What's so great about owning a house?

[momopi]

If anyone is looking to make a little money on the side but doesn't want to clean up bird poop, I could also suggest making custom 28" exterior doors, if you have wood working skills. 28" and 24" interior doors are relatively easy to find, but 28" exterior doors are a pain in the butt to buy here in CA.

Exterior doors are thicker, more sturdy, and some have metal plating to withstand the wear and tear. Some contractors who can't locate a replacement 28" exterior door will use an interior version, which won't last long.

At some time in the past it was fashionable to install these stupid 28" custom exterior doors on secondary exterior exists, like the one to your garage or from kitchen to the yard. A regular 36" exterior white door w/metal cost $70-80+. I had to special order a stupid 28" exterior for $170+ S/H, and was told that I got lucky finding one at that price.

I do not know what the market demand is for 28" exterior doors, but if you're one of the very few guys supplying these, it's a niche market that might be profitable in a small way. Don't expect to get rich from this.

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I had a house warming party earlier this year and my god-daughter's aunt brought her nail kit to do fancy nails for the girls for fun. Someone spilled a bottle of nail polish remover on the table and it ate through the wood stain. I took some photos and sent it to a few furniture repair places, and they wanted $300-$500 to strip and re-stain the top. The cheapest guy I could find wanted $150 just to sand and spot-stain the area with no guarantee that it'd match perfectly. WTF?

I went to Home Depo and got some sandpaper and can of wood stain. Didn't seem too difficult to strip the table top. If anyone wants to do a side business, I suppose you can buy the tools, wood stain, and some used furniture to practice on. This seems more profitable than cleaning old headlight covers (i.e. Nouvus). Plenty of videos and instructions out on the internet, and workshops at your local home improvement stores. You just need elbow grease and a lot of practice to make it look nice. And hopefully if you're completely new to this, you won't take a job restoring very expensive antique furniture.

I called my contractor for some tips and he told me not to buy any brushes, said old 100% cotton t-shirts and underwear works just fine applying the wood stains. I had a mental image of him holding his old underwear to stain cabinets at customer's house.

[deasil875]

It's not a problem when the payment is only a small fraction of your monthly income all the prices have arisen from esculating housing costs primarily due to FED counterfeiting operation and the masses biting the hook.

You don't own your home today, you are a tenant of the international banking elite.

Were homeless, Thomas Jefferson called this one over 200 years ago.

+1. Real Estate inherently has no value to it at all past actual hard money construction and land costs. We give it value because it is tied this this bullshit idea of a debt based economy created by the Fed. Real Estate values are nothing more than artificial price speculation based on the amount of fiat currency aka funny money that is pumped into, or shrunk out of the money supply. I woke up to this massive scam being in Real Estate myself.

[Jester]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yes on this thread, but it just occurred to me that UNZONED land, with water, if that exists anywhere, could be a nice thing to own.

If it looks like SHTF, it's an easy place to have a bomb shelter, farm, fortress, trading post, whatever.

If not, sell it to a developer, or a casino, or go-kart track, whatever.

[deasil875]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yes on this thread, but it just occurred to me that UNZONED land, with water, if that exists anywhere, could be a nice thing to own.

If it looks like SHTF, it's an easy place to have a bomb shelter, farm, fortress, trading post, whatever.

If not, sell it to a developer, or a casino, or go-kart track, whatever.

Raw land is one of the best acquisition strategies out there. You can hold it, flip it, or develop it for structural sale and/or rental income.

[NorthAmericanguy]

I can't figure out why it's a deal-breaker for so many women if a guy rents instead of owning. It's like they think if he rents, then he must be some dirt-poor hobo who doesn't have a pot to piss in. I can think of lots of advantages to renting over owning, including

1. You don't have to spend your own time or money doing yardwork, landscaping, repairs, etc.
2. If you don't like your neighbors, you can just pack up and leave. No worries about how long it will take to sell your house, or whether you'll lose money doing so.
3. If you get a great job opportunity in another city, again you can just pack up and leave with relatively little trouble.

