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Comment by deadbabe | Hacker News Reader

A lot of these houses probably come with massive debt attached, so really buying any of these homes is a ripoff, even if you just wanted them for the land. You will owe way more than what you paid. This website would be more interesting if it actually showed you the true cost. As it stands, it’s clickbait.

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>As it stands, it’s clickbait.

check the big "What you need to know before you buy" section.

Yes, that doesn’t mean it isn’t clickbait.

The prices shown are worthless, you’d have to check what debt any property actually has to determine what you need to put down. That $3k flint house, you will pay $200k+ when all is said and done.

The low prices are nothing more than an interesting hook.

Where are you finding the lien on that property? I don't see it listed at all.

Edit: I'm asking how you came up with the $200k+ figure

On the contrary, this is a great starting point for OP to enhance the app to crawl (if needed) to determine fully loaded costs required to acquire. Liens and other encumbrances are typically public record, demo costs can be estimate by zip code if you don't want to programmatically reach out to demo vendors for a quote.

they aggregate and display information exactly as provided by the various databases, and then make it clear what has been included and what hasn't been included in that price. there is nothing misleading.

it's a real stretch to call that clickbait, even starting from the already-stretched definition of clickbait common on HN.

I’m not sure this is clickbait in a literal sense, but given the factors you point out, it could promote misunderstandings among casual readers.

Downvoted for breaking this guideline: "Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative."

The "It's clickbait" comment at the end made me feel pain for the site buider, and I didn't even put any work into the website. They made a thing and put it out in the world. Some people like it: as evidenced by other comments here.

That they mention the top of the price range instead of the bottom lends a lot of credibility to my mind.

I do not feel pain for builders anymore. Most of these projects are just AI prompted outputs. We can criticize much more sharply, as the effort spent is lower.

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