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Mercury Ballistic posted:China has the empty buildings. Everywhere. They are building to keep the economy afloat and people employed, but it is all slowly falling apart and anyone who could sent their money to Vancouver or other such places. Empty, but selling because to a retail Chinese investor who can't get money offshore, it looks better than the Chinese stock market.
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Mar 5, 2017 20:51
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FCKGW posted:Did y'all miss the part where the coax is plugged into something shaped like an electrical outlet? I run an owner-occupied building so I'm responsible for a few things like this because when they want something like that, they get something like that. For me it's not about stock, but they want a "uniform look" in a particular space, so we use the same wall-plates for silly things. They wanted some WAPs installed throughout and we ended up drilling blank wall-plates that we use everywhere and pushed cat6 through for the IT guys to terminate. I think it looks silly compared to a wall-jack but they don't make wall-jack plates that match what we use for electrical.
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Mar 5, 2017 23:15
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Mercury Ballistic posted:Also, the people who buy are in a completely different income demographic than the ones in the current homes. Rich vs middle class, and they attract rich people shops and prices, furthering the cost of living climb. Honestly this is a good thing, our country is getting more and more segregated as people move to where there are people like themselves. Neighborhoods that have a good mix of incomes and backgrounds are good for moderating opinions and creating an inclusive society.
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Mar 6, 2017 00:23
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I admit you may be correct, bit I don't have to like it. 
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Mar 6, 2017 00:26
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FISHMANPET posted:Yeah this idea that developers are so stupid that they just keep sinking money into empty houses, condos, or apartments is just so ludicrous. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170223-chinas-zombie-factories-and-unborn-cities
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Mar 6, 2017 01:34
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FISHMANPET posted:Yeah this idea that developers are so stupid that they just keep sinking money into empty houses, condos, or apartments is just so ludicrous. Well they keep lobbying to be allowed to build on floodplains so let's not have too high an opiniojn of them.
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Mar 6, 2017 02:28
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Tunicate posted:Well they keep lobbying to be allowed to build on floodplains so let's not have too high an opiniojn of them. There's a lot of "IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME" which results in completely empty luxury apartments in regions starving for affordable ones.
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Mar 6, 2017 02:32
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Tunicate posted:Well they keep lobbying to be allowed to build on floodplains so let's not have too high an opiniojn of them. I never said they were smart, just that they were smart enough to not build apartments and condos in places with no demand for them. endlessmonotony posted:There's a lot of "IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME" which results in completely empty luxury apartments in regions starving for affordable ones. Prove it. This is the neverending siren call of the NIMBY, "why are they building all this luxury stuff when it's all empty anyway." It's simply not true To be clear, I'm talking about new construction in metro areas with growing economies and low unemployment. I don't know what people are doing 60 miles outside of Phoenix, but in successful metro areas, there is demand for new construction, even luxury, and people are living there.
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Mar 6, 2017 02:53
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FISHMANPET posted:I never said they were smart, just that they were smart enough to not build apartments and condos in places with no demand for them. I'm in Europe and can't really bother to translate, maybe it's different there.
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Mar 6, 2017 03:01
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OK I have no idea what's going on in Europe, so I'll be clear that I'm talking about the USA.
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Mar 6, 2017 03:02
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FISHMANPET posted:To be clear, I'm talking about new construction in metro areas with growing economies and low unemployment. I don't know what people are doing 60 miles outside of Phoenix, but in successful metro areas, there is demand for new construction, even luxury, and people are living there. I don't know if it is a widespread problem, but there is some whining out of Vancouver about people buying investment properties and leaving them empty during a dire housing shortage. I guess the property value is rising fast enough that they can leave the place empty most of the year and still theoretically come out in the black after paying taxes, insurance, utilities and strata fees on the empty units. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/city-of-vancouver-approves-empty-homes-tax-1.3853542
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Mar 6, 2017 03:02
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And from the perspective of the developer, even if nobody is living there, somebody is buying it, which is all they care about. I follow local development in my city (and it's opposition) pretty closely, and I hear this trotted out all the time. Developer X is building a new apartment building even though the one they finished 6 months ago is completely empty. You can go stand in front of it and see people going in and out like they live there, but to these nimby's it's all one massive conspiracy where developers bribe the city to get approvals, build these buildings, let them sit empty, then do it all over again. It's ludicrous.
