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So maybe I shouldn't buy this $200K foreclosure? Some actual actionable advice from a comment there: "" If you are agonizing about whether to buy real estate

So maybe I shouldn't buy this $200K foreclosure? Some actual actionable advice from a comment there: "" If you are agonizing about whether to buy real estate now or later, maybe you'd better define "real estate" It's hard to see the value in buying a "suburban middle class home in CT" right now, or a year or three down the line if/when prices dive again. You may as well rent it and save a lot of money (and headaches) if all you are gonna do is park your car, watch TV and sleep there. Call that "fake estate" If you want your real property to produce anything of real value, the best time to buy was yesterday, and you could already be at work building the soil, planting fruit trees and garden beds, installing some distributed energy source like solar or wind, and improving the structure. It takes a few years at least to get this sort of thing going, especially if you are doing it after work and on weekends. Invest in infrastructure during this so-called "deflationary period" and take advantage of gov't subsidies and tax breaks for energy efficient appliances, insulation, solar panels, whatever. If things really are gonna be so grim, you are probably soon going to be at best "underemployed" and maybe even a little hungry... Here's another idea - rent your house, and buy some cheap agricultural land within an hour's drive or less (go in with your friends and/or family maybe and it'll be even cheaper) and lease it to an organic farmer. That property may actually appreciate quite a bit in the coming years. Or if you are not cut out to be a farmer, buy a multi-unit that you can fix up, live in and rent out the other units. The whole point of real estate ownership used to be that it was a factor of production, not a financial abstraction that magically provides some rate of return while you rent it from the bank. If you are not going to improve the property in some way, and realize some income from it, don't bother buying it. If all you are willing to invest in life is fiat currency, you may eventually get lucky and get it back by the wheelbarrow full, with many more zeroes on it. ""

rcoder 17y ago
This concept really resonates with me -- my girlfriend and I bought a house recently, motivated by a combination of the tax credit, ever-increasing rent, and a desire to be able to plant, build, and remodel to our hearts' content. Having a proper workshop in the garage and garden plots in the yard is important for me. I grew up "hacking" on physical objects just as much as computers, so being stuck indoors with only computers and small gadgets to work on always felt oddly limiting. At a fundamental level, home improvement and micro-scale agriculture offer many of the same sorts of problem-solving challenges as coding. Plus, it's a lot easier to get other people interested in your latest kitchen remodel or crop of produce than the SQL optimization you pulled off at work. Owning your own place can complicate the pseudo-nomatic lifestyle that a lot of developers seem to thrive on, but it can be totally worth it if you want interesting problems to solve outside of the digital realm.
euroclydon 17y ago
If you plant fruit trees, be prepared to kill every squirrel in a two mile radius!
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  For sure. The little buggers are robbing me blind. Somehow they know when I think to myself "the peaches are almost ready, I'll start to harvest them tomorrow". For some reason they mostly leave the plums alone. So go with the plums.
  - gchpaco 17y ago
    Big problem with plums is that as far as I can tell the entire tree goes ripe the same millisecond, and you have about three days to pick them all and figure out what the hell to do with a million plums before the birds get to them and they fall off the tree and make these terrible little lumps on the lawn.
    - angelbob 17y ago
      Sauces and alcohol. Plums are good for both. Oddly, plum-coriander sauce is pretty good (try a small amount before you take my word for it -- I love it, but YMMV).
  - bitdiddle 17y ago
    You need hawks and cats. Both are effective at squirrel management.

rcoder 17y ago

This concept really resonates with me -- my girlfriend and I bought a house recently, motivated by a combination of the tax credit, ever-increasing rent, and a desire to be able to plant, build, and remodel to our hearts' content. Having a proper workshop in the garage and garden plots in the yard is important for me. I grew up "hacking" on physical objects just as much as computers, so being stuck indoors with only computers and small gadgets to work on always felt oddly limiting. At a fundamental level, home improvement and micro-scale agriculture offer many of the same sorts of problem-solving challenges as coding. Plus, it's a lot easier to get other people interested in your latest kitchen remodel or crop of produce than the SQL optimization you pulled off at work. Owning your own place can complicate the pseudo-nomatic lifestyle that a lot of developers seem to thrive on, but it can be totally worth it if you want interesting problems to solve outside of the digital realm.

euroclydon 17y ago

If you plant fruit trees, be prepared to kill every squirrel in a two mile radius!

CWuestefeld 17y ago
For sure. The little buggers are robbing me blind. Somehow they know when I think to myself "the peaches are almost ready, I'll start to harvest them tomorrow". For some reason they mostly leave the plums alone. So go with the plums.
- gchpaco 17y ago
  Big problem with plums is that as far as I can tell the entire tree goes ripe the same millisecond, and you have about three days to pick them all and figure out what the hell to do with a million plums before the birds get to them and they fall off the tree and make these terrible little lumps on the lawn.
  - angelbob 17y ago
    Sauces and alcohol. Plums are good for both. Oddly, plum-coriander sauce is pretty good (try a small amount before you take my word for it -- I love it, but YMMV).
- bitdiddle 17y ago
  You need hawks and cats. Both are effective at squirrel management.