House Hunters - General Discussion

[cameron]

2 hours ago, ECM1231 said:

I continue to be amazed at how affordable Chicago properties are. 

Depends on the area.  Non desirable areas are lower in price while the desirable areas command a high price.

[cameron]

On 1/5/2025 at 8:23 AM, Baltimore Betty said:

I was in Manchester in November, it was a charming town, (we went to tour two Frank lloyd Wright houses), I was amazed that there is a Southern New Hampshire University Arena, I thought it was a diploma mill!

My husband is from Manchester and I thought that it leaves a lot to be desired.  Never wanted to live there.

[Baltimore Betty]

44 minutes ago, cameron said:

My husband is from Manchester and I thought that it leaves a lot to be desired.  Never wanted to live there.

We were only there a couple of days, not long enough to see all the warts.

[buttersister]

HH Remote Retreats--LOL, repackaged crazy town.  Shades of Homestead Rescue 😂

Couple with two kids and shit for brains and a $900k budget move from one area of CO to another, more remote spot with 150" of snow in the winter. They're outdoors folks, but he travels a lot. 
She has concerns about keeping the kids safe out there--he, who wants acres--asked his kids if they wanted to share a bedroom (they're preteen girl and boy). WTF? House 1 has death trap driveway, septic and well. 

The second place has a stuffed mountain goat mounted on a two-story stone fireplace and I'm actively disliking these weirdos. Let's talk more about big fires in the area, says realtor.

Moving on to house 3, closer to town (and schools, neighbors, food, etc.). Keep thinking Mr. Isolation isn't home a lot.

Realtor is an idiot. Says wood-burning fireplace is primary heat source--it's a huge house with baseboard heating, dude. What are you talking about?

Holy crap, they bought #1 for $815k and his dead mother would be glad. Hope they don't find  the bones of the wife and kids buried in the snow. Wife liked price, says check back after a winter out there. Nope.

[Kemper]

This weekend I saw what I think was a rerun. The couple had teenagers and were looking for a house on The Outer Banks. If I had seen the entire episode I would have put this under Memorable House Hunters. The wife was very entitled; husband about the same. The teens were okay - what you would expect considering the parents. The wife's fashion choices. She did not dress for her size. What appeared to be a Lily Pulitzer dress was maybe two sizes too small. Like The Grinch's heart. Lapping from my saucer of cream.

All of the houses were expensive - in the millions.  One had a beautiful, newly renovated kitchen; wife declared it would be a "gut job" because of the ... I think I have this correctly ...  placement of the appliances? One had a nice pool with a high fence and backed up to the ocean. Dad didn't like the fact that the patio areas around it would not be adequate for hosting.  But the worst part? I got a phone call and missed which house they picked! If anyone saw it, please let me know.

Has anyone else noticed that so many of the houses shown these days all look kind of the same on the inside? Like no one lives in them; all professionally staged. Very nice but sterile.

Edited February 24 by Kemper

[chessiegal]

Napierville IL: That woman was a pill. Why would you want hardwood floors in the kitchen? Not only did she say it, she did it. She must not cook. Tile in the kitchen is so much easier to clean and care for.

[surfgirl]

3 hours ago, chessiegal said:

Napierville IL: That woman was a pill. Why would you want hardwood floors in the kitchen? Not only did she say it, she did it. She must not cook. Tile in the kitchen is so much easier to clean and care for.

Hey, I resemble that remark. We modeled pur kitchen a d put in hardwood floors ro match the rest of the house. It looks great!

[cameron]

Actually have had real wood floors in every home that we have owned since 1990 and I cook a lot.  Matter of personal preference in what people choose for kitchen flooring.  Keeping a neat and clean kitchen is paramount in keeping your wooden floors looking their best.

[chessiegal]

I have tile in my kitchen and would not want it any other way. I cook. Water and food spills happen. I don't have to worry about damaging the floors. 

[Crashcourse]

I was pleasantly surprised that the Napierville woman didn't want to rip out the kitchen cabinets and replace them with white ones.

