I am not making an argument so I don't think that this needs to be in D&D but who knows where this will go so if it needs to be moved eventually, my apologies. My wife and I were recently driving around the "nicer" part of Spring Branch a while back (I think it is called Spring Valley or something - North of Ikea to maybe Bunker Hill or something. Anyway, we were surprised with all of the new building of mostly mini McMansions. People were buying and tearing down 30 year old, decently sized houses (1800-2000+ sf) and using most of the land to create a massive footprint for new two stories, leaving very little yard. This is not unique as this kind of building is going on all over Houston (and every other city, really) and in areas where the land can be quite valuable. People are bying land and houses ranging from about $250k up and tearing down and building (often poorly) additional $500k+ monsters. Now my wife and I do quite well and live in a house that many would consider amazing but we could not afford these things that are going up and connot figure out how there can be this many people who really have that much money. My guess is that they often can't really afford it and get into debt. I know MadMax has mentioned that he has often worked with families who buy and then suddenly cannot afford the new property taxes, etc. but I am curious if anyone has any thoughts or experience in this matter?
My father builds houses in the $500-1 million range. Many people at that price range don't even finance anything, they just pay for it.
yeah, the value of homes is increasing in some areas so quickly it's sick. i think, particularly on the west side/energy corridor it's because oil insulates us a bit. as long as oil is over $50/barrel there will be tons of demand for homes on the west side. in my neighborhood and the others surrounding it, we see homes on the market for about 40 days on average. i'm seeing 40 year old homes at Wilcrest @ Memorial pushing $500K now. it's crazy. [Jesus Freak Sidebar] i love this neighborhood...i love my kids' school...i grew up in these neighborhoods...but i'm not sure i find this to be good stewardship of my resources...and i'm somewhat concerned about them growing up so insulated from reality in this bubble. [/Jesus Freak Sidebar]
it's a generation that's inheriting lots of money from the leading edge of baby-boomers, too. that's helping fuel this from what i can see.
This is really funny to me being that I now live in San Diego. I always wondered the same thing you asked myself. Now I am renting a house (for way more than I could have bought one in Houston), and to get into a decent house here, you are talking minimum $550,000 (more likely $650,000). Now I have the question of how an entire city of people can afford to pay for these small houses. I think the answer to your question is that people who bought houses here years ago sold their house, moved to Houston, and paid cash for the new large house over there. I think I had it backwards when I went from Houston out here
First: You'd be surprised how much money is out there. Second: Check out real estate prices on the West or East coast. Those are 'starter home' prices in some of those areas. (Read -- old, musty, OK neigbourhood and in desperate need of repair). Somehow people buy those houses on salaries that are not much higher than in Houston. I don't know how some of them do it.
If I moved to Houston from Vancouver, the money I got for my little house would buy me a McMansion. But I couldn't afford the property taxes.
Supermac - that is fascinating. I wonder if they throw as much as they can into the biggest house they can get/build and then worry about the daily life as it comes or if they not only have that large chunk but plenty extra saved or in salary to not need to worry. I must be a Jesus Freak, then, because I worry about this constantly. Right now we are not in our "real" family house but we will move relatively soon and I struggle about where and what. We can afford a fancy "bubble" community but I don't know. Having grown up in the real world and going to crappy schools myself I don't want them to deal with that like I did but I also see danger in growing up in a homogenous bubble.
Oh yeah, I know...I haven't only lived in Houston. I am just speaking to Houston because that is what I am seeing now and with the understanding that most people living in Houston are being paid Houston salaries which will be lower. But I do know people who make less than we do and live in $500k houses in Chicago or the like.
Never thought of that aspect before. I know here in Austin there is a lot of people cashing out of California and coming over. etc. The mcmansion problem has been going on for a while here, the city passed an ordinance to try and control, not sure how that’s doing. I think builders were going to get the leg to kill that city ordinance.
I believe there are plenty of families where the household income is at least $170-180k. Say you've saved up enough for a 10% down payment on a half-million dollar house then you have a mortgage for $450k. That's about $2700/month. Let's say tax is $1300 a month. That brings you to $4000/month for mortgage and tax. If you make $180k a year you would have about $10k left over each month after tax (someone check my math). In that case you would have enough for the house, the maintenance, utilities, cars, and then some for savings.
They are reversing history, though, and now instead of "Blacks go away!" the signs are "Whites go away!". But, yeah, we have casually looked at Riverside Terrace but I just don't know enough about the area other than where my mom has often worked over the last 20 or so years (the REALLY bad part of the 3W). I don't even remember that status of the schools. Again, I am torn. I hated my schools growing up and in many ways was cheated (countered only by my strong education parents) so I don't really want that...but, again, I don't really want fancy whiteytown either. Where, roughly, in the 3W do you live? I actually have thought about talking to you but we are not actively looking right now.
I don't think that can be right. pirc - according to TJ's article in the D&D, the top 10% starts at 100k. That is what I don't understand. Someone making 100k cannot afford these houses so this seems to be of greater proportion than there could be families.
You can't go by TJ's article because those general numbers include retired people, college students, kids, welfare recipients etc. Anybody who files a return. If you have two income earners it would not be unusual to break $170-$180K. Two professionals would do it. Even on fairly junior salaries. The numbers work -- but man...that's a lot of debt.
my sister is getting a house built in the NW side of town in the Glennloch Farms area. At first I thought the house was about 260-300 tops but little did I know that, when everything was said and done, the sucker cost almost $500k. Craziness I tells ya
Looks like it is about 7.5 million families out of total 114 million families in the US have income above 150k per year, which is around 6%. If you think 6% of the population is alot then I guess you are right.
