Sometimes when I'm bored I like to randomly explore homes on Zillow.

[ponyo]

Why buy a house with the intent to sell it, unless that's your business? Like buying a car based on resale value rather than repairability :\

At any rate, easier to just buy a plot of land somewhat near civilization and just build a house, that way it can be whatever you want, for whatever price you want.

It's good idea to have potential exit plan even if you don't intend to sell it. You never know what or why you might have to sell. HOA fees, property taxes, and insurance can easily run $30k+ a year on a home like that. That's $2,500 you have to pay out each month regardless if you own the home free and clear with no mortgage. Add another $1,000 a month for maintenance and it's probably closer to $3,500 a month in home expense even if the house is paid off. That's $42,000 a year or $420,000 every 10 years. You live in that house for 10 years and you need the house to appreciate over $500k in that span of time or you're holding depreciating asset. When I check the prices of those million dollar plus homes, it's selling for around the same or sometimes even below the price the house sold for in the year 2001 or so.

You can't buy land and build similar level house. It will cost you like $2 million to build similar house to those older $1 million+ homes.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

It's good idea to have potential exit plan even if you don't intend to sell it. You never know what or why you might have to sell. HOA fees, property taxes, and insurance can easily run $30k+ a year on a home like that. That's $2,500 you have to pay out each month regardless if you own the home free and clear with no mortgage. Add another $1,000 a month for maintenance and it's probably closer to $3,500 a month in home expense even if the house is paid off. That's $42,000 a year or $420,000 every 10 years. You live in that house for 10 years and you need the house to appreciate over $500k in that span of time or you're holding depreciating asset. When I check the prices of those million dollar plus homes, it's selling for around the same or sometimes even below the price the house sold for in the year 2001 or so.

You can't buy land and build similar level house. It will cost you like $2 million to build similar house to those older $1 million+ homes.

Yeah but you get to skip those HOA fees, depending on the area you may have lower prop taxes, and you get to eliminate the majority of that 1k/mo maintenance, and suddenly you can live in that house for 40 years for cheaper than the $1m house.

Who the hell lives in a house for only 10 years if you aren't relocating across the nation? I can see living in some $150k starter home for a bit until you can afford your forever home, but if you can afford a $1m home, who's looking to bounce out from that? Just get what you want the first time around.

 

[sdifox]

Yeah but you get to skip those HOA fees, depending on the area you may have lower prop taxes, and you get to eliminate the majority of that 1k/mo maintenance, and suddenly you can live in that house for 40 years for cheaper than the $1m house.

Who the hell lives in a house for only 10 years if you aren't relocating across the nation? I can see living in some $150k starter home for a bit until you can afford your forever home, but if you can afford a $1m home, who's looking to bounce out from that? Just get what you want the first time around.

Around here million dollar house is nothing out of the ordinary.

 

[zinfamous]

Around here million dollar house is nothing out of the ordinary.

yeah, $1million house in Palo Alto is like 2BR/1BA house, maybe 1k sq feet. ....$1.5million if you can find one with a ~10ft x 12ft yard space.

 

[repoman0]

Who the hell lives in a house for only 10 years if you aren't relocating across the nation? I can see living in some $150k starter home for a bit until you can afford your forever home, but if you can afford a $1m home, who's looking to bounce out from that? Just get what you want the first time around.

I will likely be buying my third house in four years around this time next year, or maybe third house in five years the year after. Needs/wants keep changing faster than we can keep up. The first place was our starter (still well over half million, thanks Boston) but it was the first floor of an old house under a family with two kids. We didn’t even last two years. This place is a single family in a really nice quiet neighborhood like 10 minutes away from that place, and 8 minutes from downtown ... but we no longer have a need to be this close to the city due to permanent remote work induced by a 100 year pandemic, so will be packing up and moving to the woods 30-50 minutes away. Friends are all moving that direction anyway since most can’t buy a place this close as they look to stop renting.

It’s really easy to sell around here, everything sells first weekend. We beat 12 offers to get this place.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Around here million dollar house is nothing out of the ordinary.

Ah, had no idea you were in one of those icky parts of the US

I will likely be buying my third house in four years around this time next year, or maybe third house in five years the year after. Needs/wants keep changing faster than we can keep up. The first place was our starter (still well over half million, thanks Boston) but it was the first floor of an old house under a family with two kids. We didn’t even last two years. This place is a single family in a really nice quiet neighborhood like 10 minutes away from that place, and 8 minutes from downtown ... but we no longer have a need to be this close to the city due to permanent remote work induced by a 100 year pandemic, so will be packing up and moving to the woods 30-50 minutes away. Friends are all moving that direction anyway since most can’t buy a place this close as they look to stop renting.