I don't have that problem. I still live with my family to this day. There were seperate times however when I was living on my own when I was with different women. But for the most part, I've lived here with my family. I do pay rent here (only $240/month). There are a lot of benefits to living with your family. The only disadvantage is you don't get much back in tax returns. Secondly, most Western women "WILL" see you as a loser and most of them will NOT date you if you tell her you're still living with family.

But if you're not even bothering to date or even sleep with Western women anymore and going your own way, who gives a f**k what they think anyways. Besides, all I've been doing lately is working my a** off, playing RPG & MMORPG games on my computer, spending time with my daughter, and....well? Just saving up! I don't bother with clubs and bars anymore. I rarely even go out. Most importantly I don't approach nor even bother with most Western women. So I don't see the point of either renting an apartment or even buying your own house when a man like myself has other intentions as far as doing something about his romance and love life.

I agree with your post, and what you just pointed out is why most guys buy a home, or get their own place. It's because of WOMEN, because otherwise, most men would be just fine living in the room they grew up in as an adult man so as long as they had good parents. And in fact, in other cultures, multiple families live under the same roof all their lives so it's no big deal other then people wanting privacy every now and then.

Anyhow, the problem with America is that there is no legal p4p, so men are forced to get their own place in order to attract a woman into their lives to have sex with. Also, some women are just not comfortable having sex with a man when his mom and other family lives under the same roof. It's cool when you're 18, but when you're 30/40 years old, in Western culture, it's not the same, and some women wonder why a man can't support himself in his 30/40's and why he still lives at home.

What makes me mad though is that many women will belittle a man for living with his mom, but that same woman will move in with a guy and have no shame in living live rent free. That's what I don't like, a woman who will shame a guy for living the easy life, but she will then try to live the easy life off another man. It's hypocritical.

[Teal Lantern]

I agree with your post, and what you just pointed out is why most guys buy a home, or get their own place. It's because of WOMEN, because otherwise, most men would be just fine living in the room they grew up in as an adult man so as long as they had good parents. And in fact, in other cultures, multiple families live under the same roof all their lives so it's no big deal other then people wanting privacy every now and then.

Anyhow, the problem with America is that there is no legal p4p, so men are forced to get their own place in order to attract a woman into their lives to have sex with. Also, some women are just not comfortable having sex with a man when his mom and other family lives under the same roof. It's cool when you're 18, but when you're 30/40 years old, in Western culture, it's not the same, and some women wonder why a man can't support himself in his 30/40's and why he still lives at home.

What makes me mad though is that many women will belittle a man for living with his mom, but that same woman will move in with a guy and have no shame in living live rent free. That's what I don't like, a woman who will shame a guy for living the easy life, but she will then try to live the easy life off another man. It's hypocritical.

Hypocrisy isn't a flaw, it's a survival strategy.
She can't parasitize off the man, if he is not on his own.

The shaming is a tactic to get the man to put himself in a position to be a more useful host.
He buys a house, she moves in with nothing but a bag of clothes and an attitude, and from that point on, every decision has to get her stamp of approval. Her money is hers, his money is "theirs".
Fvck that noise.

[NorthAmericanguy]

I can't figure out why it's a deal-breaker for so many women if a guy rents instead of owning. It's like they think if he rents, then he must be some dirt-poor hobo who doesn't have a pot to piss in. I can think of lots of advantages to renting over owning, including

To be honest, I have met, and I have seen women who didn't care that a man owned his own home. If a woman really likes you she really won't care. If a woman really likes you, she will let you move into her house AND cook for you. I have seen guys straight out of jail move into a nice condo that was owned by a woman and she cooked for the guy and took him out to eat. She worshiped the ground the guy walked on and the guy had no money, no car, and no job. The deal is that the guy got the woman to really love him, and he had no insecurities about his position in life.

There are two ways to get a woman.... You either attract her by what you have, or you get her to fall in love with you. Yes, it's great to have money and it helps, but the women you attract by having things really don't care about you in the end, and they're only in your life because of what you have. But if you get a woman to fall in love with you, she will live with you in situations where a woman who you attracted though money will not. That said, all women have a breaking point.

