Chief

I had a state income tax in NY. It wasn't really that much compared to my property taxes. I think it was around $1500 a year.

My last house there was 1400 sq ft on a 40'x100' lot. in 2004 my property taxes were $5600.

Not much of a bargain considering how poorly kept the roads were. Potholes as big as your tires.

On 3/7/2021 at 12:39 PM, Barry said:

Sabor Tapatio's Tacos de Birrira (properly termed, I think, Quesabirria Tacos) are glorious. Crunchy. cheesy and savory. Served with consume, you dip the tacos right in to make them even better. I think they are what you've been missing out of your life. And while they are a food truck, and don't have alcohol, they are right next to a Twin Liquors. That's where I scored this excellent Russian Imperial Stout. Just don't go on a Sunday.

if you're into making these yourself this guy has a great recipe. I made these about two months ago and they're fantastic. My wife and daughter loved them too. They're pretty easy but take about three hours to cook.

1 hour ago, bestbike85 said:

Tell that to the wife who is accepting her dream job in Cedar Park. 

But in all reality, I’m just trying to come up with a game plan. I didn’t want to spend more than a 2-2.25 multiple on our household income, but it’s looking to be more like a 2.5-3 multiple to get anywhere. I hate to stretch like that, but it is the only option if we decide to buy.

Which brings me to another point. All signs point to not buying. This isn’t sustainable, and it seems to be happening everywhere (Dallas, Houston, Lafayette La, etc.). The bubble will pop eventually and things will normalize. I just hope that happens in the next 12-15 months so I can secure something summer 2022. 

If I had been able to see ahead when I lived on Long Island I would have strapped myself and went for a $250K house when I bought my last. Houses that were selling for $250 in '99 when I bought my last house were selling for $750 in '04.

The thing about buying in a sellers market is that you have to be willing to stay in that house for at least ten years to recoup your money. All of these bubbles are typically on a ten year cycle give or take.

9 minutes ago, TheX said:

What about Liberty Hill, or even Burnett area? Are they getting worse also? 

I don't know about Burnett, but Liberty Hill is getting ridiculous as far as house pricing. A couple of years ago we had discussed selling and downsizing, but after we sell what do we buy? I looked into Liberty Hill and everything I looked at put me back into a fairly large mortgage payment for a smaller house. The problem with the current market is that you can make a bunch on your current house but can't replace it for what you make from it. 

5 hours ago, bestbike85 said:

Lived in Austin for about 4 years. Wife and I moved to south west Denver July 30, 2020. Life throws a few curve balls and we are coming back to the greater Austin area in the next few months. 

We visited Austin for 4 days this past weekend in an effort to find housing and gather our thoughts as to what we really want out of our move back to Austin. 

Man was I wrong. This is unbelievable. Homes appraised for 400k are listed for 450k and selling for 500k. Every single cookie cutter neighborhood up in Leander is completely sold out. We showed up at a development off of N Baghdad in Leander. 220 home sites and not a single slab was poured yet. Every single one was sold. We even went over to Hutto and the 2 we visited said nothing would be available until 2022.

We both grew up modestly well outside of any major city, and we want to maintain that modest lifestyle for ourselves and our future kids. 

I come here to discuss how, on many different fronts. 

How do people simply purchase these homes? I hear the excuse from realtors that say “Thanks Facebook, apple, google”, but not everyone works for big tech. How do plumbers afford these houses? How about civil engineers? How does a family that comprises of a police officer and a nurse afford a 600k home? How about school teachers? 

How is this sustainable?

How did it even get to this level? 

I’ve been scratching my head for a few days now about this. 

My wife and I have zero debt and nice stable incomes, but I can’t for the life of me think that over spending by 25-40% is a good investment. How does everyone else think that it is? 

Lastly, anyone here work in real estate and want to offer some tips/input? 

Thanks for letting me rant here. 

Looking forward to riding bikes in Austin again in 2021. 

Welcome to Long Island, circa 2004. I bought my last house on Long Island for $125k in 1999 sold it in 2004 for $300k. After 9/11 nobody wanted to live in the city so they started buying houses in the suburbs. Drove housing prices through the roof. I suspect that some of that is happening here due to the pandemic. Good luck just be mindful that you're trying to buy in a sellers market. Meaning the house you buy my devalue once all the dust settles.

13 hours ago, Lacch said:

Thanks again for everyone's feedback/advice, you guys have great community here!

 I tried out the XL Fathom 2 today... it was too big. I loved the features, but its was obvious that the bars were just out of reach. too bad, because otherwise it was a great bike.

I also stopped by Bike Farm, Trek and ATX bikes today. A few things became pretty clear to me...

- This is a horrible time to buy a bike... 😐

- @ATXZJ is right, I'd need to up the budget to 1200-1700 to get all of the features I want in a quality bike

 

At this point I have 3 options that I'm considering... all new bikes and available at local stores today. (Availability is the biggest issue I'm dealing with) 

1) Giant - Talon 2 ($650)- cheap, basic, but ticks some of the core features I'm looking for. might be a good choice to test the waters before I dive in too deep. I'd likely consider a dropper post as the first upgrade. Also, I don't think tubeless is an option with the stock wheels... 

2) Marin - Pine Mountain 1 ($1450) - ticks most of my features, but I'd have to bump up my budget quite a bit.