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Mar 6, 2017 03:18
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Facebook Aunt posted:I don't know if it is a widespread problem, but there is some whining out of Vancouver about people buying investment properties and leaving them empty during a dire housing shortage. I guess the property value is rising fast enough that they can leave the place empty most of the year and still theoretically come out in the black after paying taxes, insurance, utilities and strata fees on the empty units. And the problem in Finland is people expecting that to happen any moment now and thus building the apartments for the investors and rich people sure to come... ignoring the fact that so much of Finland is undeveloped by comparison that you can pretty much have a mansion within a fifteen minute taxi ride from the center of most cities, combined with the fact that the profit margin for lovely apartments is much higher when there's a severe housing crisis ongoing (and thus people with capital to build things play blackjack where supplying over demand is a disaster). The end result is luxury apartments in regions too noisy for their market, going massively underutilized, while their owners double down on the "any day now" and a severe shortage of cheap housing. EDIT: Obviously they immediately get rented out once the people responsible for funding them finally admit their master plan was stupid, but never underestimate the ability of people to remain irrational. endlessmonotony fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Mar 6, 2017 |
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Mar 6, 2017 03:23
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There's been a huge influx of luxury development in my city, but it seems to be occupied and the reported occupancy rate for the city is like 96%
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Mar 6, 2017 03:54
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Build a wall to keep economic migrants out of Silicon Valley.
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Mar 6, 2017 04:35
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peanut posted:Build a wall to keep economic migrants out of Silicon Valley. You mean in Silicon Valley? People moving out of there generally have ludicrously large stacks of money with which to gently caress up the real estate market of any municipality they chose to move to.
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Mar 6, 2017 04:42
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endlessmonotony posted:And the problem in Finland is people expecting that to happen any moment now and thus building the apartments for the investors and rich people sure to come... ignoring the fact that so much of Finland is undeveloped by comparison that you can pretty much have a mansion within a fifteen minute taxi ride from the center of most cities, combined with the fact that the profit margin for lovely apartments is much higher when there's a severe housing crisis ongoing (and thus people with capital to build things play blackjack where supplying over demand is a disaster). Yeah, if you build/buy property and you're somehow losing money every month on it, eventually the glorious invisible hand of the free market will step in and slap you. Nobody can afford to hold a losing asset forever (unless it's part of a tax dodge or something weird is going on). In the case of poorly placed luxury condos, it may take a few years but eventually the market value will drop. So you'll get middle class people living in dingy, hastily built and poorly maintained properties with marble countertops and huge windows.
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Mar 6, 2017 04:48
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Facebook Aunt posted:Yeah, if you build/buy property and you're somehow losing money every month on it, eventually the glorious invisible hand of the free market will step in and slap you. Nobody can afford to hold a losing asset forever (unless it's part of a tax dodge or something weird is going on). The company that owns the buildings sells the units at a loss, pays out salaries (and bonuses!) to the company executives, then goes bankrupt, leaving the banks/investors that financed said buildings holding the bag. Sure the execs would rather have sold the units to rich people and kept the company around, but they can always reincorporate under a different name. Just because the market punished a loser doesn't mean there wasn't collateral damage. You can argue that the company's backers ought to have researched what they were financing more carefully, and you wouldn't be wrong, but that doesn't change the individual incentives at play here. There's plenty of people that will happily trample anyone and everyone in pursuit of personal enrichment, and they'll lie through their teeth to the investors if that's what it takes.
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Mar 6, 2017 05:11
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FISHMANPET posted:And from the perspective of the developer, even if nobody is living there, somebody is buying it, which is all they care about. One of the things that happens with luxury property (esp condo's) is they become a way to launder money, either to clean it up from criminal enterprise or to move it from one country to another. The people doing this don't actually care much if they make any money (or even lose a bit), as long as that money is quickly available to them on short notice. You can see this type of thing if you look at Vancouver's recent history. As soon as there was a tax on foreign (chinese) property buying, buying effectively stopped, and the money went elsewhere (Toronto). That doesn't mean the property went empty, though they often did, just that the people living there weren't likely to be the owners.
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Mar 6, 2017 05:14
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MrYenko posted:You mean in Silicon Valley? People moving out of there generally have ludicrously large stacks of money with which to gently caress up the real estate market of any municipality they chose to move to. I live in Berkeley and the developers up here are completely into the cargo cult build it and they will come logic. Nobody who works in Palo Alto or San Jose wants to live here considering the commute.
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Mar 6, 2017 06:19
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/r/DIY delivers again. Check out the S trap: https://m.imgur.com/gallery/F8auH
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Mar 6, 2017 07:10
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Here's a good article on the BBC about effort housing and the various reasons some buildings remain partially empty Why are so many British homes empty? - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34930602 Tl:dr super wealthy investors don't care about lost rent, selling a pristine never-been-sullied apartment is worth more than lost rent. Note that for the UK it mentions 600k empty homes including old stock, we have a population of 65 million.
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Mar 6, 2017 07:15
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https://betterdwelling.com/vacant-homes-global-epidemic-paris-fighting-60-tax/#_ Paris is trying by pushing up vacant property tax to 60% of rent.
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Mar 6, 2017 07:19
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FCKGW posted:Sounds like they're adding housing stock by replacing houses on inefficient lots. ...comrade, please
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Mar 6, 2017 09:18
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I hope ya'll like mold.