[chessiegal]

41 minutes ago, Crashcourse said:

I was pleasantly surprised that the Napierville woman didn't want to rip out the kitchen cabinets and replace them with white ones.

Especially since she was so fond of saying "gut job".

[pdlinda]

18 hours ago, chessiegal said:

That woman was a pill.

Seemed like there was MUCH MORE to her story than was aired.  I was curious about the relationship she severed and how much $$$ she was able to walk away with after the split.  Also, the daughter.  They seemed relatively close in age.  The daughter seemed very "passive" and "dependent" on mom (which was perfectly fine with mom).  

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 1/5/2025 at 6:23 AM, Baltimore Betty said:

I was in Manchester in November, it was a charming town, (we went to tour two Frank lloyd Wright houses), I was amazed that there is a Southern New Hampshire University Arena, I thought it was a diploma mill!

Your comment made me curious, and I found out that it's named that because SNHU bought the naming rights.  It was called the Verizon Wireless Arena before that.

With arenas owned by universities, I can't think of any that use the name of the university.  They're usually named after former coaches, or sometimes donors. 

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 1/17/2025 at 12:21 PM, chediavolo said:

I often wondered about all these people who say they don’t cook and they eat out at every meal.. like when are they going to hear that they have stenosis or diabetes or heart disease or cancer? How can anyone live like that?  Jesus I watch what I eat and I’ve got issues. 

Well, see, there ya go.  I almost never cook and eat out pretty much every meal (although I eat only once a day), and I don't have any health issues, so I'd say I live like that pretty well.  Some people are just lucky.  And others might be, too, but they never find out because they don't want to chance it, I guess?  I'm glad I took the risk because I actively enjoy everything I eat.  If I don't love it, I'm not gonna bother eating it.

I just don't enjoy cooking enough to do it on any sort of regular basis.  And I do enjoy Popeye's spicy fried chicken.  😀

 

[Bastet]

On 2/27/2025 at 6:07 AM, chessiegal said:

I have tile in my kitchen and would not want it any other way. I cook.

I cook every day.  I have linoleum in the kitchen (with tile in the bathroom and hardwood everywhere else) and will replace it with tile when I renovate my kitchen.  But I know a few home cooks with hardwood floors in the kitchen because they wanted the same flooring throughout the entire house.  So it doesn't work to assume she doesn't cook just based on that.

Edited Sunday at 07:21 AM by Bastet

[cameron]

14 hours ago, Bastet said:

I cook every day.  I have linoleum in the kitchen (with tile in the bathroom and hardwood everywhere else) and will replace it with tile when I renovate my kitchen.  But I know a few home cooks with hardwood floors in the kitchen because they wanted the same flooring throughout the entire house.  So it doesn't work to assume she doesn't cook just based on that.

I have had linoleum, vinyl tile, ceramic tile, brick and wood floors over the course of all the 16 homes we have lived in and I really prefer the wood floors.  I enjoy cooking and don't eat  out that much except on special occasions and vacations.  Came into our marriage not knowing how to cook at all and over the years have really gotten into it.  I am a stickler on keeping my kitchen floors really clean.   That's the secret to keeping your wood looking their best, regardless of what room they are in.  Also have had them in our master bathroom and they held up great.

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 2/13/2025 at 8:00 AM, laredhead said:

Also, how much $$ does a tall building window washer and a content creator (whatever that is) make? 

A tall window building window washer probably makes pretty good money...but it's not like they're in Manhattan, so I wonder how much demand there is.  Odd that he dislikes stairs--I guess he prefers to ascend completely vertically instead of at an angle.

The wife said she's a "women's empowerment coach," and then said she empowers women "financially."  Which is somehow more annoying to me than "content creator," which is apparently part of being a women's empowerment coach.

I have a suggestion:  if everybody quits throwing money at these content creators, maybe they'll go away?

On 2/17/2025 at 8:12 PM, Mollywolly555 said:

Lots of animals... we saw deer near the road, and I hear they get visits from mountain lions.. it's that remote.

