Oppo, I found my dream home.

"WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe" (wesbarton89) 07/10/2015 at 12:20 • Filed to: None

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Check this out.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

That is so gorgeous. It’s got everything. It’s private. Garage. When I finish school, and figure out where my life career will go (still haven’t done that yet at freakin’ 26 years old), I’ll somehow make enough money.

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! Instead, we’re gonna go ahead and get it fixed up, pay it off like normal, and then sell it maybe 10 years from now.

Depending on where the economy goes, maybe in 20 years from now, I can have something like this. And to be fair, with that massive amount of land, and the realtively large size of the house, $395k doesn’t seem unreasonable.

TheHondaBro > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/10/2015 at 12:22

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I SAW IT FIRST!

WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe > TheHondaBro 07/10/2015 at 12:23

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Stapleface-Now Hyphenated! > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/10/2015 at 12:33

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Bedford is a pretty quiet area too. He’ll, the house itself would be half a mil here easy. And that’s not even taking into consideration the geothermal energy conversion.

WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe > Stapleface-Now Hyphenated! 07/10/2015 at 12:35

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Yeah, Bedford is quiet and nice. I like the Bedford Springs Hotel, so much history there, and it’s really not too far from me. Forty minute drive on a slow day.

jkm7680 > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/10/2015 at 12:36

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Great looking place, If I continue working in the DC area I’m going to have to buy a house elsewhere and deal with a massive commute.

atrombs > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/10/2015 at 12:41

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I wish I was rich enough to say “too bad wesbarton89! I just bought it!”

WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe > jkm7680 07/10/2015 at 12:41

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Yeah, that’s the problem with the DC area. And the commute is even worse when you have to deal with the Beltway. I don’t go to DC/Baltimore often, but I certainly dread the drive. Though, the Baltimore skyline at night, when you cross the bridge into the city is absolutely gorgeous, and makes the drive worth it.

Not quite the same view, I don’t think, but it’s still a sight to behold.

davedave1111 > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/10/2015 at 12:42

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I only wish dream houses round here were available for that kind of money. That’s about £250k, which won’t buy a one-bed flat in most of London.

Something I keep wondering, though: is a house like that normally built like crap, or is the land round there really worth so little that you can build a house that size for what’s left out of $400k? I get the impression that, at least at the higher end, our versions of that would be much better built - but then, when you’re spending $5m or something on the plot of land, you don’t worry as much about saving a bit on building.

jkm7680 > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/10/2015 at 12:42

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Plus, if that house was in the DC area it would easily be $900,000+ even though it is a bit dated looking on the inside.

Alex B > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/10/2015 at 12:48

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Seems like a good deal! Where I live that house would be neary 500k

WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe > davedave1111 07/10/2015 at 12:48

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To be fair, this is about the average price of a home like that around here. It’s a reasonable price. If you get closer to the lake, then you get million dollar+ homes like this.

http://westmd.craigslist.org/reb/5102423479…

That’s where the expensive stuff is.

BigBlock440 > davedave1111 07/10/2015 at 12:51

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America’s big and land is cheap in a lot of places. Materials aren’t all that much, most of the value is location. It’ll cost the same to build the house on expensive land or cheap land, but if it’s built in an in-demand area it’ll be worth 3x the price, whereas the house built on cheap land won’t be worth much more than the cost to build it (and sometimes not even that).

WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe > Alex B 07/10/2015 at 13:22

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It does seem like home values are higher in other parts of the country. Wonder how that’ll be 10-20 years from now.

E92M3 > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/10/2015 at 13:30

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Damn! 1 Acre with NO house around here costs that much.

WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe > E92M3 07/10/2015 at 13:46

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Wow, good lord. I can get an acre here for under $50,000. That’s insane.

E92M3 > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/10/2015 at 13:55

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It’s crazy! Builders are buying up old 2 bedroom, 1 bath houses on 1/2-1 acre for $500-600,00. They then proceed to tear down the house, and build a mansion.

WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe > E92M3 07/10/2015 at 14:02

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Makes sense.