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Mar 6, 2017 15:00
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GreenNight posted:I hope ya'll like mold. Still better than carpet.
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Mar 6, 2017 15:10
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Week 1: Oh these fake plants make the bathroom look so natural, so beautiful! Week 21: THESE loving VINES KEEP POKING MY rear end
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Mar 6, 2017 15:44
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kid sinister posted:/r/DIY delivers again. Check out the S trap: https://m.imgur.com/gallery/F8auH I love the comments that thought the second photo was "after". I did too, at first.
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Mar 6, 2017 16:24
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Old countertop was better. More counter space and who cares how large a bathroom sink is? Old mirror was better New tile wins by default New cabinets/drawers have pulls, so they win I would have replaced the toilet and tiles and left it at that.
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Mar 6, 2017 16:33
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kid sinister posted:/r/DIY delivers again. Check out the S trap: https://m.imgur.com/gallery/F8auH apart from the plumbing being in dire need of replacement, did he actually do anything incorrectly? Polio Vax Scene posted:Week 1: Oh these fake plants make the bathroom look so natural, so beautiful! Fake? No no no. Gotta have LIVE plants.
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Mar 6, 2017 16:56
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GreenNight posted:I hope ya'll like mold. My friends in Germany have a very large number of plants and ferns in their master bathroom, but they are in professional greenhouse style planters, and of course they meticulously clean the bathroom and prune the plants. Most importantly they didn't plop a giant pile of rocks in the corner of the shower which I'm assuming is a giant un-cleanable biohazard by now. I don't hate this idea. Even having hanging plants / potted plants around the shower isn't inherently stupid assuming very regular cleaning of the shower but that pile of rocks really is something else. That big one probably weighs 400 lbs or so...
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Mar 6, 2017 17:20
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Those bigger rocks on the floor seem like they’d get mighty slippery.
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Mar 6, 2017 17:31
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Avenging_Mikon posted:apart from the plumbing being in dire need of replacement, did he actually do anything incorrectly? I'm no plumber, but I suspect the way they hooked up the sink drain to the sewer line would be prone to leaking; the only thing stopping water from leaking out is a hose clamp.
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Mar 6, 2017 17:38
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I'm no plumber, but I suspect the way they hooked up the sink drain to the sewer line would be prone to leaking; the only thing stopping water from leaking out is a hose clamp. It's a legit thing http://www.homedepot.com/b/Plumbing-Pipes-Fittings/Fernco/N-5yc1vZbqpfZ4hs
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Mar 6, 2017 18:04
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Platystemon posted:Old countertop was better. More counter space and who cares how large a bathroom sink is? Old countertop was ugly as hell and it looks like the new one still has plenty of space?
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Mar 6, 2017 18:11
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GreenNight posted:I hope ya'll like mold. Having a giant open shower is pretty great, although I don't know how much I'd like only having a rainfall shower head. Everything else is terrible.
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Mar 6, 2017 18:47
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GreenNight posted:I hope ya'll like mold. Building issues aside, I don't believe soap and shampoo and conditioner are great for plants.
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Mar 6, 2017 19:01
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kid sinister posted:Building issues aside, I don't believe soap and shampoo and conditioner are great for plants. That's why you should only shower with Brawndo.
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Mar 6, 2017 19:11
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kid sinister posted:Building issues aside, I don't believe soap and shampoo and conditioner are great for plants. I grew up in California during a drought. My dad installed a greywater reclamation system that he used to water the lawn and various ornamental plants, and they did fine. I don't know that I'd use it for food crops, and it's possible that plants physically located in the shower would get a less dilute dose of the nasty stuff. But in principle I think they'd probably be more at risk of a) getting overwatered, and b) not getting enough light.
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Mar 6, 2017 19:12
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Good lord, I need to find the previous owner of my home and smack him. He did almost nothing right with any of his projects. The bathroom is the worse thing...one of these days I'll take pictures of everything in there to post here (I think I've done a few, but almost every inch has something wrong, I swear.) But today, it's the half set of stairs leading from our entrance to the basement. My GF is home today and we talked about ripping up a crummy rug that was on them and then just re-painting them, since some paint is chipping/peeling off the edges of the stairs. Here's what it looks like post rug (and also post-caulk, since there were some LARGE gaps, according to her, which probably also contributed to the massive drafts/coldness we always felt.):  Like...holy poo poo, how loving lazy are you that you avoid what is probably a whopping 2 extra minutes of painting because you're going to put a rug down? A rug that, I might add, was not properly installed, either. It was just a regular hallways running rug that almost, sort-of, fit on those stairs. You see how the top riser is painted white? That's because the rug stopped short by like 6 inches. It was also just lazily stapled in a few times on each step and riser..no tackless strips, no padding, nothing.
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Mar 6, 2017 19:33
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