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what's up with ~1500 sq ft houses?

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I really wouldn't even care about the size, as long as it was modernized to my liking. I don't really want to live in a mansion, I just want to be able to yell from the kitchen to the living room "TV turn on channel 730" and have it work. I want a tablet + app to control every electronic device in my house/apt. I want everything very "connected".
 
Jeeze I don't know what you guys are talking about. Doesn't include driveway yard.. no shit that's called lot size.

1300-1500 sq. ft. for a house is fucking tiny.
 
We own a 1350 sf house. There are just two of us so the house is plenty big, double the last place we rented and almost four times the size of our first apartment (360 sf). Couples raised four kids in houses this size not too long ago w/o thinking it impossibly small.

One thing that has changed is that furniture has gotten huge. Giant poofy sofas and humongous recliners are the norm now. Kids used to sleep on twin sized beds while parents slept on a queen. Now folks tend toward full and king sized beds.
 
I haven't been around in a while. I'm really dismayed to see alkemyst is still around spewing the same crap he has been for years. That guy is totally awesome. He's like herpes.

I kinda remember the last thread I was in with him. He was talking some non-sense about whatever builder or mortgage broker douche bags he worked for, or used to work for. Then came some banning, or whatever. He was exposed as being full of shit then. I see nothing has changed.

Alkemyst, are you still married to that illegal alien you got off the internet? Hope so.

I see that the majority of people here still shouldn't be involved in real estate. Cheers!
 
SampSon said:
I haven't been around in a while. I'm really dismayed to see alkemyst is still around spewing the same crap he has been for years. That guy is totally awesome. He's like herpes.

I kinda remember the last thread I was in with him. He was talking some non-sense about whatever builder or mortgage broker douche bags he worked for, or used to work for. Then came some banning, or whatever. He was exposed as being full of shit then. I see nothing has changed.

Alkemyst, are you still married to that illegal alien you got off the internet? Hope so.

I see that the majority of people here still shouldn't be involved in real estate. Cheers!
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Wait, didn't you get banned too iirc?
 
iGas said:
What is the job market like in your area?

Currently, I commute 2.5~3hours per day for work.
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It's Dallas. *shrug* Not great, but not quite as bad as the rest of the country.

But home prices are sweet right now - especially if you don't mind a 30-45 minute commute to the telecom corridor. I wish I was buying now. 🙁
 
I grew up in a house that was about 1400 sq ft. It was small. Three small bedrooms. 2 bathrooms. Small kitchen. The only thing livable was the living room. The den was decent. What made up for it was storage. The garage had rafters so it was like an attic for storage, and the hallways had decent sized linen closets. For a California house, the backyard was pretty generous. Had a nice tree for climbing and stupid stunts that made foghorn stupid in his later years.
 
1650 sq ft here
Two stories, 3 beds, 2.5 baths, kitchen, dining area, living room, laundry room. Attached garage is about 550 sq ft. Have a 14x14 patio out the back and relatively small yard.
Fits the my self + wife and two kids, pretty well...

Only thing we really want for our next home is an office.
 
I live alone in a 2 story, 1300sqft house. I call it a 2 1/2 bedroom since the 3rd bedroom is office-sized, and is what I use it for. It is the best bachelor pad ever.

edit: doesn't count the 600sqft unfinished basement, either!
 
vi edit said:
Here's a couple new constructions from one of the most popular school districts in the area:

http://www.maloofrealty.com/search/listing.asp?mls=1122900&MLSArea=1
250k for 2100 sq/ft but it also has a full basement, 3 stall garage and includes the lot.

http://www.maloofrealty.com/search/listing.asp?mls=1117543&MLSArea=1
264k for 2200 sq/ft + 3 stall + basement + lot

Here's my house:
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com...jR4HSG5E0stSMt6-1RFxROcBA/IMG_3907.JPG?psid=1

3200 sq/ft. My base contract was $300k(no lot). That was with a more basic entry (shed roof style instead of arched porch elevation) and about 15% brick coverage instead of the 95% brick and stone that it ended up being.

So yes...you can build for under $100 a sq/ft. And it's actually much, much less than that if you finish a basement and include it in the living space.
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Not that I disagree with you but you have to admit that Peoria is a bit out of the way and is an oasis. Land grabs there should be fairly inexpensive, especially once you get out of the city center. My recollection was that there wasn't much even out towards Pekin. Building around Bloomington, Peoria, Champaign, heck even Kankakee (as horrible as the idea may be) is much different then building in the suburbs where the sprawl is beginning to really get out there.
 
this thread is ridiculous.

