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Post by drlj on Oct 20, 2021 12:52:58 GMT -5
If nobody can afford to buy a house, why do they keep building them? At some point the older generation, apparently the last that could buy houses, will die, leaving a glut of empty houses. Just a couple of random, and possibly crazy, thoughts. In the 6 years Barb and I have lived here, hundreds of homes have been built. Hundreds more are being built and most are sold before the basement is dug. Four were just built on my block & all were sold before construction started. There are waiting lists and long wait times to have a house built around here. I see lots of little kids around all the newly constructed places so the buyers are unlikely to be senior citizens unless they are in really good physical shape.
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on Oct 20, 2021 13:06:48 GMT -5
If nobody can afford to buy a house, why do they keep building them? At some point the older generation, apparently the last that could buy houses, will die, leaving a glut of empty houses. Just a couple of random, and possibly crazy, thoughts. In the 6 years Barb and I have lived here, hundreds of homes have been built. Hundreds more are being built and most are sold before the basement is dug. Four were just built on my block & all were sold before construction started. There are waiting lists and long wait times to have a house built around here. I see lots of little kids around all the newly constructed places so the buyers are unlikely to be senior citizens unless they are in really good physical shape. My niece's husband is a construction manager for Olthof Homes, who are headquartered in your area and build a lot of homes in northwest Indiana and now even down here. Their family lives in Crown Point.
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Post by drlj on Oct 20, 2021 13:10:45 GMT -5
In the 6 years Barb and I have lived here, hundreds of homes have been built. Hundreds more are being built and most are sold before the basement is dug. Four were just built on my block & all were sold before construction started. There are waiting lists and long wait times to have a house built around here. I see lots of little kids around all the newly constructed places so the buyers are unlikely to be senior citizens unless they are in really good physical shape. My niece's husband is a construction manager for Olthof Homes, who are headquartered in your area and build a lot of homes in northwest Indiana and now even down here. Their family lives in Crown Point. He is probably the biggest builder going around here right now. We will see a field cleared and, before you know it, 50 homes will be up and occupied. Most are in the $300,000+ range.
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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Oct 20, 2021 14:07:47 GMT -5
From Redfin concerning the Portland market.
“In September 2021, Portland home prices were up 8.2% compared to last year, selling for a median price of $525K. On average, homes in Portland sell after 11 days on the market compared to 8 days last year. There were 1,229 homes sold in September this year, down from 1,289 last year.”
Mike
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Post by RickW on Oct 20, 2021 18:16:33 GMT -5
So here’s a question for the Republican/Free Market folks. The real estate market in North America is, like the stock market, a bastion of free enterprise, It's broken like most everything else. But what is true is that it's also not really a free market. It's layered on the credit/banking industry, its regulations, and who that empowers. Which is based on two things here. One that you have the income, and two, that that income is tied to a job, not being independant. My wife’s nephew is the kind of guy, a business consultant who works in large corporations helping them roll out new computer systems, multi million dollar projects. He can’t buy a home because the bank says he doesn’t have a steady enough source of income, even though he’s been employee steadily for many years. Now, I also think he has a very inflated idea of what he wants. But a 400 thousand to 500 hundred thousand dollar house is within range for most anyone here who is not getting paid minimum wage; it’s crazy how much the banks will lend out. Now, around here, there are no houses in that price range. There are apartments. This happened in many of the world’s large cities long ago. Very few people buy houses in London, New York, Shanghai or Tokyo. They buy apartments or rent them.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 20, 2021 20:32:30 GMT -5
I've talked about this before with Jeff (used to be an engineer for an electric utility in Green Bay) and a few others back when the Texas power grid failed in winter, but I'm seeing more and more of this. In a nutshell, it's looking to be a harsh, cold winter and the "greening" of the power grid is shaping up to be potentially disaterous across much of the world, particularly in Europe and other seriously climate woke places like California. Here's a nice article on the tech impossibilities of going green in a power grid. Speaking of total collapse, here's an issue related to that coming from a generally ignored left field. So Much For Green Energy
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Post by epaul on Oct 20, 2021 21:54:48 GMT -5
A couple energy side notes:
- The EERC (where my wife works) with its private partner is about to bring "online" a commercial ethanal plant with CCS (carbon capture and storage) which will allow them to sell "green ethanol to markets that demand it. Not a Fed project, an expansion of a privately owned and operated ethanol plant. The same technology (CCS) is being readied for installation at the Milton R. Young power station, a large coal-fired plant that supplies electricity to the entire Red River Basin.