Heh.  If you want to see deer, just go to my sister's house inside the beltway in Washington, DC.  They're eating all her plants and driving her nuts.

For mountain lions, Los Angeles is where you want to be.  😀

I watch these episodes via Spectrum on demand, and I've been watching ones with dates in the last couple of weeks but nobody's discussing them, so I don't know what I'm watching.  Did anybody else see the one with the carpenter in Detroit?  I loved it when she saw a house that was on the market for $20,000, and when she was inside she remarked at how it looked like it was going to take a lot more work than she thought.  Because nothing says not-a-lot-of-work like a $20,000 house.

I immediately knew it was the one she picked because it just so happened that it had been sitting empty for ten years but had recently had new plumbing and wiring put in "to prep it for sale."  She said she was going to live in one room at a time while she fixes the house, and it'll probably take at least a year. 

I liked her, and would love an update at some point, even mid-progress.

And wouldn't you know, the electrical and plumbing would run about $18,000, and she paid $18,000.  So maybe those houses are usually close to free?

When I was in college in the 1970s, I took an urban planning class and wrote a paper about Baltimore's urban homesteading program, where the city sold row houses for $1, and the buyer would get the deed if they fixed it up and lived in it for a certain amount of time. 

My main takeaway whenever I read about urban decay and how to fix it is I'm really glad I'm not in charge of figuring out how to do it. 

[chessiegal]

23 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

And wouldn't you know, the electrical and plumbing would run about $18,000, and she paid $18,000.  So maybe those houses are usually close to free?

Have you watched Bargain Block? Two guys buy run down properties in Detroit and rehab them. They buy houses for 5 figures.

[Angeltoes]

22 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

Heh.  If you want to see deer, just go to my sister's house inside the beltway in Washington, DC.  They're eating all her plants and driving her nuts.

She might want to try this:

https://www.bangordailynews.com/2022/07/21/homestead/peeing-on-your-garden-joam40zk0w/#:~:text=Even if the urine does,your garden%2C” he said.

[Empress1]

Just watched a recent divorcée in Norman, OK. $150K cash budget. Young, no kids. She’d been living with her mother post-divorce. She was looking at very small places (the largest one she saw was a townhouse that was 1400 square feet and the others were 900 and 600). All the places she saw were kind of ugly, in my opinion. She went with the 900-square foot 2/1, which was cute once she fixed it up, although the kitchen was tiny (it had like three cabinets).

[CalicoKitty]

I live in what is considered a rural town, but we live in regular neighborhoods and subdivisions with next door neighbors.  Deer, foxes, coyotes, and predatory birds are common sites.  We had a large mountain lion outside our neighborhood gates a few months ago.  Bears are not uncommon.  I saw a bear trap outside a house on a residential street not too long ago.  I never heard if they caught it and relocated it or not.  You always have to be on alert for deer.  My point is, you do not have to live out in the woods or on acreage to encounter wild animals.  They come right into town! 

[CalicoKitty]

4 minutes ago, CalicoKitty said:

I live in what is considered a rural town, but we live in regular neighborhoods and subdivisions with next door neighbors.  Deer, foxes, coyotes, and predatory birds are common sites.  We had a large mountain lion outside our neighborhood gates a few months ago.  Bears are not uncommon.  I saw a bear trap outside a house on a residential street not too long ago.  I never heard if they caught it and relocated it or not.  You always have to be on alert for deer.  My point is, you do not have to live out in the woods or on acreage to encounter wild animals.  They come right into town! 

By bear trap I don't mean those claw-type things you see on TV.  The bear trap looks more like a metal house that is built to withstand a bear's strength.  They pull it behind a truck, and then park and leave the back door open.  It has small windows and bedding material on the floor.  They hang something that looks and smells like food from the ceiling and hope that the bear goes inside.  Then they shut the door and transport the bear out to the forest and away from people and pets.  The bear doesn't get hurt, he just gets to go on a trip.