What are you thinking about?

[naptownskinsfan]

2 hours ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

I know what you mean, but from my perspective if I end up having to pay more in interest to own a home, the price has gone up. It just means the bank is getting a bigger cut instead of the person selling.

If yours are like mine they're all HOA'd too, so at like $200/month fee on top of that interest rate. If that was included in mortgage interest it'd take my rate on a fairly normal sized 3 bedroom type home to much closer to 10%

I live in a special community benefits district, as we live by the Chesapeake Bay.  They take out a little in extra taxes, which is factored into the mortgage, but it’s NOT an HOA at all and all of the money is put back into the community via shore erosion, park maintainence, etc. 

I was looking at properties here in Ocean City, and floored at how much some places are making you pay for HOA fees.  It’s nuts.  I realize condo associations need those for common area stuff, but sheesh.  

[Mr.UFO]

I'm watching the MECUM auto auction and they had two cool roadsters (no side or back windows) and they were both painted a horrible vomit green. Hey car restorers -- stop doing that.

[beekay414]

Cheez-It Snap'ds are an ELITE snack.

[Tugboat]

On 1/12/2024 at 9:21 AM, AkronsWitness said:

I always thought when housing prices go up, interest rates go down to encourage buying because the market usually becomes stale with high prices--we are in a weird spot where prices are through the roof AND interest rates are high. At least thats how it works in my pea brain.

I thought this was going to stop 1-2 years ago, but here we are....still here doing it. I read that there was a forecast for rates to drop in 2024 back to 4%....Im praying for that. Refinance SZN baby.

 

This is the thing.  We're in a weird quasi-Stagflation mode right now.  Inflation keeps growing, but it's not actually tied to anything relevant about the domestic economy.  It's all driven by huge defense contractors raking it massive profits that make the line go up.  So the "economy" is growing...but in real terms, domestically, it's not growing at all.  Yet inflation is growing corresponding to that other economic health trendline.  There's also massive speculative meddling in the housing market that is causing further distortions there.  Massive investment firms that have their eyes set on pushing as many people as possible to the rental market forever at rents that they're mostly drowning in but can just barely pay.  Maximizing profits.

 

On 1/12/2024 at 9:36 AM, skywindO2 said:

That's because there's a supply issue. I think rate hikes have stopped prices from continuing to climb too fast but it'll take more time for them to come down. 

More realistically, I expect prices to continue to go up at a much slower rate than the last few years as wages catch up with inflation. 

 

lol.  It's been a while since wages "caught up with" inflation and "housing prices".  😆

 

On 1/12/2024 at 9:47 AM, AkronsWitness said:

Makes sense. Talking with our realtor earlier this year he said that builders in the city (Columbus) have enough work that if they stop taking any more new jobs, they would have 4 years of home building work basically through 2027. Its such a big problem here. The city is one of the fastest growing in the country, projected to surpass 1M in population by next year and they just dont have housing for everyone.

There are new neighborhoods going up everywhere outside of downtown. On my developments street alone there are 4 new neighborhoods being built (All Starting at 450k+) all with 300+ houses. I dont think it was ever something the city was expecting 10 years ago, so the infrastructure is not even close to being ready to support 1M residents and rates are still 7%

 

Part of the problem is, in a lot of places...the "new developments" are these huge inefficient sprawling suburb/exurb "planned communities".  So what the realtor said is probably true, but at the same time...those sort of developments are typically phased in 2, 4, 6 year sort of increments...from the start.  So they're tied up in that no matter what.  It's a deeply inefficient method of putting up new homes quickly.  Instead of one building with 4 homes in it, you're constructing 4 buildings with 4 homes in it.

Advantage of that, is that it requires a lot less "skilled" and "experienced" trades.  It's simple and straightforward as it gets.  But it also means that all this stuff being slapped up is going to be rife with problems and shortcuts and mistakes down the line because they've hired the cheapest labor they can find and pushed them to get it done more quickly than is possible.  Which just further ties up skilled trades in fixing what wasn't done right the first time.

 

I get that for a lot of people, that "white picket fence, American dream suburban yard" is a non-negotiable.  That's what they want.  For whatever reasons.  That's fine.  But the biggest way to put a huge walloping dent in housing prices, is still to throw up huge amounts of more dense multi-family housing.  Duplexes, Townhouses, Multiplexes, Low Rise Condominium Complexes.  That eats up all the people who are only buying that suburban house because it's the only option available, usually at the "lower end" of the market.  Lifts competition and pressure on "entry level" suburban homes.  Drags prices down because instead of supplying a hundred houses you're providing a thousand in the same footprint, that siphon off the bottom in a way that is plenty adequate for a lot of people's situations.

 

Which also ties into what you're suggesting about infrastructure.  A lot of city planning commissions are straight up braindead, if not bought out.  They see "new development" and just rubber stamp because "weeeeeeeeeeeee more tax revenue!!!"  But when any of them actually have to sit down and do the math (unfortunately usually many years later), they find out that, surprise! this sort of development pattern is actually a HUGE net drain on municipal resources.  It becomes an enormous chore to maintain roads and services when they're splayed out the way these developments tend to be.  There's just more of everything to deal with.  From services to roads to sidewalks to streetlights to whatever pathetic transit service you're going to provide there.  You're paying a stupid amount of maintenance per taxpayer.  Densification has the opposite effect.  It gives you far more tax revenue per square foot, and it streamlines services massively.  There are cities that are starting to really catch on to this and significantly altering their policies.  Then there are cities who are lagging behind and basically building a timebomb for themselves fiscally.