(Biden's Secretary of Energy was just lauding North Dakota's progress in, and suitable geography for, CCS, which she declared will be a necessary and essential piece of our future energy picture.)
- The EERC has been working on the extraction of rare earth metals and critical elements (lithium) from lignite coal (the researchers have started referring to coal as "carbon ore"). The goodies are in there and they can be gotten out (as a byproduct from other uses, just as animal feed is a byproduct of ethanol production or any of dozens of products that are produced from the refinement of oil). Challenges await, but the work is going forward.
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Post by epaul on Oct 20, 2021 22:19:48 GMT -5
(and yes, energy from fossil fueled power plants that sequester CO2 will cost more than electricity from power plants that don't. But, given what is and what is going to be, regardless of complaints, a grid that contains intermittent renewable energy will need to be partnered with a steady and reliable baseline energy source, and fossil-fueled energy plants that can sequester the CO2 they release as a byproduct of combustion in stable geologic formations is the most likely best partner we will be able to come up with.
Comfort can be found in the likelihood that even if future energy is more expensive than current energy, odds are, once the dust settles, it will still be available at a historically low cost. Big picture, the cost of energy in terms of the amount of energy an individual needs to expend in order to procure it has been on steady downward path from the days of Urgh the Caveman to the present, and blips aside, the progression of that line is going to continue as it has for the last 15,000 years, and that is down.)
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Post by epaul on Oct 20, 2021 22:20:31 GMT -5
Wind energy. Cheap to produce. Damn expensive to use.
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Post by jdd2 on Oct 21, 2021 0:10:47 GMT -5
And wind can break...
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Post by millring on Oct 21, 2021 4:10:07 GMT -5
The "End Times" are what keep religions going. (well, that and church suppers) ...and environmentalists. Everyone's apocalyptic these days.
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Post by brucemacneill on Oct 21, 2021 6:26:07 GMT -5
How Close Is Total Social and Economic Collapse?
Well, I'm in the middle of nowhere and I can see it from here.
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Post by theevan on Oct 21, 2021 6:54:40 GMT -5
I think the quickest path to chaos would be a massive grid failure. Once hunger sets in all bets are off.
Don't know if that's likely.
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Post by david on Oct 21, 2021 19:09:52 GMT -5
Evan - working on it: I am creating a bidet that cleans your bottom, captures methane, and powers your car. No grid required.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 21, 2021 19:16:15 GMT -5
Evan - working on it: I am creating a bidet that cleans your bottom, captures methane, and powers your car. No grid required. Makes as much sense as anything else "green" I've seen. Go for it.
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Post by david on Oct 21, 2021 19:26:11 GMT -5
Evan - working on it: I am creating a bidet that cleans your bottom, captures methane, and powers your car. No grid required. Makes as much sense as anything else "green" I've seen. Go for it. Might need your help.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 21, 2021 19:32:21 GMT -5
Makes as much sense as anything else "green" I've seen. Go for it. Might need your help. Government grants. Check with epaul.
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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Oct 21, 2021 19:39:01 GMT -5
I think the quickest path to chaos would be a massive grid failure. Once hunger sets in all bets are off. Don't know if that's likely. I fixed the oven door in the trailer today. I’m good to go. Mike
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Post by david on Oct 21, 2021 19:48:40 GMT -5
[/quote]I fixed the oven door in the trailer today. I’m good to go.
Mike[/quote]
Please try to hold on until Pete and I can get that gathering device designed and constructed.
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Post by Marshall on Oct 22, 2021 10:14:43 GMT -5
I think the quickest path to chaos would be a massive grid failure. Once hunger sets in all bets are off. Don't know if that's likely. Like in Texas.
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