City with world’s most expensive housing asks: what to with 40,000 empty units

Nice, that looks like a fun back yard. I'd have to do it on a mountain bike though. I'm too stupid to ride a motor bike sensibly. By riding a push bike it keeps me slow because I'm out of breath. Hard work though the older you get.

Give me the serenity of the bush over the sea side any day, unless its like where you would put a light house.
I was 100K short on a house that had an uninterrupted view to the West and main range. Big flat yard to the escapements edge. Glorious sunsets and you could watch the weather rolling in changing its mood from the living room which had a nice fire place. To the southern side of the house it still had a couple acres of pretty much virgin rain forest that connected with the escarpment. The small bird life was awesome. Sadly once clearing starts all the bigger birds kill off or run the small ones out of the area, so this was pretty special. Not to be unfortunately.

This is from out local look out, but the view as very similar. Its was like the secret hide away amongst the well kept secret.

 

Had a dream once to take the family to the US for 6 months. I was into Land Rover Defenders then and did a lot of homework on the possibility of rebuilding one while fitting it out for purpose, then importing it. Though I could enter via LA then leave the next day. Snake our way through Arizona, Utah, Colorado, up to Montana, over to Washington and come down the Cali coast. Keeping it as back country as possible and then sell it before flying home. They could bring up to 50K back then so though that'll do it.

pic of my ol girl which was to new to import. Had to be over 20yo.

 

That rig right there will take ya just about anywhere ya wanna go... nice overlook shot too! I still have my pedal bike, the SE Racing 'Rip Style' Cruiser, I ride it in this cool drainage ditch here in town, lol. Old skateboarder, you understand, so I can't pass a concrete drainage ditch without assessing it to see whether it can be ridden, lol. Here's a video clip of riding the bike in that ditch here in Alamo, the ditch has long stretches with smoothly rounded transition at the bottom, and those stretches are golden... other shorter stretches have rough transition, so I skip those and ride on through to get to the next smooth section. Riding the ditch is a whole lot more fun than watching it on video, but still, here I am riding a concrete drainage ditch at 60 years of age, lol... don't mind the shortage of breath, I already did one longer run before this one, but the camera failed to record it.

vimeo.com/764674101

 

good on you, being youthful is the way to go if not necessary to life I reckon. One may not be as fast or as ballsy as when they were 20, but its fertiliser to the soul to be out there. I find these days I'm also getting a kick being that old ####### who shows up from now where and the younger folk look at you WTF is he doing here. The look on their face when some old buggers with their young teenage kids top out of a canyon with their wetsuits and ab gear on is priceless. Especially when the younglings thought they were cutting new ground standing on the lookout half way between no where on some road trip.

I recall in my youth sitting in YHA in New Zealand. There were mostly young people in the kitchen area and over to the side were a couple older folk. After some time of the young ones being noisy and the elders just being there, someone in the younger crowd made some comment like " I don't know why they are here. Surely they are tool old." Few minutes later this old bloke and his girl got up, washed their cups and left, but not before saying. I can promise you we are not to old.......and we're here because my generation invited the ####ing things. Ever since then I have had a different view of older people getting out there, and now I have joined the ranks I find it amusing at times around young adventurers.

I assume your skate board is a powered one with bigger wheel? To be honest they look like the way to go regardless. I often pass some guy doing about 30mph in the side of the road when I do to a late. I road boards as a young teenager, but left because I'd always hit pebbles that stopped the show. Maybe I just didn't have it. Praise the powers for making concrete water ditches though.

I concur on the graffiti, guess its a form of expression no different to boarding, mountain biking, or whatever your liking. Some of it is like art and can be truely amazing and very clever, but most is no more than ugly tags derived from the skill set of children at kindy.

 

Wow, good timing, I just logged on while taking a break from household chores, lol... that ditch-riding video was on my cruiser bike, but it's an SE Racing cruiser with 26" wheels so it's a cut or two above the average cruiser. When I was younger, I put together a sweet Powerlite Cruiser with Araya rims, S/S spokes, Bullseye hubs with rear freewheel, Specialized tires, MX bars, 2-finger Haro levers, nice cranks, better aftermarket chain, etc. That bike was super light and I rode it in skateparks & pools back in the day, but it eventually got stolen, grrrrr... best bike I ever owned, and one could lift it with a finger, it was that light. This SE Racing bike isn't bad, the outfit was founded by old school BMXers so they know how to put a bike together...

As for graffiti, I've seen some that was definitely art, but a lot of it is just BS... I like murals better, they tend to be more artistic and they're socially acceptable, lol. Give me a nice mural any day of the week, we have some cool ones here in Alamogordo with old school locomotives & wilderness scenes.

