Hacker News Reader

Comment by novocantico | Hacker News Reader

You gotta get creative. Walking down the street I met this one guy who's like 70, eccentric, military vet, owns the house, and rents it out individual rooms for $550/month. He's paid off the mortgage, just needs to pay taxes, and he's clearly making a profit since he's retired and constantly has new projects working on the house. For context that's 1/3 asking price out here.

View on HN

How is getting lucky walking down the street "creative", exactly?

He perhaps asked every person that walked by? That would be more creative than looking at the post popular ad site.

Harassing strangers is not really something I would encourage no matter how creative it is.

"Harassing" doesn't seem like the right word to describe asking questions to strangers. But he probably just moved around looking for announcements.

Speaking to other people is now harassing?

What a world we leave in

Just keep your eyes open is all I mean. Life is strange, you never know what you're going to find.

That's more of a banal aphorism then a piece of concrete actionable advice when trying to find a place to live. Expecting to get a rent below market rate by arbitrarily walking into somebody on the street is just...

It's true, I omitted a vital piece of the puzzle. Without it, my comment's advice does really come down to "have luck".

"That's more of a banal aphorism then a piece of concrete actionable advice ..."

Are you kidding ?

It's the best piece of advice you'll read all year.

Go and do likewise!

It's great that worked out for you. It'd be great if people didn't have to get creative to find basic housing.

Since when did housing become a right?

Since the UN was founded, and human rights were stated.

A bit earlier than that, actually:

[In 1917] the government spearheaded great changes in people’s lives, starting with housing. The Soviets nationalized private property and started the so-called “уплотнение” (housing compaction), giving rooms to working-class families in large central apartments that used to belong to [previous owners]. Note that renters were “compacted” too. This project officially laid the groundwork for the often bizarre kommunalka housing - a resilient symbol of the Soviet past. https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/331621-lenin-putin-soviet-rus...

So you are having problems looking for a 2bd apartment for a family of 3? What about one room in an apartment with a bath shared by 4 other families?

To which court are you going to appeal for redress when those rights are not upheld? The UN declaration of human rights is nothing but an aspirational fiction.

Better an "an aspirational fiction" than nothing, or less than nothing under Putin.

1991: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_housing

You mind if I crash on your couch for a while?

Yes I do. But I also pay council tax and my local authority provides social housing.

1948

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Hum...

Since society decided it’s better to create housing than to allow an army of homeless people to burn the world to the ground.

> It'd be great if people didn't have to get creative to find basic housing where they want to live

FTFY.

There is plenty of basic housing. It just happens not to be where people are looking most of the time.

It would also be nice if we would stop voting for politicians that promise policies that limit supply - either directly and explicitly such as zoning laws, or as a consequence like rent control.

That happens because most people are property owners so the politicians want to keep them happy first.

In the past I've done something like this: pick the neighborhood you're interested in. Go there and walk or drive around looking for "For Rent" signs. Look at public bulletin boards in markets and laundromats. Start making calls.

That worked in the 1990s. Not sure it's viable today.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com