Horizons Home Show

[leets]

You buy a house

You make a home


don't fall for developer lingo!

[NoCtUrNaL]

$400,000 houses are nice...if you like having a multi-decade mortgage, but give me a house you can buy with the loose change you can find under your sofas cushions. (CLICK)

[WNYresident]

Yes something to show for it. Thats my whole point. If you work that hard why would you want to own a home where your taxes are upwards of $13,000 or more a year. It's like pissing money away and nothing to show for it.

[WNYresident]

Originally posted by NoCtUrNaL
$400,000 houses are nice...if you like having a multi-decade mortgage, but give me a house you can buy with the loose change you can find under your sofas cushions. (CLICK)

OK thats a little tiny even for my cheap taste.

[ERIEMAN]

Originally posted by WNYresident
Yes something to show for it. Thats my whole point. If you work that hard why would you want to own a home where your taxes are upwards of $13,000 or more a year. It's like pissing money away and nothing to show for it.

ahem...i know of a location where you can build a very large home and pay half that in taxes. You wont get sewers or garbage pickup, though!

also, don't forget that a lot of these neighborhoods also have association fees as well. I read that the mansions on the east end of the new waterford estates deveolopment have an "executive package" that includes a maid service, snow removal, landscaping, etc...

this is an interesting article as well:

http://www.rismedia.com/index.php/ar...eview/7209/1/1

[WNYresident]

ahem...i know of a location where you can build a very large home and pay half that in taxes. You wont get sewers or garbage pickup, though!

So what? sepics work and the dump is cheap.

[ERIEMAN]

Originally posted by WNYresident
So what? sepics work and the dump is cheap.

exactly! I think some of these silly pansy yuppies won't like that. EWWW! garbage in your car? YUCK!

no garbage disposal? HOW DO YOU LIVE LIKE THAT?

[WNYresident]

Honestly what I don't understand are the 4000 or more square foot homes.. I mean is that how a person defines themselves? Hey look how big my home is. My house is nice and I opted for TOYS not square footage I would never use for anything. There's nothing wrong with large homes or not but they seem more common than they did lets say 50 years ago with sub division building.

Wouldn't the community be better off with sub divisions with $90,000 new homes versus sub divisions of $200,000 homes?

OR is this some evil plot to just keep the tax rolls high so the unions have an excuse of why they should get more payroll ?

[ERIEMAN]

Originally posted by WNYresident
Honestly what I don't understand are the 4000 or more square foot homes.. I mean is that how a person defines themselves? Hey look how big my home is. My house is nice and I opted for TOYS not square footage I would never use for anything. There's nothing wrong with large homes or not but they seem more common than they did lets say 50 years ago with sub division building.

Wouldn't the community be better off with sub divisions with $90,000 new homes versus sub divisions of $200,000 homes?

OR is this some evil plot to just keep the tax rolls high so the unions have an excuse of why they should get more payroll ?

honestly, i can't live in a subdivision myself...

my wife and i put together a list of "i wants", which, if you incorporate it into a floor plan, it ends up being about 4200 square feet. If we could afford that at some point in time, we would most certainly build that. I doubt, however, that we will, though. So now, our list of "I wants" will be hacked up with "We dont really needs". If you can afford to not have to do that, then that's great...

I'd love a dining room that's at least 16 feet in length so we don't have to have fmaily sitting all over the house during fetivities. I want a living room that is about 17' by 20'. I want a custom kitchen with timeless appeal. I want a walk in closet that's bigger than the one we have now so we don't have to put our clothes in storage. I want a separate bath and shower. I want a two and a half car garage and a separate one car garage for my tractor. I want a two story foyer, but a single story living room. I want enough room in my basement to build a home theatre...the list goes on and on... eventually, that list will die down as i get older, and ill end up with a 2200 sqft ranch because i can't walk up stairs anymore, but ill also need to add a bench into the shower and chrome rails next to the toilet and bathtub.

All of my wants have a reason. It's not a status thing at all...

[ReformWNY]

My parents had 9 kids.

THEY could have used a 4000ft2 home. They didn't have one. They had a 1100Ft2 brick ranch in Cheektowaga. They brought up their 9 kids, and we're all still alive, and happy people. I own a home almost twice the size, and just have my future wife and I. The 1100ft2 one still feels like home.
THAT says a lot.

