BubbleMonkey
Yes their home value has gone up also, but because everything else has risen by the same margins, something that used to be just a bit out of their price range is now much much further outside of it.
Even equivalent properties are more expensive because they often need work on top of the price, and even if they don’t, the closing costs and cut to realtors are proportionally higher and that doesn’t count toward equity. And folks in V-LCOL areas can’t really move to areas that aren’t equally depressed, because houses in other areas are even more wildly expensive, so we are scraping the lowest cost of the bottom of the low cost barrel already. There’s nowhere to really go like people from HCOL areas can.
So say someone wants to move to the next town over for whatever reason. They have to pay to have their house sold, which is a percentage of sale for whatever dumbass reason (8-10% on average), then the closing costs, inspections, etc. for the place they are buying (2-5%), and that eats right into the equity of the existing house, meaning they have to find something 10-15% lower in absolute terms if they want to come out unencumbered, which used to be a pretty small actual difference but now is pretty substantial (for example, 10% of my purchase price is about 6k, with the current state of things I’d be looking at about 20k) The alternative option is to take out a mortgage for the price difference, at a huge interest rate. But the price increases over the last few years could easily make that mortgage the same as their original mortgage on the place from a decade ago.
So on paper the house is worth more, but because everything else also is, and wages aren’t up, it’s a much larger difference for the buyer than it used to be.
I’m like 90% certain my area doesn’t do that, simply because there’s a river straight down the middle of the town, and we have a lot of conservation programs (some funded through property tax) and stuff as a result. Plus the river itself (a superfund site) has been a cleanup project for decades, so they have to be pretty careful.
But I may be wrong. Who knows. If they do spray, it certainly isn’t helping knock down the mosquitos. Or gnats. So many gnats.
I have milkweed all over my town lot. Haven’t really seen too many monarchs tho, and no caterpillars or cocoons so far (years).. might have too much residual chemical from other people using stuff even tho I don’t.
Kids seem to like it, the adults in the area don’t care for it much though ;)
At first I was like man, that person has a lot of sunflower seeds stocked up, that must have been a lot of sunflowers in their yard, but good for them..
But nope, these are just shells. Hopefully these shells haven’t been in anyone’s mouth…Imagine the mold at the bottom of that tote..
Why would anyone keep this? What do you do with them at this point? Assuming they were seasoned, you can’t really use them as mulch (salt), so like maybe compost, but even then adding that much salt all at once wouldn’t be doing your pile any favors..
My area, which is historically a V-LCOL area, isn’t the worst, persey, but wages definitely aren’t keeping up, which exacerbates the issue. We used to have a really good market for average people to own.
Area now requires annual salary of roughly 75-99k.. your average person around here (even if they have a degree) is super lucky to make 40-50k (this is on the rise, but not very quickly at all). Only people in the top of their field, or in highly lucrative fields, are making 75-99 (other parts of the state are different ofc; pay in the cities is a lot better for example, but this specific area is still quite depressed). Back a decade ago, there were dozens and dozens of house options for under 100k, so 40k wages were fine. If you are handy, you could pick one up that needed substantial work for 25k.
Needless to say, anyone around here who bought before the market went crazy.. is absolutely stuck, even if they currently owe very little or own outright. There is literally nowhere most of them can go because if they sell, where do they turn around and buy? Everything else went up right alongside their place, including interest rates and closing costs. But the big thing is a price difference that used to be about $2,000 is now $15,000-30,000 different (due to interest, absolute cost, closing costs, etc. all being inflated together)
I think that’s the idea, yeah.
Yeah, I tend to agree with this, because I’ve been to various places where they cut you down to nothing with a sweet tone and ostensibly nice words.. it’s the phrasing and cultural intention, plus slight inflections for anyone not intimately familiar with the cultural aspect. Nothing this would see as aggressive, but absolutely hostile all the same.
But beyond that, they could fix customer hostility by providing actual customer service, preferably by people who natively speak the same language as the caller (I don't personally mind non-native speakers, but they frequently don’t understand what’s said to them, and thus don’t properly perform their duties - a feature, not a bug, I’m sure), instead of running a company built around screwing everyone for every cent possible..
Oh man a walla walla is totally doable, sweet and mild. Even a red onion, for me. I like to slice them and eat the rings as snacks, raw, plain. Sometimes with finely sliced purple cabbage on the side, which is a bit peppery.
I’m not a fan of standard white onions where the whole flavor is the chemical burn, but those are good for cooking. If you dip them in ranch they give wicked heartburn, but not so much the mouth burn. White onions are also the only ones that cause eye irritation for me, the others I don’t even notice anymore.
My dad used to eat them like apples. I never have, but I do eat them plain so I guess the onion didn’t fall far off the truck.
This is basically the purpose of those eeeeeextra long finger nails some ladies wear. They are nearly impossible to do most things with, and are thus a show that you don’t work with your hands.
Watching people at work struggle with them is interesting tho.. I’m sure the irony is lost entirely on them.