[NorthAmericanguy]

I agree with your post, and what you just pointed out is why most guys buy a home, or get their own place. It's because of WOMEN, because otherwise, most men would be just fine living in the room they grew up in as an adult man so as long as they had good parents. And in fact, in other cultures, multiple families live under the same roof all their lives so it's no big deal other then people wanting privacy every now and then.

Anyhow, the problem with America is that there is no legal p4p, so men are forced to get their own place in order to attract a woman into their lives to have sex with. Also, some women are just not comfortable having sex with a man when his mom and other family lives under the same roof. It's cool when you're 18, but when you're 30/40 years old, in Western culture, it's not the same, and some women wonder why a man can't support himself in his 30/40's and why he still lives at home.

What makes me mad though is that many women will belittle a man for living with his mom, but that same woman will move in with a guy and have no shame in living live rent free. That's what I don't like, a woman who will shame a guy for living the easy life, but she will then try to live the easy life off another man. It's hypocritical.

Hypocrisy isn't a flaw, it's a survival strategy.
She can't parasitize off the man, if he is not on his own.

The shaming is a tactic to get the man to put himself in a position to be a more useful host.
He buys a house, she moves in with nothing but a bag of clothes and an attitude, and from that point on, every decision has to get her stamp of approval. Her money is hers, his money is "theirs".
Fvck that noise.

^^ Ha ha yea...

[momopi]

Anyhow, the problem with America is that there is no legal p4p, so men are forced to get their own place in order to attract a woman into their lives to have sex with. Also, some women are just not comfortable having sex with a man when his mom and other family lives under the same roof. It's cool when you're 18, but when you're 30/40 years old, in Western culture, it's not the same, and some women wonder why a man can't support himself in his 30/40's and why he still lives at home.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathouse:_The_Series

There are a few places in the US with legal P4P (we even have a reality TV show on it), and certain illegal P4P's are generally tolerated if you keep it behind closed doors. I had a friend who ran clothing optional parties at his house where he basically collects an admission for guys to come and have an orgy with few girls. He did it for years without problem, until he got a brick up his rear and decided to put up a big blinking sign in front of his house that read "nakked party". Very quickly he found out how intolerant the neighbors, police, and fire department can be when you become a "problem" to them.

o.O I had some rather odd experiences visiting him over a decade ago, when he wasn't running a party on the weekends, he had the girls over to play EverQuest in the nude in front of webcams. It was kind of like a webcam + Chinese MMO gold farming operation at same time. They'd sell the in-game gold and items on ebay.

[NorthAmericanguy]

I have to agree rental property is not a bad idea if the house is bought at a good price and a good cash flow. I rent a trailer now but nice to have the rentals for tax reasons and future retirement. It is cheaper in a lot of areas of the usa to own a house then many foreign countriys. The philipppines may have lower costs for condos but many places in the usa houses can be bought for 30000 or less depending on the area or a forclosure property. As long as there is a economy in the usa then people will need a place to stay so they are a sure thing.

Places that have $30K property are places I don't even wanna visit let alone live. I would need to pay a property management company to monitor the property in my absence.

I would have invested in real estate back in 2007 when I got my windfall, but prices in the LA area were out of control and I was more interested in moving out of the house than buying for investment purposes.

I've seen Carlon Sheet's real estate informercial a few dozen times if not hundreds, its always made sense to me.

However there is a cheap Real Estate market that is about to get very cheap = Latin America.

You don't have to read Spanish, lots of outlets have reported on the real estate bubble in various countries in Central and Latin America, especially areas that have been mentioned on Expat Living and other mainstream outlets. They won't talk about it of course because it messes with their business model to get modestly wealth boomers to retire in Panama, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador and other places.

You'll be able to pick up property at rock bottom prices here pretty soon.

As I keep saying the American Dream has moved south, do the research you would agree. Sure you can live in far flung Southeast Asia if you want, but I hate to be 11 or more hours away and one of my parents to be on their deathbed.

You and I think the same on this topic... There are places in my city where I could afford to buy a home but it's not the kind of neighborhood that I would want to live in (i.e, crime, dilapidated homes/buildings) and I just don't see the property value increasing in my lifetime due to the change in the American economy.