It’s really easy to sell around here, everything sells first weekend. We beat 12 offers to get this place.

Moving for pandemic reasons does make sense. I went from childhood home -> military dorms -> rental for 1y -> starter home w/gf for 2 years (now renting out myself) -> rental for 3 -> rental for 2 -> forever home (barring something unforseen). I guess if you can bounce quickly and closing costs don't eat you alive, may as well.

 

[sdifox]

Ah, had no idea you were in one of those icky parts of the US

Moving for pandemic reasons does make sense. I went from childhood home -> military dorms -> rental for 1y -> starter home w/gf for 2 years (now renting out myself) -> rental for 3 -> rental for 2 -> forever home (barring something unforseen). I guess if you can bounce quickly and closing costs don't eat you alive, may as well.

I am in Canada

 

[Red Squirrel]

Why would you even buy in a HOA if you have a million dollars? Seems absurd to me when money is no object. Buy in an area where you will have more freedom to live how you want, and still have an awesome house. Who cares about resale value if it's a nice house that you actually want. A house is to live in, not to treat like an investment. It's like buying a really nice sports car, you buy it because you want a nice sports car, not because you want to sell it later. (at least most people). Never understood why people treat houses differently. A house is a place to live, a place to enjoy hobbies, etc.

Also good idea to optimize for low cost of living. Pick an area with cheap taxes (in my case I want unorganized township, also don't need building permits or any of that BS), and make sure the house is optimized for efficiency as well. Having a million dollars in hand does not necessarily mean you'll always have tons of money coming in per month. If I ran across that kind of money, even half a mil, I'd probably still stick with my dream of buying land and building in the bush, it's just that with that money it would happen faster since I could afford to hire lot of stuff out.

 

[evident]

being in wv aside, that yard looks like a waste of time and money to maintain. 2000 sq ft house?

 

[ponyo]

Why would you even buy in a HOA if you have a million dollars? Seems absurd to me when money is no object. Buy in an area where you will have more freedom to live how you want, and still have an awesome house. Who cares about resale value if it's a nice house that you actually want. A house is to live in, not to treat like an investment. It's like buying a really nice sports car, you buy it because you want a nice sports car, not because you want to sell it later. (at least most people). Never understood why people treat houses differently. A house is a place to live, a place to enjoy hobbies, etc.

Also good idea to optimize for low cost of living. Pick an area with cheap taxes (in my case I want unorganized township, also don't need building permits or any of that BS), and make sure the house is optimized for efficiency as well. Having a million dollars in hand does not necessarily mean you'll always have tons of money coming in per month. If I ran across that kind of money, even half a mil, I'd probably still stick with my dream of buying land and building in the bush, it's just that with that money it would happen faster since I could afford to hire lot of stuff out.

I'm not a fan of HOA but it's like a requirement if you buy expensive house in the suburbs around here. I like modern conveniences and living close to everything. I want to be close to the airport, restaurants, stores, etc. I like my current house. It checks all the boxes. I'm mainly looking to upgrade because of this coronavirus. I was planning on keeping my current house and traveling and living in different cities around the world. But who knows with this coronavirus around. So if I can't travel and live internationally, I'm thinking maybe I will instead spend the money I would have spent traveling and live in really nice house here overlooking a lake and/or on a golf course. But if this coronavirus disappears and I'm able to travel again, I really don't want to spend so much on a house when I won't be home more than half of the year to enjoy it.

This is one of the houses I saw that looked nice as I was browsing. https://www.trulia.com/p/ga/alpharetta/2350-blackheath-trce-alpharetta-ga-30005--1072052418

It overlooks a lake and is in really nice area. I would pay cash if I bought it but it makes little sense to buy if I'm not going to use it and let it sit vacant most of the time. My current home I wouldn't care if it remained unused and empty while I lived in some other city half way around the world.

 

[MrSquished]

One thing I learned in this pandemic is I really don't need a lot of interior space. A nice modern 2BR with fast reliable FIOS internet and a nice kitchen comfortable to cook in is all that is required with or without Covid 19 for me, a single guy. The only thing I miss, and this was pre-pandemic anyway, is private outdoor space. I don't need a home gym nor do I need a workshop, just a home office, which the 2nd bedroom provides.

The key for me is being close to different stuff to do, both walkable and drivable, from shopping to cuisine options to outdoor activities like hiking and biking. Within a 10 min walk I can go to multiple Italian/Pizza, Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Bakery and Coffee joints. Throw in some Cuban, Peruvian, Thai, American, Fried Chicken and gourmet burger options also within that radius. 30-40 minutes driving gets good hiking, and good biking is available the moment I get out of my front door.

