A Few Dollars Stashed Away?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

My wife, Dawn, has started watching TV programs of people showing around houses for sale. Now that would be good if she was looking at houses on one level with no stairs involved. That would be great for her due to being disabled.

No! Oh no! The houses she looks at have to have a ‘Railway Room’ otherwise she isn’t interested?

Now you may think “What a lovely wife,” and she is, but these houses she looks at are not cheap. Her favorite (so far) costs a mere 1.5 million dollars. It is really ideal for the two of us. A huge basement ideal for a model railway. Oh, she has looked at far more expensive properties. Some being nearer 40 million dollars. She keeps going back to the one costing 1.5 million dollars. It’s the one part of the price that is the obstacle. ------------

Unless Dawn has a few dollars stashed away. [ip]

She hasn’t. [sigh]

David

2

David, I’m afraid that I am unable to see the problem here.

Your wife wants a house with a “Railway Room” valued at $1.5 million.

Isn’t that the definition of utopia?

The only problem that I see is your obstinancy.

Buy that house and don’t think twice.

Rich

3

The positivity of Americans. I love it. [(-D]

Rustle up 500,000 dollars okay, but at 73 years of age the other million becomes a little challenge.

Dream big dreams

Who knows. [:D]

David

4

30 year mortgage ???

Mark B.

5

When I lived in Annapolis and went to the sail and powerboat shows, I only went on the boats 50’ and longer. That way even if I was tempted to buy, I couldn’t afford it.

6

You buy what you can afford. Some have more money that others. In northern virgnia, homes exceeding 1 million dollars are quite common. My parents house is worth just over 1 mil. They bought it in the early 90’s for around 440k. They grew up poor and saved and invested during my Dads 22 year Air Force career and did well. I always thought their basement would make a nice model RR area!

7

I am always amazed at the price of real estate in different locations around this country and around the world.

I design, build, remodel and restore houses for a living, so I know exactly what it takes to “create” a house. Sure construction costs do vary from place to place - BUT, the wide disparity in pricing is market driven, not construction cost driven.

I will assume for the moment that David’s wife Dawn is looking at home there in the UK, and I have no practical experiance about that market.

Nor do I know the exact size or nature of this property.

But here where I live in the Mid Atlantic of the US, 1.5 million dollars buys a lot of house.

We recently sold our carefully restored and updated big blue 4000 sq ft 1901 Qeen Anne with the 1000 sq ft train room above the 1200 sq ft 6 car garage with the built in swimming pool, for the price $560,000.

You can take a look here:

https://app.photobucket.com/u/carrollhome/a/bfdbd701-abf4-4d5f-bb20-786bbc5599c9

Two years ago in preperation for selling the blue house we bought a nice 2400 sq ft brick rancher on 2.3 acres with a perfect 1500 sq foot train room below for $375,000.

The new house was built in 1964, and has been extremely well cared for with high quality updates as needed.

Not far from me, 1.1 million buys something like this, I have done work on this property:

https://www.compass.com/listing/1316-grafton-shop-road-forest-hill-md-21050/528191867584880593/

So all of you modelers looking for great train rooms, the Mid Atlantic is full of reasonably priced homes with big basements and lots of your neighbors already have their basements full of trains.

Good luck with the quest Davi

8

Quite true.

Sheldon. Dawn Looks at property here in the U.K. and in U.S.A.

We are happy living here. My son and his family live three miles away. My daughter and her family live eight miles away. Therefore we see each other as much as we can. If we lived far away I know Dawn would be upset. Before they had a family my daughter and son-in-law lived in Brooklyn, NY. That was a hard time for Dawn.

I have a railway room (and thankful for it). I just have to smile when Dawn is looking at houses (even though I did not know we were looking) and dismisses them if there is not a large room for a layout. Then ‘chooses ones’ even though they are way out of our price range.

It’s one of many reasons why I love her so.

David

9

David, I understand. Again I am just amazed at the high costs compared to “what you get” in various places.

When we were house shopping for this retirement spot, we considered moving to a different region, or different area in this region. Some of which had higher costs, some lower.

But in the end we are only 20 minutes from out old house, in the same state and county, and have more land and less house.

The house is the perfect size, easy to care for, and just enough train room for me build what I want without being temped to build too much.

I do have plans to build a detached garage/workshop, but no where near as big as the last one.

