I'm in Santa Barbara, CA. Good friend of mine just bought a shithole 3-2 1300sqft for $2.2m. $3M doesn't go very far considering 30 years ago it was retirement status almost anywhere.
I'm a digital nomad and have been traveling full time for 7 years now. It's great, it's a good balance of work/life balance but one thing you slowly start to notice is when you leave your country, no matter if you learn the language or how much integrate yourself into that country, you will always be an outsider to the majority in that country.
As an american you will always be a Yankee, Farang or Gringo and will carry the weight of the US collective.
Being a nomad is basically asking to start from scratch everywhere you go.
Even something like living in the countryside domestically would worry me (that is, longer times between calling for help and it arriving, then time to be transported to a medical centre or hospital, and then probably getting transported to the city anyway for access to advanced medical care).
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5436-Agana-Dr-Santa-Barba...
https://maps.app.goo.gl/2aEXsdH9hU3o4SZw5 (winter, March 2012)
I'm used to seeing yearly or every-other-year streetview updates for locations I look at regularly.
That said, might be mixing up my broader impression with the interval of satellite photo updates in the google earth history. (but my bay area neighborhood does indeed have streetview history updating every year or so; obviously this is probably on the high end given proximity to tech companies...)
4br in only 2k sqft? For 2M? Please...
I'm saying $2.2M for a "shithole 1300sqft" doesn't make sense when you can pay $2M for a nice 2279sqft.
~"Not saying X, but... X."
How does my second sentence say the prices are reasonable? My second sentence is saying chasebank's friend did something that doesn't make sense. It's not saying the housing market in Santa Barbara is reasonable.
Are you intentionally ignoring you said "nice" for what most would consider to be a source of ridicule (4BR SFH in 2k sqft). BTW, you haven't made an argument about real estate differences. The smaller home might be a better deal.
And you're using a turn of phrase that is the opposite of your apparent intent.
I don't think most people would consider it a source of ridicule. (BTW, you omitted 279sqft.) In all the places I see discussing it online, I see tons of people saying 2279 sqft is a normal or even large size for 4BR, and only 1 person saying it's small[1-6].
The average bedroom size in the US is 132 sqft. The average master bedroom size is 224 sqft[7]. Even if we go with 224, with 4 of those, that's 896 sqft used by bedrooms, and 2279-896 = 1383sqft for non-bedroom stuff. I don't see why that's so bad.
>BTW, you haven't made an argument about real estate differences. The smaller home might be a better deal.
chasebank described it has a "shithole". So I assumed the real estate was bad. If chasebank was describing a house on a super valuable piece of land, chasebank should have mentioned that. It would be an important piece of information that would completely undermine chasebank's point. It would be misleading for chasebank to leave out that information, so I assumed chasebank didn't do that. Anyway, the real estate of the one I linked to seemed fine to me.
[1] https://www.familyhomeplans.com/4-bed-3-bath-house-plans-hom...
[2] https://www.coohom.com/article/how-many-square-feet-in-a-4-b...
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/HousingUK/comments/vq293z/after_gen...
[4] https://www.quora.com/How-many-square-feet-is-a-4-bedroom-ho...
[5] https://houseplanfloorplan.quora.com/How-big-is-a-typical-4-...
[6] https://www.coohom.com/article/how-many-square-feet-in-a-4-b...
[7] https://www.crddesignbuild.com/blog/average-bedroom-size/
For the latter, isn't it odd how you cherrypick and dismiss?
1. Spuriously apply national averages (including a UK forum!!! LOL) to a way above average zip code
2. And conveniently dismiss another HNer's conclusion because they...didn't provide a fact needed for an argument that YOU are trying to make and could research yourself? This is unreal.
>"Yeah, even though I didn't ask, the defendent didn't tell me they were innocent or not, so I will dismiss further review and assume they're guilty."
You said "what most would consider to be a source of ridicule (4BR SFH in 2k sqft)". You didn't say that it would only be a source of ridicule in certain zip codes.
Whose conclusion am I dismissing? chasebank's? I think chasebank's conclusion is that housing is too expensive. I agree with chasebank there. I'm not dismissing that.
Shithole is probably overstating it, but $2.2m doesn't get you much in more expensive Santa Barbara neighborhoods. Here's a 3/1 1000sq foot house that sold for $2.2 in June that better represents what the parent comment was referring to:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2430-Mesa-School-Ln-Santa...
A 4BR 2k+ sqft house in any of the good neighborhoods in Santa Barbara ( Mesa, San Roque, Riviera, Mission Canyon, Samarkand) would easily be closer to $2.5-3 million.
For example: 1900sqft for $2.6: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2818-Valencia-Dr-Santa-Ba...
2100sqft for $2.7: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3117-Calle-Noguera-Santa-...
800sq ft for $1.6: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/512-E-Islay-St-Santa-Barb...
That first one you linked to must be priced based on building something new there. The Zillow listing even has pictures of plans for a new house.
Here's a 2270sqft 3BR3B for $1.9M that I think is actually in Santa Barbara (looks like the edge of Riviera), although it doesn't really have a yard: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/533-Conejo-Rd-Santa-Barba...
That Conejo rd listing is less expensive mostly due to fire/landslide risk and the elementary school district.
How ironic that you now backtrack when someone else makes my point. You did no research, made a spurious claim, then doubled down.
That's not the same point as sblocal123's point.
Regarding the real estate location point, yes, you and caminante made the same point. caminante made the point convincingly and you didn't. There's nothing ironic about me changing my mind when someone makes a point convincingly.
You've embarrassed yourself.
I can cry that my dream flat in London is more expensive than I expected 30 years ago but that just shows how stupid I’ve been the last 30 years
You do have to pay interest taxes and maintenance, whether that exceeds the rent for an equivalent property is another question.