In europe, few people have places with area over 100m^2, which translates roughly to 1000 sq ft. and they live perfectly fine there.
 
Eos said:
Source?
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It's more the exact opposite. Green homes are kind of expensive because they require so much extra cost for all the "features."

Their main goal is to have all of these low-impact, energy-saving, reusable, recyclable materials and so on.

It's stuff like erosion control for the yards, rainwater harvesting systems, tons of really good insulation everywhere, fancy energy-saving windows, high-efficiency and awesome HVACs, CFLs everywhere, maybe solar panels, etc.

Like the last few posters have mentioned, I'm kind of surprised more people aren't living in low to mid 1000s SF (3BR/2BA to hold a family of up to 4 people) houses to saving on cost of owning along with the associated lower costs of heating/cooling/furnishing/maintaining smaller places.

Currently, I commute 2.5~3hours per day for work.
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Personally, I can't imagine burning that much time on a commute for a big/bigger house in an out-of-the-way location but I know quite a few people who commute that much or more every day.
 
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Born2bwire said:
Not that I disagree with you but you have to admit that Peoria is a bit out of the way and is an oasis. Land grabs there should be fairly inexpensive, especially once you get out of the city center. My recollection was that there wasn't much even out towards Pekin. Building around Bloomington, Peoria, Champaign, heck even Kankakee (as horrible as the idea may be) is much different then building in the suburbs where the sprawl is beginning to really get out there.
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You're obviously somewhat familiar with the area if you namedropped Pekin 😛 But it's really about managing expectations...on both sides of the argument. It's not Peoria, CR, Omaha(in particular), Bloomington, ect are exactly wide spots in the road. The Peoria area has a metro population of over 1/4 million people. We've got (I think) the only level 1 trauma center in downstate IL. Cat HQ is here and all of the ancillary support shops for Cat. Three hospitals, and an airport that has free parking 🙂 You can get about anywhere you want in 20 minutes, traffic is almost a non-issue and outside of the ghetto area in downtown Peoria it's a very safe. I could say many of the same things for CR, Des Moines and Bloomington. Omaha is an entirely different story and is a very large city (by midwest standards). It's got a metro reach of over a million people, has a significant fortune 500 presence. Cost of living standards are much in your favor and there's an abundance of parks, golf courses, and trails.

But they aren't flashy, fancy, or exciting places. They don't have Ikeas or major touristy hotspots. No mountains or white sand beaches. But to make up for that you get dirt cheap housing, reasonable wages relative to the area, short commutes, excellent school districts and nice, big safe yards to raise yo kids.

In my case for Peoria, I'm only a 2 hour drive from Chicago, 3 to St Louis and 4 to Indy. I can hop a round trip flight to Vegas for $120 and one to Tampa, FL for $100 depending on deals. Considering it only takes me 15 minutes from about anywhere in the area to drive to the Airport and about 20 minutes to get through security I've got a leg up on traveling from O'hare. Sure I'll have to connect through there for many flights but I'm still not banging my head on the dash trying to get through traffic and then getting jacked $50 a day for parking.

I might have to drive farther in a lot of these areas, but at least I'm not jammed up bumper to bumper. When I lived in Phoenix I had a 6 mile drive that could take over an hour and a half depending on what was going on with traffic and accidents. I can damn near drive to Chicago in that same time.

So far yes, unnaccessable? Not all. You'd be amazed at the number of people that move here from big cities (like my basketball buddy from Brooklyn) that really embrace the area once they settle in and appreciate what they have here.

If you need an electric, ultra urban downtown area like Chicago, NY, or some other large cities provide then you won't be happy. But if all you do is drive home to your suburbian home and spend an hour in traffic each way and do little else than hang out with your family on the nights and weekends like many suburbian families do...then I've got a leg up on them in terms of standards of living, stress, and likely schools.

Again...managing expectations. I've got a great place to raise a family, good jobs for my wife and I, and a one stop sign, 15 minute commute to work.
 
My house is only 950 sq.ft. with an unfinished basement of about 800 sq.ft. It's a two bedroom, 1 bath. No Garage and it was built in 1940. I paid 138k 🙁

The kitchen is original with the house, but I'm planning on remodeling it this spring. Everything else had been updated prior to buying it, with exception for some of the windows. This is in "Northern Michigan," is considered "in-town," and is about a 10 minutes walk from Lake Michigan. The next house I buy WILL have garage . . .

We'll see if I'm ever able to sell it. . .
 
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