning on living in a city w/ an underserved rental market for the rest of their life, I prob wouldn't say 'rent forever'. but that's a different argument from whether it's a good thing that we're in this situation.

even 'comes' up

^ i think it was the article you posted that framed it this way to begin w/

i dunno about houses in general, but i think buying all of michigan would be a good investment.

revive was worth it for the grampsy appearance

xp Stop saying that! Don't give anyone ideas.

too late i bought michigan

Ill give you five bucks for it

Live in the UP, rent out the rest.

too late sold up to wisconsin

real estate is not an investment. your house is not going to turn into an ipad factory, it's going to turn into a worse house. and the 'leverage' that you are using is 'leverage' in the same way that a credit card is 'leverage'. and while you are losing risk in terms of 'where will I live' and 'how much will I pay per month', it comes at an enormous price.

gross generalization dude, it depends on the property, the location, and the timing.

ya I guess if you live in china, 5 years ago, your house might turn into an ipad factoryy

nah, real estate is like many other investments, if you had the good fortune to buy at the right place at the right time, you could have done/could do very well financially.

sometimes property can be *speculative*, you can bet that your neighborhood is gonna get all cool and maybe you'd make some money if that happened then you sold your house. or if you are a carpenter and add another floor to your house, suddenly that's an investment. but just taking out a huge loan to buy a depreciating object that you get to live in isn't an 'investment' anymore than your car is.

you own the land the house is on though (unless you buy a condo), and land doesn't depreciate.

'if you had to fortune to put your chips on the right number at the right time' suddenly vegas becomes a great investment opportunity too

yes, but land is worth more than plastic chips.

and let's say you bought a house that is affordable to you, with a 30 year mortgage, and you paid it off, and you continued to live there after those years -- your housing costs are nominal at that point, unless your property taxes get jacked up.

no land is worth what land is worth and plastic chips are worth what plastic chips are worth, and both of their value depends on the demand for that land or for those plastic chips. and enough plastic chips or paper bills are 'worth more' than lots of land is 'worth'. if you want to bet on the future demand for various types of land then you're still not 'investing' anymore than you are when you buy gold, but yes you can 'make money'.

lol @ iatee sticking to his guns so damn hard that he has to put scare quote around 'make money' to make it fit his argument

if you want to bet on the future demand for various types of land then you're still not 'investing' anymore than you are when you buy gold

people buy gold as an investment. people buy land as an investment. yes.

let's say that instead of saving money 'in your house' you saved money 'out of your house', then 30 years from now you would have that same money, and you could buy a house if you wanted xp

ideally, from a financial health perspective you would be doing both. home ownership isn't a problem, it's people spending too much money (relatively-speaking) on houses that's the problem.

home ownership isn't a problem, it's useful for some people in some situations, it's just not something we need to encourage w/ massive tax breaks

are you talking about first time homebuyers credits, mortgage interest deductions, exemptions from early withdrawal penalties for IRAs ??? something new?

i think we just need to find a way to make sure that the land speculated on will rise in value

http://www.sidekickcomicsuk.com/blogs/media/blogs/sidekick//genelex.jpg

man, where is my realtor? i want to find out where my "massive tax breaks" went when i bought my house.

why would I not be talking about any of those

xp

jon you should have sarah do your taxes maybe

the mortgage interest deduction is interesting from a historical perspective - like, it's still around, whereas deductions for interest on car loans and personal credit cards all went away with that 1986 tax bill, that I'm blanking on the name of atm

I think the solution is really to just kill off anyone that owns a car, then kill off people that own land, then move everyone else into iatee's building and he might be happy.

the thing that make real estate a bad investment isnt really its rate of return + other ancillary benefits which could be good or bad depending its that its illiquid and undiversified

the thing that make real estate a bad investment isnt really its rate of return + other ancillary benefits which could be good or bad depending its that its illiquid and undiversified

unless you own a lot of it, in different areas and of different types

right, so if you are a real estate company it becomes an investment

right those problems refer to people who buy a single house to live in it, not like real estate companies or w/e

tho tbf real estate investment is a p dicey business too