3) Trek - Marlin 8 ($1200, I think?) - I'd have to preorder this as its not officially released yet. I think it fits what I'm after, but I've never seen one and would have to wait for it to get delivered to find out (expected delivery is end of May?) 

I did ride~10 different bikes today, so that's progress!

Any thoughts on the bikes I listed above?

 

if you can squeeze another $600-700 into your budget this would be a good option.

https://www.theproscloset.com/products/kona-big-honzo-st-mountain-bike-2019-x-large

17 hours ago, ATXZJ said:

Gettin' weirder........

 

 

So weird it's almost delirious...

8 hours ago, ATXZJ said:

Things are about to get weird up in here......

 

Nice pink fork!🤣

Loose clothing is a better choice to help prevent snake bites. If a snake strikes at loose clothing like your jeans pant leg the fangs most times will get hung up in the fabric. With tight clothing it's much easier for a snake bite to penetrate. 

15 hours ago, AntonioGG said:

But it only counts as one right?  Asking for a friend.

Uhhhh....Yeah duh!

17 hours ago, Tree Magnet said:

Damn...13.4! That’s like three normal beers. I must investigate.


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Depends on what you consider a normal beer.

15 hours ago, ATXZJ said:

With that day fast approaching.....

 

We are coming up on Irish appropriation month🤣

3 minutes ago, mack_turtle said:

https://babylonbee.com/news/heroic-ted-cruz-goes-to-cancun-to-lasso-the-sun-and-bring-it-back-to-texas

Fuck him! and anyone associated with him!

More nonsense here. Nothing like politicizing everything.

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2021/02/17/lauren-boebert-green-new-deal-culprit-texas-power-crisis/

We had no power most of Monday along with no water. The power has been intermittent. I thought I had a frozen line also. I thawed the pipes coming into the garage enough to get the hose bib working. Did the 5 gal bucket brigade and filled my bathtub with about fifty gallons to wash dishes and flush toilets and filled 8 gallon jugs for drinking. I thought I had a frozen pipe but when my water came back on it was full flow I was thinking it would start as a trickle until the line cleared of any ice kinda strange but at least I have water again.

Rolling electric right now 45 min on 15-20 min off. At least I have my water back.

16 minutes ago, TheX said:

 

I think the number of people that have had it is a LOT higher than anyone knows.

^^Absolutely! My son works as a food server he's the only one in the family who hasn't tested positive. We're all thinking he's probably had it.

12 hours ago, TAF said:

What is her job, out of interest?

She works in a rehabilitation hospital. She wears a mask all the time while at work. She entered a patients room that had not been diagnosed with Covid until after her encounter with that patient. When a patient is admitted with Covid they are isolated and nobody but the nurses can enter the room. Unfortunately this patient wasn't diagnosed until after admission.The hospital protocol for the workers is that they have their temperature taken twice a day. Unreliable at best, neither my wife or I had a fever at any time while we had it.

On a side note my two daughters had it with no symptoms. My oldest daughter found out after a friend was in contact with someone who had Covid so they both went to get tested, the friend was negative and my daughter was positive.

I will also say this and please don't take this as a statement to diminish the virus it's not fun, but the symptoms I had were more like a mild flu. I've had worse cases of the flu than this was. I had chills and body aches especially anywhere that I have arthritis it would just throb. Acetaminophen worked well for relieving the aches. Had a couple of nights with severe night sweats, but the worst was vertigo. The vertigo would start about a half an hour after waking up and last until mid afternoon. The anxiety of not knowing if it would get worse was probably also one of the worst things mentally to deal with. It took me fifteen days to be fully ok but another week to feel like I did before getting it so total three weeks.

I consider myself very fortunate that it wasn't that bad due to the fact that I have some underlying conditions that could have made this much worse asthma being one of them.

Stay safe and do what you can to avoid getting it. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any set in stone symptoms or outcomes if you get it.

My wife and I both had it, thanks to her job. We both had mild cases mine was a bit worse than hers. It was a full two weeks to feel ok but it was three weeks for full recovery for us. We didn't have any lung issues no cough or fever. Worst of it for me was vertigo. so for us three weeks was back to normal.

9 hours ago, Barry said:

 

Like I said, I hadn't even thought about the fireplace since moving in. And it turned out that we didn't have the square gas key. And it's an odd one, given that the valve is sank 4 inches deep into a 1 inch bore in the fireplace. I scoured my tools for anything that'd work and the best I could  find was a needle nose plier and I just couldn't get purchase with it on the valve. Ah well. Give up and bundle up!

 

Twelve point socket😉

On 2/13/2021 at 4:21 PM, Tree Magnet said:

Syd Barrett is my cautionary “don’t do drugs” example for my kids. I saw a Pink Floyd documentary where they talked about him and it was brutal. So much potential that was never realized.

 

 

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I'm sure he had other issues the LSD only accelerated what would have been anyway.

On 2/14/2021 at 4:09 PM, TheX said:

Mopar certified technician right there. Can tell by the Mopar M on his shirt😂

On 2/14/2021 at 2:17 PM, TheX said:

Ok, so you hear Sam say "That's so dangerous" and that's enough for me to avoid it.

That statement translates into "I like my teeth"🤣

Word of caution on the HVAC. If you lose power flip the breaker off until the power is back on. The surge when the power comes back can mess up your HVAC.

I have Pedernales was without power for 12 hours. Just came back on an hour ago. Also without water.