The last time I rode a skateboard was at double-nickel (age 55), I put together a phat pool-riding stick like the old days and rode it at Show Low Skatepark. It was a Powell-Peralta 'Ripper' deck with Gullwing Pro 3 trucks, Bones 'Cubic' wheels, and some other accessories... really fast board, I would've loved it back in the '70s & '80s, lol. Still, I managed to pull a few frontside grinders in the bowls in Show Low, but I also picked up a 'hipper' that lasted a week, then I slammed my shoulder and THAT lasted a month, lol. Wound up donating that board to a wide-eyed kid before I broke my friggin' neck, aye? Sometimes ya just gotta gracefully surrender the things of youth... or take a beating, lol. That concrete hasn't gotten any softer over the years...

Ya know, I always likened truck driving to skateboarding, only your "board" was articulated, it weighed 40 tons, and it would do triple digits in 'Mexican Overdrive' (kicking it into neutral while coming off a long grade like the ones on I-70 in Utah). Not something I did all the time, but there were a couple of long grades out there where you could see the entire grade, nobody else was around, and the weather was fine... so I'd kick it into neutral and let 'er rip, my only concern being a blown steer tire at 100+ m.p.h. Meh, some will frown upon this activity, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anybody but an experienced driver, lol. Once the rig hit the flat and started winding down, you could put it back in top gear and carry on with your journey...

I'll tell ya, that's one helluva downhill run with the rig thundering along at that speed... and I wouldn't wanna do it on crappy rubber either, lol.

 

You are nuts haha. Got feeling if #### is going to happen, 100mph in a 40T truck in neutral is playing pretty hard. Still that feeling of controlled on the cusp of kaos, is only something that one who admires it understands.

Yes good to age gracefully, all I have now is a Yeti SB 29 duely. Bought it off a mate who rides far more than me. Gave my 26 Giant duels to my son. Boy did I make his day.

Back to housing,
it strikes me that sprawling neighbour hoods of single story houses with virtually no yard, no vegetation, and built 3ft apart from each other are single level grottos in the planning. Not forgetting they can also be made up of two story houses. Accessed and navigated by narrow streets, the only saving grace that in the rabbit warren somewhere there is a pleasant open space most of the time. These neighbour hoods are designed to address new housing but contribute to urban sprawl, habitat loss, and increased infrastructure fees as more water, sewerage, rubbish collection, road repair, electrical grid etc services are extended. Often they are hot barren neighbourhoods as there is no room for trees, and the street trees that were planted when the development was new, eventually get removed to make way for cars, boars, trailers etc to park of the footpath. Well that is how it is down under.

I have long wondered if you have a streets with centre parking and perhaps curb side, but the street are wide. Then every 4th position of a where a traditional house was, there is a 4 or 5 story apartment building. These apartments would be the same Sq Ft as a 3 bedroom single story house. It could be 1st level some type of shops like hair dresser, butcher, pizza etc. Levels 2 to 5 are apartment style living. The roof space could be a pool, BBQ, more open space, maybe a gym of sorts. These building are to be no higher then what the fire bridge can deal with effectively, and perhaps only just higher then what mature vegetation can grow to to support natures biodiversity.

The vacant blocks of land in-between the apartments, where two houses would have been, is vegetation or treed parklands. Bike tracks, skate board bowls, basket ball hoops, kids swings, BBQ areas could be scattered through out these tree'd spaces. You may even have the odd one just as vegetation.

This way you get 8 apartments where 4 houses would have been, plus 2 spaces for multiple shops. Open space because the streets are fairly wide, plus the park lands and whatever serenity they bring. Nature gets a look in rather than extinction, and it would have a more natural sustainable pleasant feel to it than the standard urban sprawl. People would perhaps be prouder to live there, could choose their view, and a caveat for the neighbour hood could be appartments only to be occupied by owners. This would keep rental investors out.

If developers whinged they were loosing house space revenue because the road is to wide, then underground parking would be the option. If they were really keen and gave a rip they could do that and market those underground secure spaces specifically for boats, trailers etc to keep them off the road.

Think if I were king for a day, I'd give that a crack.

 

Please explain.

 

It could be argued in the West if you own a house, and a rental investment house, you are doing OK. Probably wealthy enough.
If through tax incentives, or success in business you keep buying rental investments to add to your wealth portfolio, then every house you buy a home owner family miss out.

Many of houses are often closer to people's work than others, so are preferred by both consuming parties. House prices keep going up from supply shortages as investors often beat owner occupied to the hammer. Most people want to own their own house for security and sense of being, and dislike the venerability of renting, but are forced into to it as they keep searching and attempting to buy in. If new housing comes on line its often a long way out generally, so travel time, extra fuel, poor infrastructure add to the occupants issues along with extra costs. The same applies to renters.

