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A thread to discuss Central Texas real estate


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5 hours ago, AntonioGG said:

 

Europe-wise, I have a colleague that lived in Barcelona.  He recommends it.  I asked him "France or Spain"  He did not hesitate to answer France.  As a cyclist though, Girona would be awesome.  I also just finished watching G.P. Miguel Indurain and the region they went through has 2000 miles of MTB trails according to them. I need to find out more details about that!  The cool thing about Europe (and one reason why my friends enjoyed it so much) is that everything is so close and connected by great trains.  So you could go visit a different country on long weekends.

I can speak a tiny bit of Spanish and could probably pick it up if I needed. Wife is very fluent. We've talked about Spain, and have several friends there, Seville was our target. I speak no French effectively and wife is semi-fluent. We have a couple friends there. But even though it would he harder language-wise I'd probably be edging towards France, but the pandemic has shown a lot of the issues over there. Ideally I'd like Germany. I speak enough that I could get by and as long as I just stayed a resident alien and didn't try to go down the citizenship path I'd do OK. No way I could get past a B2 in language easily and wife hates the German language. But the food and beer make up for it. You can ride everywhere, very bike-forward.

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My wife is from Munich and as her dad was a pilot she has traveled all over the world and has lived in some cool places.
She speaks 4 languages ( I barely know one )

I wouldn't have have to twist her arm to move out of the country.
Plus it will kill me to pay a huge sum for another house and to keep paying stupid propert taxes.


Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

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On 4/4/2021 at 7:35 PM, ATXZJ said:

we've seriously considered spain as an option but we still have to work, and good jobs are hard to come by. Beyond that, it ticks a lot of boxes as both us us are 100% comfortable with spanish culture. 

Spain has a "golden visa" program, if you move a certain amount of your assets over to a bank in Spain they allow you to fast track a resident alien visa and get on the path to citizenship quickly. I have one friend that retired there (Sevilla) doing that and some other friends there as well. It is relatively cheap to live in Spain, healthcare is the biggest issue but the golden visa gets you to the point of being able to buy into their system. 

We were in Sevilla an ran into an old guy with a "Maria's Taco Express" t-shirt on. Turns out he was an Austin native and moved there years ago. He comes back to the US once or twice a year if he has serious issues because he paid into Medicare. Complicated but workable.

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On 3/30/2021 at 8:45 AM, ATXZJ said:

My realtor called me last week letting me know she had a client needing a place within the next 30 days, and they were getting desperate. Said she was willing to pay $130k more than what I bought my place for in 2018. It's pretty tempting to grab that cash, and run.  Thinking (hoping) this bubble will at least sustain another year or so and we'll list next spring. 

We don't own any second homes or property, so we'll have to be confident this is the right choice before buying again. 

 

never ever sell except on the open market. 130K more than what you paid for could be a bad deal in this market.

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not sure if this is related, but my neighbor was working on improvements inside his home for the past year, then sold to an investor for $300k without a visit. I'm sure the company is going to gut it, throw in some new cabinets and paint, and sell it for double that. I think my neighbor got ripped off.

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Read currently 1/5 homes sold in TX are to investors. There's no way the average millennial or zoomer will ever compete with cash buyers and investors to purchase 500k plus homes in any viable market. There's going to be a landlord class ruling over them for the rest of their lives. To further this, the only millennials we know who "own" homes were either given a home, given the money, or had massive help with payments and construction/renovation. 

Zoomers are just doomed

Edited by ATXZJ
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1 hour ago, ATXZJ said:

Zoomers are just doomed

Right!  17 yr old is realizing this big time. Between the cost of school and houses. Yea , would not want to be in her shoes looking at the future. The worst fears I had at 17 were over girls. 

Even rent , I work with about of people under the age of 30 and I feel for them just getting by in this area with a decent job. 

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real talk: what can we as a society do about a class of people gobbling up all the real estate and renting it out to everyone else, further stifling the market for people who want to buy their own homes? young people can't build wealth, at least not in the conventional way, if all their income is going down the toilet to rent. Perhaps that's the free market doing its thing, but it does not sound sustainable. it's a death spiral.