Originally posted by WNYresident
Honestly what I don't understand are the 4000 or more square foot homes.. I mean is that how a person defines themselves? Hey look how big my home is. My house is nice and I opted for TOYS not square footage I would never use for anything. There's nothing wrong with large homes or not but they seem more common than they did lets say 50 years ago with sub division building.

Wouldn't the community be better off with sub divisions with $90,000 new homes versus sub divisions of $200,000 homes?

OR is this some evil plot to just keep the tax rolls high so the unions have an excuse of why they should get more payroll ?

[WNYresident]

PLus I think people see these new homes and think thats what they should have. They go and over extend thierselves versus worrying about savings and retirement.

[ERIEMAN]

Originally posted by ReformWNY
My parents had 9 kids.

THEY could have used a 4000ft2 home. They didn't have one. They had a 1100Ft2 brick ranch in Cheektowaga. They brought up their 9 kids, and we're all still alive, and happy people. I own a home almost twice the size, and just have my future wife and I. The 1100ft2 one still feels like home.
THAT says a lot.

9 kids? how did your mom feed you people? She must have had to have cooked a whole roast every day.

[ERIEMAN]

Originally posted by WNYresident
PLus I think people see these new homes and think thats what they should have. They go and over extend thierselves versus worrying about savings and retirement.

envy, im sure, has a lot to do with it.

[leets]

check out this thread discussion about the unused rooms in today's subdivision houses.


http://www.cyburbia.org/forums/showthread.php?t=18215


Should the dining room and living room be eliminated?

I was recently at my brother-in-law's house in suburban Boston. It is a large house with all the typical rooms desired by people these days.(4 bedrooms, den, living room, great room, kitchen with large breakfast area, bathrooms everyplace, and basement rec-room)

It struck me that all my suburban friends and relatives own houses like this that have two underused rooms but that none of them would do without. These would be the Living Room and the Dining Room. Over the years these rooms have slowly been downgraded and relegated to less traveled parts of the house. The living room has been replaced by the Great Room which is usually very large with cathedral ceiling and fireplace. The Dining Room has been replaced with the breakfast area. This area started out as a nook and has gradually grown quite large. It is often a buffer between the Kitchen and the Great Room.

My brother-in-law furnishes his Living Room with some formal and fairly uninviting furniture and a piano that no one plays. It is a small square boring room with only one small window. The Dining Room is a mirror of the Living Room on the other side of the front entry vestibule (another underused space since people mostly enter through the garage). they have turned the Dining Room into a Play Room for their two kids.

I believe this trend is due to the less and less formal way we like to live these days. These rooms are like organs in our body which through evolution no longer serve a purpose (like the appendix or the small toe). Will there come a day when developers will get up enough courage to eliminate them?

[ERIEMAN]

Originally posted by leets
check out this thread discussion about the unused rooms in today's subdivision houses.


http://www.cyburbia.org/forums/showthread.php?t=18215


Should the dining room and living room be eliminated?

I was recently at my brother-in-law's house in suburban Boston. It is a large house with all the typical rooms desired by people these days.(4 bedrooms, den, living room, great room, kitchen with large breakfast area, bathrooms everyplace, and basement rec-room)

It struck me that all my suburban friends and relatives own houses like this that have two underused rooms but that none of them would do without. These would be the Living Room and the Dining Room. Over the years these rooms have slowly been downgraded and relegated to less traveled parts of the house. The living room has been replaced by the Great Room which is usually very large with cathedral ceiling and fireplace. The Dining Room has been replaced with the breakfast area. This area started out as a nook and has gradually grown quite large. It is often a buffer between the Kitchen and the Great Room.

My brother-in-law furnishes his Living Room with some formal and fairly uninviting furniture and a piano that no one plays. It is a small square boring room with only one small window. The Dining Room is a mirror of the Living Room on the other side of the front entry vestibule (another underused space since people mostly enter through the garage). they have turned the Dining Room into a Play Room for their two kids.

I believe this trend is due to the less and less formal way we like to live these days. These rooms are like organs in our body which through evolution no longer serve a purpose (like the appendix or the small toe). Will there come a day when developers will get up enough courage to eliminate them?

i agree...im very surprised the living room hasnt been eliminated from houses yet. useless rooms...

dining rooms, in my estimation, are still useful if you have formal dinner parties. However, builders have been rendering them useless by creating rooms that are 12x12...kind of silly