I could, realistically, probably build a mansion for a fair price. And I’m not kidding.

With the price of land around here, I could get several acres for maybe $120k. My stepdad’s neighbor owns a construction/landscaping company, and he’s on good enough terms with my stepdad, that my stepdad is allowed to borrow all of his equipment for free. For the price of land and materials, with minimal labor and equipment cost, a house could be built to my specs.

But still, I don’t know what all the materials would cost, nor do I have anywhere near the finances or credit to do something like that.

davedave1111 > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/10/2015 at 14:44

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Here’s where the expensive stuff is:

Seriously, I couldn’t buy a house for £250k within maybe fifty miles of here, let alone a decent-sized one that’s not between a sewage works and a motorway or something. The average house price in London is getting on for $1m these days.

WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe > davedave1111 07/10/2015 at 14:52

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That’s awful. My buddy is in the USAF, and he was stationed in Croughton, and Brackley prior to that. He always said about how ridiculous home prices were there. But he’s flying back to the states to a new station, so it’ll be a bit cheaper.

I couldn’t imagine those prices. I’d never get anywhere.

davedave1111 > BigBlock440 07/10/2015 at 14:53

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“It’ll cost the same to build the house on expensive land or cheap land”

What I meant was that if you’re spending much more than the cost of the building on the land, then it make sense to spend a bit extra on the building. Whereas if the building’s the main cost, any increase is going to be a much bigger percentage of the whole.

“ the house built on cheap land won’t be worth much more than the cost to build it “

Yeah, that’s what I was really asking. Is that house above in that category? Even for low-end stuff the rule of thumb here is that construction costs around £100/sq ft, so a 3700 sq ft place would cost considerably more to build than this place is selling for. Which is why I keep wondering about the quality of construction. I get the impression that in the US there’s a lot more wood-framed housing that we’d consider a bit impermanent, because it only lasts a few decades without major refurbishment, whereas here houses seem to be more solidly built (out of brick etc) and are expected to stand largely unmodified for many decades or even centuries.

E92M3 > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/10/2015 at 15:04

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It’s an incredible amount of work, and stress too. We know an older couple who spent 15 years building their retirement cabin on a mountain. The stress from it just about ended their marriage. They finally got it finished and decided it was too far away from their doctors and hospitals so they sold it. Lol

davedave1111 > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/10/2015 at 15:10

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Eh, it’s not so bad because at least we earn more in London... Nah, who am I kidding, thanks to the banana lobby, house prices have gone stratospheric across the whole of England in the last decade or so - and they were high before that.

I thought I’d have a quick look you could get for the same money as your dream house in Croughton, and top of the list was...

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/new-homes-for-…

Is that what you call a double-wide?

Then again, there’s also this chocolate-box cottage:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-s…

“I couldn’t imagine those prices. I’d never get anywhere.”

My generation has got used to paying half our income in rent, so it makes it do-able, just about, with two earners in a family. The bigger problem is that even with greatly increased disposable income to put into a mortgage compared to a generation ago, the banks still won’t lend the income multiples people can afford to borrow. Something’s going to have to give eventually, I guess.

WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe > E92M3 07/10/2015 at 15:12

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That’s too bad. 15 years with nothing really to show.

WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe > davedave1111 07/10/2015 at 15:21

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That first one is pretty much a double wide, yes. And that cottage is kind of cute. But those are ridiculous prices.

A double wide like that, around here, would probably cost $65,000-$90,000 depending on how it’s customized.

davedave1111 > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/10/2015 at 15:51

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It’s all about the planning permission - the ‘park home’ only goes for that much because you can’t get planning permission to build a real house on the same spot. It’s the buildable land which is worth the money.

“But those are ridiculous prices.”

They seem alright to me, to be honest. I’ve been in London too long :)

Really, though, they’re not that bad. A typical mortgage on that cottage would be around £850-900 a month in payments, so around £10k a year. A couple, both working full-time for minimum wage, would earn £27k a year between them. It’d be tough but doable for them, and really almost no-one around there older than their early twenties (at the most) earns just the minimum wage.