House rentals fees are also on par with actually repaying a house off, so a renter is capable of paying for their own house in most cases. However they can't pay for two, they simply can't save the deposit required by banks for home ownership, and pay rent (or someone else's house) at the same time. Well most can't.

Land lords don't appear happy with just the capital growth in their investment. Many spend little on repairs and pay as little as possible in way of loan repayments. Its like they have bought the house they have done their part, the Tennant can do the rest. If investors contributed more of a % to the repayment it would lower rent fees so renters could perhaps save. Don't forget the renter always misses out on capital growth.

Lately, being a long term renter basically locks you into working for the rest of your life, almost till you are incapable. The rent is due every week and many people live week to week. Perhaps this also applied to land lords. Stop working and you probably loose your roof. Or if you have any savings they will fast disappear given the price of rents. Moving from rental to rental also has associated costs and headache.

The landlord, well has made all his wealth not really doing anything wrong other than playing then game of life. But like I said one house and one rental is perhaps enough, it doesn't have to be like Monopoly and own the whole street. There is a place for rentals in the market as not everyone wants to sink roots, but I also know many good people with nice families who feel they will never own their own house for then above reasons.

 

That's false, because new houses are always being built and existing homes are always being placed on the market.

That's only true if both properties are paid for and you have a significant amount of money in the bank to cover the cost of fixed expenses, repairs, vacancy / slow pay, marketing, and everything else associated with running a household and maintaining an investment property.

You obviously don't know anybody who has ever been a landlord or the struggles they face as far as their time, labor, and cashflow.

I remember watching my parents struggle to make the payments on the little rent house they had (that they couldn't sell) when the tenant paid late - or didn't pay at all.
One particular renter tore the drywall out of the living room before skipping out, which meant my parents had to buy all new drywall and Dad had to hang it up, then hire someone to tape & texture before we could go back in and paint. I also remember him having to go into town several times, sometimes late at night, to unclog a stopped-up toilet because one particular tenant thought that flushing her maxi pads was better than throwing them in the trash.

I know it's very popular to hate on landlords nowadays, but those people are misguided and uninformed as to what landlords actually go through.

 

Of course my comments are not true and fast to all situations. Strangely enough though, I delivered water today to a single mother who is being forced to move. She moved here to be in the catchment for her sons schooling, that's a big commitment for this areas given restraints. The Land lord is based in America, the house has gone from 600K to 1.2 million so is being sold. The place is falling down and it was impossible to get anything done. Unsurprisingly the Real Estate agent was effected as tits on a bull. She put insects screens on and replaced the water pump, small things like that as she said nothing ever happened. She also mentioned her neighbour's land lord owns 4 houses. Every renew of lease they live in fear they will have to upend their lives and move. Contracts once were up o 5 years, 6 to 12 months is as long as they get these days.

In my mates case, single, no dependants, no one to leave inheritance to. He works hard but has his 5 houses on interest only. He his not paying one cent off. They all doubled in value recently so when the day comes he sells one of two to pay all. Then with his 3 to 5 million what does he do. Already has the house he lives, has 4 cars which he only drives 1. Has a long term girl friend on some no claim to his wealth contract. I asked him
would he do a better rate for a single mum who is committed to the next 4.5 yeas for her sons schooling, he said no. I figured if he looses 2 weeks every year in tenant changing then he could, but no.

I disagree your only wealthy if you have it paid all the house off. Both houses I have lived in before my current one, I have made good money on simply by living there for 3 to 8 years. On average down under houses double every 10, so it depends on timing an ownership. That applies to investment houses also. We have bought, lived, sold, then repeat. Playing this game our standard of living has grown with us as our needs and location has changed.

Having teenage kids the wife socialises with many mums who want to buy in this community, but there are no realistically priced houses. Sure if you have 1.2+ million you have options, but 5 to 800k are bought by people perhaps similar to my mate. The mate also clears 2.5 to 5k a week so is doing better than most of the mums the wife knows regardless if they are married or not.

I have been in the building industry for 30 years before trucks, I was a house painter. I can tell you most landlords are scabs. Not to say tenants are all great either, its from those observations and experiences I don't have rentals as investments. I think its fair to say however, most landlords spend as little as possible on the investment regardless of their tenants, regardless wether the house is high end or lower.

I think your parents experience is typical in a minority kind of way. I have quoted on a few houses house where the rebuild was being weighed up against a tear down. I have quoted on far more which just need a repaint. People also think a house if forever, but we don't all drive our first cars. Many rental houses should be replaced. I did work for a very savvy and fair real-estate agent who had a similar experience of poor tenants. She too couldn't sell, and when she thought she had contract after contract fell over time. The cheap house in the under average neighbourhood was also not a great idea as a leg up into investing, cheaply. Timing to sell also has a role on price and speed of sale.