We have just a couple small remodeling projects we are doing here. When I complete the 1st phase of that, layout construction begins.

Sheldon

10

Moved about 3 years ago so am quite familar with housing. I looked around, could by Victorian manshions for $50,000 to many millions all in the same condition. I picked a manufactured home close to family that was close in size to our old but no garage for a mega layout. Where I live a small home can be over $1,000,000 I paid $265,000 and it was almost brand new with a large yard. Your best advise is to do a bit of remodeling to your existing abode.

11

I’ve been around the Mortgage business for 30 years. Don’t get mislead by the “selling price” of the house being the equivalent of what people can afford. Fact is, very few people can afford a mortgage of $1,000,000. What happens is that they are trading 25 years of appreciation and equity from the old house and putting into that new house, so that their mortgage is still in the normal person range.

Like RioGrande’s parents. Bought low, stayed put, and a got a bit lucky in that they chose an area where the houses appreciated more than some areas. Where I come from in Indiana, a $200k house bought 30 years ago might be worth $400k now.

Provided the owner didn’t hire-out then refi his remodeling projects along the way so that he actually has some decent equity in the house, that $400k equity really doesn’t put much dent into a $1.5M sales price for a different house (most likely in a different area).

Probably only two young professionals in a higher income area and fewer other expenses could really bite off a $1M mortgage. Others can too, maybe the top 5% of wage earners in the country.

12

I doubt we will ever move from here. (Not saying never.) As I have mentioned we are close to immediate family. With Dawn being disabled I have to keep things here ‘just right’ as she has become used to.

I just think it is funny how she looks around houses (on TV) and says to me “This one is ideal for you,” or “I do not like that. There is no room to run trains.” You would think she was going to build a layout. [(-D] –

or ‘has she a few dollars stashed away’. [(-D]

David

13

David,

One of our issues is that my wife watches Home and Garden TV and the DIY network. Both have programs on that show how ‘easy’ it is to buy a home and remodel it. In one half-hour, a couple can buy a $900,000 house, tear out the entire insides, install top quality everything, and live happily ever after.

In our area, we are having an influx of people from the west coast. Our home prices here on the prairie are fairly cheap. Those California people can sell their small homes there for very high prices, and move into a mansion here with that money.

We don’t mind except that they sometimes bring an attitude with them that everything here is backwoods and stupid, and we should be doing things the way they did in California.

14

We have been very fortunate, we have never had a mortgage on our primary home.

If have had some mortgages for short times on investment properties, and we borrowed short term to buy the retirement place first, then sell the big blue Queen Anne.

As soon as we sell one last investment property we will completely debt free.

Still, fact remains, in this market around here, there is lots of very nice housing in the $300,000 to $600,000 price range.

Sheldon

15

Politely remind them they can go back…

Sheldon

16

Got to remember those shows are insanely unrealistic and made up. A not quite direct quote from one of my coworkers when talking about those shows “I’m a self-employed basket weaver, and my husband is a part time veternarian. Our budget is $750,000” So who’s bankrolling these people? You can save up a lot of money by living frugally, but come on…

It just came up because we were discussing a client that is a school district who has an incredible IT infrastructure - and updates it every couple of years. We were wondering how they always had the money for this stuff - turns out the average home value in that area is 1.5 million. Even if the taxes weren’t high (which they are), simply the high average value would bring in a lot of revenue. I’ve been there - there certainly are some really nice big old houses in that area, butthe majority are similar to homes I’ve owned - just there they cost 3-4x what I paid for mine.

I am all on one level - much better for my knees. Since most all houses in my area have basements, that means I (well, almost) have a basement train space as big as my upstairs - so a modest size home has plenty of train room. I do lose a lot because the garage is part of the basement, quite a significant chunk of potential train space actually, which is why I am going with a double deck layout, but I have a house plenty big enough upstairs, and nearly enough train room. And I got in well under my budget which means I can actually pay it off sooner rather than later.

–Randy

17

Near us is a nice lake we frequent often. Recently two homes around it were for sale, both just shy of a million. My wife checked them out online, and even “gave” me one of the outbuildings for my trains. Pretty nice of her.

Looking at homes becomes entertainment - even if we can’t afford them!

18

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19

David,…

…if you REALLY loved your wife…

Just sayin’.

20

David,

I thought every good Englishman had an estate in the country? Not true?

[*-)]