The problem though is, like I said, that the banks won’t lend them enough. 5x multiple, the banks will only lend a maximum of £135k, which won’t buy anything.

BigBlock440 > davedave1111 07/10/2015 at 15:53

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Wood framed houses are the norm here, so yes it is probably in that category. Most of the stone/brick houses that you’d see are just stuck on the front and aren’t actually structural (stone more so than brick).

WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe > davedave1111 07/10/2015 at 16:06

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I guess I come from a different place lol. I pay $400 a month in mortgage alone on my house, and it’s 5br/2.5ba, 3400sqft, and my total cost of the house is $35,000-ish. My fiancee and I both work full time, with some overtime, and between the two of us, we probably bring home around $40,000 a year. However, most of that goes to utility bills, health insurance, car insurance, fuel, food, and stuff for our daughter. After all of our bills are paid, we generally have very little left at the end of the month. What we do have goes towards fixing our house up.

So, to you, being used to those prices, may not seem that bad. To me, they are pretty high. But we come from different places, and where I come from, if you make over $50,000 on one income per year, you’re doing pretty well, generally.

My mom and stepdad for example, each bring home, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $40-$45k per year, so $80-90k combined, but even they have money issues. But they don’t spend wisely. Once I get back into school and get a career going, I’ll be much wiser with my money.

davedave1111 > BigBlock440 07/10/2015 at 16:14

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Yeah, makes sense. From here it looks like all American houses are built like crap made of ticky-tacky , but clearly there are reasons for doing things differently. I wonder how much is just the economics of the situation - cheap land, cheap labour for you lot, hyper-expensive land for us, bricks and lumber about the same price for both - and how much is more a kind of tradition. The pioneers must have built a lot out of wood, for example, whereas we’ve traditionally built out of brick and stone because we’d cut down most of our forests.

WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe > davedave1111 07/10/2015 at 16:14

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http://www.homes.com/property/1130-…

Also, this is what you get in my town for under half a million dollars. 5,000 sqft, pretty much a full mansion. 6br/5ba, with lots of space inside and out. So, yeah, there is a bit of a difference lol. But it’s all good.

davedave1111 > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/10/2015 at 16:58

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Oddly enough, for all that people argue so much about the US way or the European way, I suspect things would work out roughly the same for you here. I’m not sure quite how it would work out with tax credits*, child benefit, and other such support for low earners, but essentially you’d be taking home almost everything you earn, maybe a little more or less.

[*It gets a bit complicated, because you’d be right in the bracket where you start losing things like working tax credits, and so the marginal tax rate is ludicrously high - up to 73% in some cases, apparently. http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/art… ]

One big difference is that here you wouldn’t need to pay for medical insurance - going by what I read, that must be a few thousand dollars a year for your family?

Running a car is probably about the same total cost here, although obviously it’d be a very different car.

Other than that, it’s housing that’s the big cost. To be fair, though, the thatched cottage is quite nice as these things go, and so a bit more expensive. (Thatch also costs quite a bit to maintain and insure, so it’s probably cheaper than if it had a slate/tile roof.) You can get a perfectly decent 2, maybe 3 bed house round there for £200k. With the same size deposit as before, you’re looking at maybe £600 a month on the mortgage out of about £2200 or so. More realistically, with a smaller deposit, say £700/mo.

davedave1111 > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/10/2015 at 17:06

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Wow, that’s so strange. I’m not used to seeing that kind of space anywhere that’s not, well, at least expensive, if not mega-expensive, so it’s really odd seeing such low quality interiors and construction on such a large place.

OK, maybe this is a bit bigger...

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-s…

WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe > davedave1111 07/10/2015 at 17:21

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Wow. That place is incredible. That’s outstanding. I don’t know what I’d do with all that space.

CaptDale - is secretly British > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/10/2015 at 17:42

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It needs much more garage but damn!!!

davedave1111 > WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe 07/11/2015 at 11:09

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Did you notice the slide next to the stairs in the back garden? Proper property pron :)