When winter hits, and the outdoor entertainment goes away, I still don't see a need for any more extra rooms at all. All I need is for indoor entertainment to open

 

[Red Squirrel]

If you have a super nice million dollar house you don't really need any outside entertainment since you have it all at home, at least that's my idea of a super nice house if I was going all out. Setup rooms for different activities like an arcade room, maybe even a pool, or a big gym, theatre room, or other dedicated rooms for any hobby you're into etc... The covid 19 stuff really made me realize the importance of having a comfortable living place, which I have (of course it's human nature to always want more though). Would suck being stuck in a small apartment or a place with no yard. I feel bad for people living in super dense places where they have like 200sqft of living space shared with 10 people. That's got to royally suck.

Overall I felt I was not really that badly affected by the shut down, as far as entertainment goes. In a way, it had an odd sense of excitement, like having to make due with what I have at home while trying to avoid going to the store for nothing etc. I actually anticipated that all stores including grocery stores would close. When I realized even places like Home Depot were staying open it felt practically status quo to me, other than some changes like not being able to go inside. Right now it feels almost back to normal except for needing a mask everywhere.

 

[skyking]

I'm all about building our own place. I also love waterfront.
This lot overlooking the Columbia caught my interest.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/205-W-Newt-Estates-Rd-Longview-WA-98632/2080404634_zpid/?

 

[brianmanahan]

One thing I learned in this pandemic is I really don't need a lot of interior space. A nice modern 2BR with fast reliable FIOS internet and a nice kitchen comfortable to cook in is all that is required with or without Covid 19 for me, a single guy.

same here, i've known it for a while. i'd be fine in a 1000 sq ft house as long as it had a basement and garage where i could store stuff.

any more room than that just means more cleaning, more utilities, more insurance.

i think i'm going to try to find a place for about 120-150$k next year and live there until i die

 

[pmv]

For a while I did the same with the on-line estate-agent sites here. Mainly the 'game' was to find the tiniest, most over-priced converted garage/garden-shed/broom-cupboard in the city and then roll one's eyes at it and tut tut and say 'what is the world coming to?' and "everyone's gone mad!" and things like that till one got tired of it.

I mean, depending on currency conversion rates, the home in the OP is actually about the same price as one of the ones I found that was very clearly a converted (one car) garage that someone had put a cooker and a tiny bathroom in. Total floorspace 560 sq feet over two floors, no garden (not even a particularly nice area), and it still looked like a garage with a toilet in it.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

If I had a million and a half dollars in cash I wouldn't be buying someone else's used, questionably built home. I would buy land and custom build where i could monitor the construction and not take on the unknowns of construction of the southerners from that period. The 1990-2015 was a bad time for home construction in the north GA market because they built by not following what few codes they had to begin with and did it on the cheap, even when the homes were suppose to be cheap homes. I'm sitting in my first home in the 30519 and its construction was terrible. Had I actively participated in the search process I probably would never had bought here. But the wife was left to that decision--and yes, true regrets, there. Not her fault.

But I walked onto construction properties--with permission--and saw some of the most obscene code violations I have ever seen in my life. I've lived in several states (RI, MA, MD, FL and now GA) and from as early as age five was walking onto construction properties to watch and learn. Codes are not followed closely in the south and are decades behind most of the country. Now add to that the rampant fly-by-night subcontractor with their illegal labor and false claims of experience and you get some of the shittiest built homes in America. AND when they chose to finally do something about it, to curb new players coming into the building trade, they essentially protected the bad ones that had already been in play.

And if you do not have the time to monitor a custom built home that you are spending $1.5 million on then it is to say you can afford the risk of loss, just like paying $1.5 million on a questionably built home in Alpharetta. And now I am having flashbacks of structural violations from a property walk through I did back in 2001 in Forsyth county in an unfinished basement. The plumber literally cut through the rail of an I-joist in the middle of the run of a 20" span. This was the worse thing one could do and anyone that builds knows you can't cut into the rails, but only the webbing and only an inch before the rails. I can only imagine that floor above collapsing one day.

And where will the builder be? Gone, using another name, as will the subcontractor.

 

[zinfamous]

I'm all about building our own place. I also love waterfront.
This lot overlooking the Columbia caught my interest.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/205-W-Newt-Estates-Rd-Longview-WA-98632/2080404634_zpid/?

careful, you might become a newt

 

[skyking]

I figure I'll get better.

 

[ponyo]

I'm all about building our own place. I also love waterfront.
This lot overlooking the Columbia caught my interest.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/205-W-Newt-Estates-Rd-Longview-WA-98632/2080404634_zpid/?