But where I would like to buy a home I just can't justify spending 3-400k. The "American dream" does indeed seem to have moved to other countries, but my take is that it's a risky proposition to get involved with owning property in another country. The sure thing is to save your money in a bank so I rather just save my money and keep it in the bank for retirement. It's the safe and smart thing to do if you're unsure of things.

[NorthAmericanguy]

I've seen Carlon Sheet's real estate informercial a few dozen times if not hundreds, its always made sense to me.

I bought his course many years ago and even went to one of his seminars in April of 1997 when he came to Chicago. I was able to meet him and talk to him for a while during our lunch break at the seminar.

With the housing crash that occurred in 2008, I am scared shitless about investing in real estate. I am glad I never invested (except to have bought my own home). It scares the crap out of me that real estate went down in value 34% since 2008. That's more than real estate went down in value during the great depression (it went down in value 32% during the great depression).

I also went to several Dave Del Dotto seminars back in the mid 1990's. He was all over late night tv at that time selling his real estate courses. It was nice to meet him and talk to him for a little bit, he does seem very knowledgeable about real estate.

I had dreams of becoming a real estate investor but those days are OVER, thanks to the housing crash. More people have lost their homes during the "great recession" we just came out of than people did during the great depression!

The housing market is still horrible in America. Even with interest rates at near record low's, the housing market is very slow and in some parts of the country, real estate is STILL going down in value!

I don't know much about real estate, but I agree with what you have to say. I know people who have bought homes a few years ago and their home is now underwater. Their home is underwater and they still have to fix things on their old home.

[NorthAmericanguy]

If there is not enough money in the system to pay the rent on the property to pay the loans back you have a problem, here in the US if they are taking all the drivers out of the economy so you barrow to expand your business and create jobs how is the money going to be out here to pay it back if people are not working? Look at the real unemployment #'s, your home is supposed to be your sanctuary not a casino system of profit and portfolio inflation.

Exactly! The real estate market is all messed up because it's treated like a casino. The price of an average home is not inline with the average persons salary. I think the price of your home is only suppose to be like 3-4 times your salary. This is why back in the 1950;s one man could buy a house and feed his whole family on 1 salary.

People these days are getting screwed. Two people need to work to buy a home in a nice area, education cost a fortune (private high schools in my area cost 30k a year!) , health care cost a fortune, only 2 weeks vacation time at your job.... Ect...

D*m, when are people going to revolt!?

[NorthAmericanguy]

My advice to the younger guys on here is to consider owning property in terms of generating a long term income stream, which will eventually allow you to live abroad in a location where you have a higher dating value.

In terms of the UK property market my own opinion is that it's not a bad place to invest for a long term return. The UK has an expanding population with restricted building laws, plenty of tennent demand and the rule of law.

If I was young I would stay at home as long as possible and buy properties and rent them out. Sure you are not going to get rich overnight, but long term you will have regular income that could help you move abroad if that's what you want.

Here is the deal... Owning property is very costly of you don't know what you're doing. From what I know, you have a better chance at coming out ahead if you can do most of your own maintenance, or if you can get cheap labor, because the cost of hiring a plumber, an electrician, or putting a new roof on can really break the bank as you go along.

It's like with cars. I can own really any car I want and not have to worry about maintenance because I know how to fix cars myself. But for other people, they have to spend more money to own the same car I do simply because they have to pay the expensive labor cost to somebody else the to keep the car running.

Little guys who buy 1-2 properties to rent out have a better shot at getting ahead when they can maintain their own property.

[NorthAmericanguy]

This ^^^ is why I say a man who is willing/able to swing a hammer or turn a wrench has a bright future, in the West.
Those future divorcees are going to need TO PAY someone to make their home repairs, after bouncing hubby out.

ha ha, that's me... I have a business that is close to what momopi posted.

[NorthAmericanguy]

Many people who buy homes and live in them falsely believe that they made a good investment. It's not an investment if you're living in it, making payments on it, and not collecting any income stream from it. It simply just becomes a huge expense and liability. Society makes people believe that owning a home is part of being a successful American. Most Americans buy things way beyond their means, especially their homes. Sometimes it's better to actually rent, even if you can afford to own but sometimes it makes more sense to own vs rent. Every circumstance is different when it comes to owning a home.

Quoted for truth!^^