Edited by mack_turtle
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With the privatization/evaporation of retirements, home ownership was the last way the average american could create any actual wealth. That's not gonna happen in places like here. Best bet is to say f it and move/buy somewhere cheap and just adapt.

Life's too short to spend all your time jerking off to a fallacy.

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1 hour ago, Cafeend said:

The worst fears I had at 17 were over girls. 

I started bootcamp 4 days after my 17th birthday. The world was mine, but even thinking about buying a house then was impossible. Back then loans were 14-18%. Things today are very different.

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2 hours ago, mack_turtle said:

real talk: what can we as a society do about a class of people gobbling up all the real estate and renting it out to everyone else, further stifling the market for people who want to buy their own homes? young people can't build wealth, at least not in the conventional way, if all their income is going down the toilet to rent. Perhaps that's the free market doing its thing, but it does not sound sustainable. it's a death spiral.

 

I'd like to see some real discussion about this topic.  I have some basic ideas, but not enough time at moment to put them down.  Cliff notes: corporations maximize profit, employees work for less, investors/market benefit.  Inflation goes up, wages don't.  And I'm a big free market kind of guy, so please don't associate this hypothesis with anti-1%'er or capitalism sucks kind of thing.

 

2 hours ago, ATXZJ said:

With the privatization/evaporation of retirements, home ownership was the last way the average american could create any actual wealth. That's not gonna happen in places like here. Best bet is to say f it and move/buy somewhere cheap and just adapt.

Life's too short to spend all your time jerking off to a fallacy.

In simple terms the solution could be to be employed by an Austin (or SF or NY) type company but actually live and work remotely where its cheaper to live.  My ideal scenario would be just that.....earn money from Austin employment but live in NWA in a house with low property taxes.  Have a TX residency though so you can benefit from no income tax.

All that being said, if we go back to the OP's original statements.....I think that if have not already purchased a place to live (yrs ago?), or have a strong high income job, or very good dual income family....Austin is just simply not the place for you.  After all, how many of us would willfully choose to move to San Jose to take a teacher, fireman, police, bike shop job?!?!

Later,
CJB

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2 hours ago, mack_turtle said:

real talk: what can we as a society do about a class of people gobbling up all the real estate and renting it out to everyone else? 

Unless people are willing to NOT rent, then nothing that comes easily. You can't limit the number of properties people are allowed to own. I guess you could use some form of taxation on non-primary homes to make it less profitable. With more and more people working remotely, the requirement to live near your job means a lot less. Some people WANT to live in metropolis, but can't afford to. That's not unfair, that's life.

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The housing market is scary stuff for a millennial, got hit hard in the my early 20's with the financial crisis, lost my job and didn't have the ability to own a home at that point.  Fast forward to a year ago, finally debt free and looking to buy a house in an expensive city, got crazier from there. Wife has aging parents and was born and raised here, we are staying. Financially we can afford buying a house but not sure we want to enter the fray right now, not that it's going to get any better. We were hoping that things would slow down at some point, seems really nuts to pay these prices right now 

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I see people that are refinancing right now to get cash out of their homes, and going further in to debt on a new 30 year loan. It would make sense if that money was being invested to make a higher return justifying the rate on the loan. It's not, it's like free money and will end up being a car and whatever else they don't need. Regret is sure to follow eventually.

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9 minutes ago, TheX said:

I see people that are refinancing right now to get cash out of their homes, and going further in to debt on a new 30 year loan. It would make sense if that money was being invested to make a higher return justifying the rate on the loan. It's not, it's like free money and will end up being a car and whatever else they don't need. Regret is sure to follow eventually.

100% this. Fools and their money will soon be parted.

