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Houses are a depreciating asset. They require constant maintenance expenses just to hold their value. It's the land under the house that's the appreciating asse
by nradov 1y ago
Houses are a depreciating asset. They require constant maintenance expenses just to hold their value. It's the land under the house that's the appreciating asset.
- afavour 1y agoIs there really a meaningful difference when you’re not able to buy one without buying the other?
- jackvalentine 1y agoMaybe - we’re trying to sell a deceased family member’s block of land that might be worth more in the market if we demoed the building because it’s unliveable.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- amluto 1y agoSort of. In a lot of areas, the cost of the house has skyrocketed in the last few decades. One factor is that you can’t buy an empty lot and then build a 20 year old $250k house on it in most markets. If you want to build a house, that house will be new (obviously — relocating an old house is a real pain), and the costs of construction are silly. This effect inflates the value of old houses in a lot of markets. Of course, in markets that don’t have plenty of inventory of both empty lots and lots with old houses, it can be hard to value the house by itself.
- LoganDark 1y ago> relocating an old house is a real pain Has relocating an old house even been done? (Assuming the house wasn't built to be movable.)
- jwagenet 1y agoSomewhat recently in SF. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/23/san-francisco-victorian-house-moved https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/23/san-francisc...
- orinatic 1y agoYeah, it's a thing for a certain type of historic building. See https://patch.com/massachusetts/lexington/historic-house-move-happening-saturday-night https://patch.com/massachusetts/lexington/historic-house-mov... as an example
- WillDaSilva 1y agoIt is done, albeit rarely due to how expensive and complex an operation it is. My friend's mother moved her house a few kilometers across some farmland. It was a rather large 2 story tall house, with a basement. It had to be moved to a plot that had a similar foundation and basement prepared for it.
- gertlex 1y agoAs the other comments note, yep, it's been done. It seems there's a whole spectrum from lifting houses to put a new first floor below them, to moving them a bit, to moving them several blocks in a city. (to big building projects too, historically) I saw a house in progress being moved, 30 years ago. Great thing to take a kid to see!
- s1artibartfast 1y agoWhile I agree with your point about land, Im not so sure it is true about the house, given changing costs of labor, code compliance, and materials.
- msgodel 1y agoIt's not even really the land, it's the cuts + certificate of occupancy which have both been made artificially harder to get for a number of reasons.