That's beautiful! I always wanted to visit the Pacific Northwest WA and OR. Maybe next year I will visit those two states.

 

[skyking]

It's a little under 2 hours to Portland in rush hour traffic. 21 minutes to Longview for groceries, etc. 1: 30 to beaches.
That would be a retirement location for us. I'd get it now, but my wife is not sure about all that.

 

[nakedfrog]

That's beautiful! I always wanted to visit the Pacific Northwest WA and OR. Maybe next year I will visit those two states.

It's magnificent
I haven't even made it to Olympia yet, probably in the next few weeks.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I'm all about building our own place. I also love waterfront.
This lot overlooking the Columbia caught my interest.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/205-W-Newt-Estates-Rd-Longview-WA-98632/2080404634_zpid/?

That is pretty nice actually! Good price too.

In my land search it seems lake front is hard to get. I'm finding fully built cottages going for that price range or even higher but I just want land with nothing on it. Though once I pay off the house then I could probably get a mortgage on something that already has a structure... so it's something to consider.

 

[shortylickens]

It's a little under 2 hours to Portland in rush hour traffic. 21 minutes to Longview for groceries, etc. 1: 30 to beaches.
That would be a retirement location for us. I'd get it now, but my wife is not sure about all that.

I lived and worked in Beaverton for a short while. It was OK but kind of expensive. And people werent that much fun.

I still miss Eugene. Everyone was cool, the town was very nice, I got laid, good times.

 

[MrSquished]

If you have a super nice million dollar house you don't really need any outside entertainment since you have it all at home, at least that's my idea of a super nice house if I was going all out. Setup rooms for different activities like an arcade room, maybe even a pool, or a big gym, theatre room, or other dedicated rooms for any hobby you're into etc... The covid 19 stuff really made me realize the importance of having a comfortable living place, which I have (of course it's human nature to always want more though). Would suck being stuck in a small apartment or a place with no yard. I feel bad for people living in super dense places where they have like 200sqft of living space shared with 10 people. That's got to royally suck.

Overall I felt I was not really that badly affected by the shut down, as far as entertainment goes. In a way, it had an odd sense of excitement, like having to make due with what I have at home while trying to avoid going to the store for nothing etc. I actually anticipated that all stores including grocery stores would close. When I realized even places like Home Depot were staying open it felt practically status quo to me, other than some changes like not being able to go inside. Right now it feels almost back to normal except for needing a mask everywhere.

Well yeah having 20sq feet of living space per person is silly. I have just over 700 sq feet to myself plus a lot of storage in the basement of the building. And even going through my stuff the other day to take stock of my backpacking equipment, I really have so much shit I don't need at all. More rooms will just equal more crap I am finding out I don't need. I mean a theater room is dope, but I'd rather be closer to lots of stuff to do vs being farther away with a much larger pad. Definitely when being single at least, family changes everything.

If I had 1.5 to spend I still wouldn't up-size my main pad much at all - I'd get a gorgeous 2BR loft style unit in the middle of everything for around 900K: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/140-Bay-St-SUITE-2B-Jersey-City-NJ-07302/2078572002_zpid/?

then spend another half a mil on a nice retreat in upstate NY on a few acres where one could have guests about 2 hours away by car. That would be pretty near perfect.

 

[ponyo]

Well yeah having 20sq feet of living space per person is silly. I have just over 700 sq feet to myself plus a lot of storage in the basement of the building. And even going through my stuff the other day to take stock of my backpacking equipment, I really have so much shit I don't need at all. More rooms will just equal more crap I am finding out I don't need. I mean a theater room is dope, but I'd rather be closer to lots of stuff to do vs being farther away with a much larger pad. Definitely when being single at least, family changes everything.

If I had 1.5 to spend I still wouldn't up-size my main pad much at all - I'd get a gorgeous 2BR loft style unit in the middle of everything for around 900K: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/140-Bay-St-SUITE-2B-Jersey-City-NJ-07302/2078572002_zpid/?

then spend another half a mil on a nice retreat in upstate NY on a few acres where one could have guests about 2 hours away by car. That would be pretty near perfect.

See, NJ doesn't appeal to me at all. If I was going to live in a city in an apartment, I would live in apartment in Bangkok or Seoul before I live in NJ. Bangkok actually appeals to me because apartments there are so cheap. I could rent or buy a place in Bangkok for fraction of cost of apartment in NJ. And city life is so much better in those two cities than NJ. If this stupid Covid-19 dies down, I'm 100% renting AirBnB place in Bangkok and Seoul for months at a time and living there.

Another nice cheap city is Budapest, Hungary. Cheap apartments and beautiful city.