# House Hunters outrage! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 14, 2009, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-hunters-outrage/513779 "2009-10-14T13:59:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-hunters-outrage/513779/201 "2011-06-03T17:33:25Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > What’s seabreeze do? The salty air is corrosive. ---
**Author:** ![lindsaybluth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/90db22/32.png) [@lindsaybluth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lindsaybluth)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-hunters-outrage/513779/202 "2011-06-03T18:39:00Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > You can do an entire spinoff thread around the idea of buying reality versus dreams. I have always been a bit of a minimalist and becoming moreso over time. Most people with swimming pools don’t even use them that much despite the cost and time of maintenance. It gets worse when you move into the realm of private tennis courts, workout rooms, and other such things but most people are guilty of it on some level. . Like my uncle who had an oceanfront mansion for decades without setting foot on the beach more than 5 times.:smack::smack::smack: It was really bizarre. > [@Chimera](#): > > Likely you could instead stay at some nice resorts in different places each time and come out ahead. I agree with you for the most part. The trick is to have a vacation property within 3 hours of your home; within 90 minutes is even better. The further away the less likely you are to get to it. ---
**Author:** ![Ceejaytee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ceejaytee/32/2956_2.png) [@Ceejaytee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ceejaytee)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-hunters-outrage/513779/203 "2011-06-03T19:26:17Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > What I wanna know is who decides when finishes and features are dated? I still see vinyl flooring and shag carpet on display – **somebody’s** buying it. When we bought our house 7 years ago. it had avocado shag carpeting covering the oak floors. The upstairs hall and stairs still have it; we kept it to help keep our then-young children from slipping down the stairs. Of course, now that they’re 9 and almost 7, maybe we should get around to removing it. Maybe before we try to sell it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ceejaytee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ceejaytee/32/2956_2.png) [@Ceejaytee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ceejaytee)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-hunters-outrage/513779/204 "2011-06-03T19:33:28Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > We bought our first house almost 5 years ago and so far we’ve replaced the boiler, all gutters, one window, THREE dang shower heads and all the pipes under the kitchen sink. That was all maintenance. We have not done one whit to upgrade this 70 year old house. We had plans though! > > One day we _will_ have the floors sanded-- a lot, stained and re-polyed. And when we do they will be the kind of floors that a House Hunter will walk in and say, “Wow, nice original wood floors!” We bought ours 7 years ago. We’ve replaced all the windows, the gutters, the roof, the old oil tank (we switched to gas), put in insulation (yes, our house didn’t have any). In two weeks, the basement is getting waterproofed (mold!). The only improvements we actually made that were decorative were to replace the old iron banister with a wooden one, and add a deck. Someday we, too, would like to refinish the floors. My son’s best friend’s family just had their’s done–they had to move all their furniture to their garage, and their neighbors’ garages, and live in a hotel for three days. I am so not ready for that. But I wants it. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-hunters-outrage/513779/205 "2011-06-03T19:44:12Z")
I just google/street-viewed the house I grew up in. (Lived in it for 13 years, from '69 to '82.) I had a good childhood, little scamp that I was. The owners that came after my dad were not kind to the place. It’s sad. It looks like a dump now. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-hunters-outrage/513779/206 "2011-06-03T19:51:29Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > The owners that came after my dad were not kind to the place. It’s sad. It looks like a dump now. Actually, I wonder how much my adult viewpoint has changed. I may have rose colored glasses on my childhood memories. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-hunters-outrage/513779/207 "2011-06-03T21:14:15Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > What’s seabreeze do? airborn salt water corrodes metal, damages paper and wood. When I lived in Va Beach on the oceanfront you could tell who lived there longest by the corrosion on their cars. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-hunters-outrage/513779/208 "2011-06-03T23:29:59Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > But it is the same with vacation homes. > > Not that I can afford one, but since it is my hobby to look at properties, I have run the numbers to own various vacation homes many times. You’re often looking at $10-15k per year to own a condo or lake home costing $300-500k. Bare bones minimum and NOT including things like a new roof that you will at least once if you own it any length of time. Now compare that to the use you’d get out of it. > > A lake home in Minnesota can realistically be used about 22 weeks a year. If all you do is go up there on the weekend and you get there every other weekend, you’re only looking at about the same number, 22 days per year. If you also spend a week or two of vacation up there and then go up a couple of other times a year, you may spend 40 days a year maximum up at the lake. If your costs are only $12k per year to own, you’re still looking at an average of $300 per occupancy night cost of ownership. And at that, you’re occupying all your free time going to the same place every time. > > Likely you could instead stay at some nice resorts in different places each time and come out ahead. Oh I know. I have only met one family in my life that gets full value out a vacation home. That is my ex-inlaws and they are multimillionaires. They have a 300 acre working farm in New Hampshire that they go to every single Friday night and come back Sunday night and work their butts off while they are there. They also have full-time staff to work there 24/7/365. It isn’t cost effective but it is beautiful and you can’t rent the experience of owning a working farm. I never wanted to be locked into that high maintenance lifestyle but it works for them and that is very unusual. For everyone else, that is money losing proposition overall and not a good choice in terms of flexibility. My mother and stepfather bought a 3 week a year time-share in Los Cabos, Mexico a few years ago. When I stopped laughing enough to ask them why, my business professor stepfather explained that it is a beautiful place and they liked it so much that they wanted to go there regularly. I asked him how he ever got invited to this mythical place if they only allow people that own timeshares there to go in the first place. He didn’t have a good answer for that. Now they desperately try to round up as many family members as they can to go with them so that they can use up their generous time allotment because they have to go or lose it. My stepfather says that isn’t true because they can negotiate trades for many places around the world especially if they plan in advance and shoot for the off-season. That’s weird, I can go anywhere I want at any time and hotels don’t even check my contracts before they give me a room. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2011, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-hunters-outrage/513779/209 "2011-06-04T05:48:54Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > But it is the same with vacation homes. > > Not that I can afford one, but since it is my hobby to look at properties, I have run the numbers to own various vacation homes many times. You’re often looking at $10-15k per year to own a condo or lake home costing $300-500k. Bare bones minimum and NOT including things like a new roof that you will at least once if you own it any length of time. Now compare that to the use you’d get out of it. > > A lake home in Minnesota can realistically be used about 22 weeks a year. If all you do is go up there on the weekend and you get there every other weekend, you’re only looking at about the same number, 22 days per year. If you also spend a week or two of vacation up there and then go up a couple of other times a year, you may spend 40 days a year maximum up at the lake. If your costs are only $12k per year to own, you’re still looking at an average of $300 per occupancy night cost of ownership. And at that, you’re occupying all your free time going to the same place every time. > > Likely you could instead stay at some nice resorts in different places each time and come out ahead. Jim and I have thought about saving up for a vacation place, and we came to the same conclusion; for three or four weeks of the year, we’ll just rent, and we’ll get all of the good and none of the bad. If we want to go to the same place every year, we can, but we don’t _have_ to. > [@Lacunae\_Matata](#): > > Try telling that to my mother… (please. I’ll pay for the phone call.) > > But yes, I totally agree with your point. For example, my husband is just absolutely jonesing for an RV/travel trailer sort of thing. He’s researching all sorts of portable accommodations that we could use for family camping jaunts. Nothing that sleeps five people and a dog is very affordable, but some prices aren’t terrible. > > However (and this is a big however,) the odds of me voluntarily spending multiple days camping, over the course of my lifetime are (approximately) 1:several hundred gazillion. I can camp, I have camped, and if circumstances dictated that I needed to camp again? Sure, I could and would. But my idea of fun? No. I go to work and pay my housing and utility bills primarily because I vehemently do not want to sleep outdoors, with no a/c nor toilet. I like modern conveniences. I do not pine for “getting away from it all” in the “great outdoors.” > > So, I’ve mentioned renting an RV, if we absolutely positively must go on one freakin’ camping trip just to get this asinine idea out of my husband’s head. His response: “But that’s so EXPENSIVE.” Yeah, because owning one would cost so much less! > > (Oh, and did I mention that the in-laws have a perfectly nice, new travel trailer that they would happily let us borrow if we wanted to? For free?)\ I’m with you on the camping. Maybe you can go for a good, long camping holiday with the in-laws’ trailer and your husband will get it out of his system. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > What’s seabreeze do? Gives you a nice buzz? 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/house-hunters-outrage/513779.md?page=10)