My mortgage company was strong arming me to refinance and offered 1.5% drop from where i'm currently at. After all their bullshit closing costs and fees, it would take me almost a DECADE to end up exactly where I am currently on my principal. Worse yet, was during the beginning of the pandemic when mortgage companies were offering deferment for 6 months with NO terms. They wanted people to just sign on the dotted line and then come up with all the money at the end, or be forced to accept whatever terms are offered and start the approval/refinance process all over again. I asked what the terms were going to be and they said that has not been decided and asked if i wanted my agreement mailed or faxed. I declined.

F the banks forever.

 

25 minutes ago, rockshins said:

The housing market is scary stuff for a millennial, got hit hard in the my early 20's with the financial crisis, lost my job and didn't have the ability to own a home at that point.  Fast forward to a year ago, finally debt free and looking to buy a house in an expensive city, got crazier from there. Wife has aging parents and was born and raised here, we are staying. Financially we can afford buying a house but not sure we want to enter the fray right now, not that it's going to get any better. We were hoping that things would slow down at some point, seems really nuts to pay these prices right now 

You're right, it is nuts and sounds like you guys have a lot to decide on. Sucks. I like Austin and all, but it's no NYC, SF, DC or LA. All of those cities have a geographic advantage that will always preserve their values no matter how bad things get. We have BBQ ( i jest).

Big tech will do exact same thing to austin as they've done everywhere else. 

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1 minute ago, AustinBike said:

Anyone who is 50 years old or more and doesn't wake up every day and thank the stars at how lucky they were to be born in the US at the time that they were is kidding themselves.

We all hit the lottery whether you want to believe it or not.

Absofreakinlutely 

I live in a neighborhood of aging boomers and silent gens with full, bad ass retirements, and completely whole in all their assets. 

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Yep, the world dropped off for the generation behind me. I was one of the last of the lucky ones and I never forget it. I know people younger than me that are 2X smarter and will work 2X harder than me and never get to where I did, not because of their efforts, but because of the way the world changed.

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So much to unpack.  I was thinking about this and the vaccine thread during my road ride (what else are you supposed to do on a road ride?!).  I--like Cody--have thoughts but I think it would turn into a book.

Wealth concentration to a few, and those few are stirring the pot telling everyone else it's X-Y-Z's fault (you fill in the blank) it's not the corporations or their fault.  And they get an EMT making $16/hr (a travesty IMO) to feel angry b/c someone else wants to make $15 on a lesser job.   It's nuts.

My first job I got to work with a group of guys, most WW2 vets (one Navy sonar guy super deaf but super cool guy), they had already retired at least once.  Some 2x.  They loved their jobs.  They loved working with the people. They loved bringing in new people. They had pensions from Collins Radio, then from Rockwell-Collins, and were eligible to retire again.  How many of us think it's realistic to work a satisfying job for one company then retire to enjoy your golden years?  That is all gone.  My job could be gone any day no matter how good I am at it or how hard I work at it.  It's all about the next quarter and the shareholders.  Unfortunately not everyone is a shareholder.

 

 

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Younger people seem to be oblivious to the fact that debt is modern slavery. So many of them are deep in credit card debt, student loans, and more car than they need/can afford. It's nearly impossible to get ahead once that starts.

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OK Boomer rant:

when i was in my 20s, in the mid '00s, I was in debt because I was taking cash advances on my credit card to put it in my bank account so my rent check (cheap, in San Antonio) would not bounce. my wife and I were working full time (I had two part-time retail jobs with no insurance for a few years) while she was going to school. we had two cars, which was necessary at the time, and both were used and paid off. we later sold one of the cars and I rode the bus to work. we literally ate beans and rice and not much else. somehow we escaped from this without massive student debt and got to a healthy point now. if he had started a family (is anyone surprised that the birth rate is falling?) or had a serious medical problem, we'd be completely in over our heads 15 years later. I can't imagine we'd be able to own a home as we do. we managed to pay it off but it was brutal. the people who entered college just a few years after us have it much worse with the cost of school and paying to work at internships. it's drastically different and it's not young people's fault because they like avocado toast.

Edited by mack_turtle
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