 

 

But anyway...we live in a time of completely detached, untethered economies and markets.  Indicators and trend lines are all over the place and classic macroeconomic models are basically just like... 🤷‍♀️  People with calm voices, Wharton degrees, and a lot of money continue to act like that's all just fine.  But it seems...not great.

[minutemancl]

16 months old and my son learned how to catch already. I'm so damn proud of him and he is so proud of himself. We spent hours last night playing catch, and when he woke up this morning, he picked up the football immediately to try to start playing catch again lol. He's got really quick hands! I think playing catch with a balloon last week really helped him with some hand-eye coordination stuff. Last night he was catching like 75% of the time. We were playing with a little foam football.

[August4th]

I've noticed a lot of public figures have lost a good amount of weight at the same time. I wonder what's going on there lol

[Tugboat]

On 1/18/2024 at 4:34 PM, August4th said:

I've noticed a lot of public figures have lost a good amount of weight at the same time. I wonder what's going on there lol

O O O Ozempic!!!  🎵

 

But actually...like who specifically?

[August4th]

13 hours ago, Tugboat said:

O O O Ozempic!!!  🎵

 

But actually...like who specifically?

Stephen A smith

Charles Barkley

Jason whitlock

Jemele Hill

Oprah

Kim K

mindy kaling

matt patricia

[Tugboat]

40 minutes ago, August4th said:

Stephen A smith

Charles Barkley

Jason whitlock

Jemele Hill

Oprah

Kim K

mindy kaling

matt patricia

Hmmm...

 

looking at this list...

 

could it be magnets?

[Dome]

My HOA I used to have was $25 a month paid quarterly 

It covered a landscaping company to do the front yard every other week and garbage/recycling pickup. It would have prevented me from doing some exterior modifications to the house/yard if I had been so inclined.

I didn’t have any issues paying that HOA fee… looking at $150+ a month to buy those things individually

 

edit: may have been $50 a month. Regardless, a good value 

Edited January 21 by Dome

[minutemancl]

I feel like a crotchety old man because I'm getting super pissed at how hard it is to just consume specific media as a normal person. I don't want to have to subscribe to every streaming service. If I want to watch a movie, I should be able to pay a fee to own it forever or a smaller fee to watch it once. Why is this so difficult? My favorite movie of all time apparently only exists on Netflix and I don't know how to get my hands on a hard copy for when they inevitably delete it from existence for tax purposes. There's a little indie movie that came out over a year ago that I would love to watch, but the only way to do so is to subscribe to paramount plus, and I don't want to subscribe to another streaming service. I already subscribe to too many. 

This is so stupid. Combine this with what Sony did a few months ago, where they straight up deleted owned media off of people's Playstations that they paid for with no refund, and that one exec saying "you don't own anything anymore", and tell me why everyone shouldn't be pirating everything and storing it all on personal hard drives. 

[ramssuperbowl99]

2 hours ago, minutemancl said:

tell me why everyone shouldn't be pirating everything and storing it all on personal hard drives.

If you have a smart TV, one option is to see if it is compatible with Plex. It lets you set your own streaming server up from any hard drive for free and then gives it the app-looking, remote friendly interface. It adds the posters/actor/background info to movies automatically and gives access to a database of subtitles, so it looks pretty good with basically zero work.

Hypothetically, a morally flexible person could buy a super cheap refurbished work PC for like $100, have it run nothing but Plex/WiFi, hook it up to an external hard drive with tons of pirated content, and stream anything you want.

I'm sorry what was the question again?

Edited January 26 by ramssuperbowl99

[minutemancl]

3 hours ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

If you have a smart TV, one option is to see if it is compatible with Plex. It lets you set your own streaming server up from any hard drive for free and then gives it the app-looking, remote friendly interface. It adds the posters/actor/background info to movies automatically and gives access to a database of subtitles, so it looks pretty good with basically zero work.

Hypothetically, a morally flexible person could buy a super cheap refurbished work PC for like $100, have it run nothing but Plex/WiFi, hook it up to an external hard drive with tons of pirated content, and stream anything you want.

I'm sorry what was the question again?

I know a few people who do this, and it's something I probably will be doing in the very near future. 

[naptownskinsfan]

6 hours ago, minutemancl said:

I feel like a crotchety old man because I'm getting super pissed at how hard it is to just consume specific media as a normal person. I don't want to have to subscribe to every streaming service. If I want to watch a movie, I should be able to pay a fee to own it forever or a smaller fee to watch it once. Why is this so difficult? My favorite movie of all time apparently only exists on Netflix and I don't know how to get my hands on a hard copy for when they inevitably delete it from existence for tax purposes. There's a little indie movie that came out over a year ago that I would love to watch, but the only way to do so is to subscribe to paramount plus, and I don't want to subscribe to another streaming service. I already subscribe to too many. 

This is so stupid. Combine this with what Sony did a few months ago, where they straight up deleted owned media off of people's Playstations that they paid for with no refund, and that one exec saying "you don't own anything anymore", and tell me why everyone shouldn't be pirating everything and storing it all on personal hard drives. 

If you can’t own something, is it really piracy?  

[minutemancl]

Just now, naptownskinsfan said:

If you can’t own something, is it really piracy?  

"If purchasing isn't owning, piracy isn't theft"