Buying A House: C or D?

there are definitely a lot of sports bars but that's just cleveland

My biggest fear of these *charming, affordable little American cities* is that life would just revolve around church and football or something.

― JWoww Gilberto (man alive), Tuesday, April 26, 2016 12:40 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fwiw my brother-in-law is from small town western nebraska and when his family visited and described what cleveland felt like to them, you would think they were talking about NYC or chicago, it is an urban place. outer suburbs though are definitely church and football.

starting to wish I'd considered closeness to head shops in my house-hunting decisions

that marlowe house i posted at $185k just dropped to $173k today, i really want it

And all of a sudden that dn falls into place. xp

I feel like sports bars are endemic most places, now

or just a flood of restaurants with televisions on every flat surface that's not a table

yea totally

There is a place in my hood that has an individual TV at every table. I pretty much don't care about any sports but the kids like it when we go there so they can put it on Disney or whatever

when i was in town last week i got a little too high w/ my siblings one night and we went to a very large sports bar to watch the cavs-pistons game and it was a very strange and surreal experience, the bar was in this old cavernous brick building that seemed way bigger than it actually is, huge enormous tvs everywhere, a giant backlit grinning chief wahoo behind the bar, and i had the very stoned & trenchant thought of like this is a modern cathedral maaaaan...

IME the historical progression of large quasi-ceremonial public spaces has gone (approximately) temples - public baths - cathedrals - concert halls - factories - train stations - movie theaters - sports stadiums - shopping malls - sports bars.

What type of space will become the next cathedral?

Everyone carries a movie theater/TV/stadium/concert venue in his or her pocket, so entertainment consumption is only rarely a grand collective experience requiring a grand collective space. We no longer need grand public architecture for bathing, work, or transport. Most commerce will continue to move inexorably into the private sphere, so malls will continue their current fade from prominence.

I predict that grocery stores are overdue for the full the cathedral treatment. If you go to a Wegmans store on the East Coast you will get a sense of what I mean; they are food cathedrals.

For me the things that kind of fit for that - in terms of being in public, encountering people I know, or flaneuring - are the coffee shop I work at a lot, the food co-op, and especially the farmer's market. All food shopping related.

Bareburger is sort of a guilty pleasure because of the combination of good burgers, good beers and a TV that only plays cartoons -- I don't love my four-year-old watching frenetic cartoons she doesn't understand for a whole meal, but I do love the relative peace.

Ugh ordinary people eh

Nah just people who like stuff that I don't like. We're all ordinary.

That was kinda xp to whole thread tbf

No ass tubs, but plenty of potential for the motivated buyer:

https://www.crye-leike.com/1422-s-summit/in-zip-code-72202-mgrp-2-tid-littlerock-mlsnum-16005323-ln-76-p-8-sm-1

sigh, there's a neighborhood here with lots of houses like that, and they used to go for that price or less

then people moved in and fixed em all up and their prices changed accordingly

Great opportunity in Los Angeles!

http://la.curbed.com/2016/4/26/11513036/echo-park-house-tear-down

More details in the Redfin link at the bottom.

my new home, cozy li'l cottage i just scooped up
https://www.coldwellbankerhomes.com/ca/los-angeles/357-lorraine-blvd/pid_11440831/

does it have a Sitz bath?

There's a Carnac joke in here somewhere.

It would neat to find out ilx has a secret gazillionaire who buys $8M homes just because.

would *be

Not it.

I will not comment on this topic at this time

A Cleveland friend tipped me off to the property tax rate for that area and it's among the highest in all of Ohio. All relative of course, but (for example) in Lakewood it's $3,203 per $100K of home value.

http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2016/01/compare_property_tax_rates_in.html

daamn that's triple what we pay

yea it's pretty high for sure

usually areas with taxes that high have fancy public schools

yea they are currently renovating/rebuilding almost every school in the district

lakewood also has a huge amazing lakefront park that was completely renovated

Westchester Cty outside NYC has taxes like that, but the houses in a lot of the good towns are $600K and up, so the added taxes on top of that is a huge additional burden, like another $1500/month or more.

is that a one-off cost or a yearly one?

(actually, if it's monthly then it's a recurring one, i guess)

Yeah, it's recurring. I saw lots of listings in Westchester with taxes listed as being $18K - $24K a year. Lower end houses already looked like a stretch for us but becoming aware of the tax burden made it clear that we're staying put for a while.

Yow, even here in rich-ass Arlington Va. we typically pay $5-6K in real estate taxes, and in return get wonderful schools (especially for special needs).

I live in SF and these Cleveland houses are blowing my mind. What other cities have houses remotely this cheap? Open to anywhere in the US (would love to leave the country but the wife won't go for that right now).

Scott was posting similarly priced Western Mass houses a while back, but then you're not in a largish city. Also Detroit, of course. I think there are nice-ish areas in the city that are in this range.

detroit will prob have better deals than cleveland

st louis would be a good bet

pittsburgh maybe

buffalo

i don't know anything about milwaukee but it is a rust belt city right?

this is pretty sweet http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1506-Wayne-Ave-Lakewood-OH-44107/33489730_zpid/

this one too http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3818-Montevista-Rd-Cleveland-Heights-OH-44121/33654224_zpid/

Define "city." I'll sell you my house for $100K. 2400 sq ft, 3/2, 200 sq ft detached shop/office, new exterior paint, new roof. But you have to live in Buttnugget, Mississippi.

My parents live in St. Louis. It is a fine city - arts-filled, uncrowded, green, decent on transport, and with vastly cheaper housing than the coastal money-vacuums many of us call home.

yea definitely. one of my best friends lived in st louis for a long time, visted him a couple of times, i thought it was awesome

housing stock was neat, so much brick and stone

sad about all this, a healthy clips-dubs second round would've been neat

woops wrong thread sorry

lol was seriously trying to figure out whether griffin & paul were somehow tied to real estate prices somewhere for a sec