I'll never forget when I sat down with my parents and we talked housing prices. They said "why aren't you building something new if the old buildings are so expensive?"
I had to break it to them that a plot of land is not $10k, it's $200-300k. Then add the actual cost of housing construction and you're easily looking at a MINIMUM of $500k for any new construction
They told me they thought it'd be closer to $100k even after they adjusted for inflation
My parents purchased the house I grew up in for $20,000 in 1978.
The house was located in a rural area, and it was so poorly constructed that if my parents weren't such hillbillies they would have immediately torn it down and completely rebuilt it from the ground up, but still. One house, $20,000. On 2 acres of land, no less. My dad's monthly mortgage payment was like $200.
Dad bought a house in 1972 for $17k. Lived in it, paid it off, then let it deteriorate around him. He considered himself a handy man but wouldn't seek help if he couldn't do it himself. Roof leaked, never repaired it. Maple tree roots got under the attached garage and destroyed it. He bought a new house and paid to have that one demolished. That house would have been a perfect starter home for me or my siblings. It could have been worth a little under 200k in 2010. Now, it's an empty lot he sold for 39k. Oh, he's also a hoarder and doing the same thing to his current house. Letting it fall apart around him. I understand it's his to do what he wants with it and I'm not owed anything from inheritance, but its like watching him burn money in front of me for fun before he dies.
My dad was pretty handy too, and to his credit he rebuilt his house over the years and made other significant improvements to the property, to the point where between that and general price inflation it would probably appraise today for something like $300,000.
Which would have been a nice little family asset, except that about a year ago he decided to sell it for about $100,000. When I learned that he had been discussing this sale (these discussions having gone on for at least a couple of years), I worried that dad was about to be taken advantage of and reached out through professional connections to try to have an independent lawyer assist with it, but he thought that was too much of a hassle and preferred to handle everything himself.
This all happened about 10 years after he and mom moved out of that house and into a different one that he bought when he was in his mid-70s and chose to finance via a 30-year mortgage. Which means that -- unless dad stays alive and competent well past 100 -- I will need to take over paying my elderly mother's mortgage at some point in the next 20ish years, and most likely within the next 5-10 years or so.
But the real punchline to this story is that the person who received such a massively discounted house is the family member who serially molested me throughout a significant chunk of my childhood.
Jesus, that's just awful. I'm sorry. We grow up thinking our parents are smart and know everything and then realize they are just as imperfect as anybody else. They still view us as just kids and refuse to listen.
588
u/Ok-Primary2176 21h ago
I'll never forget when I sat down with my parents and we talked housing prices. They said "why aren't you building something new if the old buildings are so expensive?"
I had to break it to them that a plot of land is not $10k, it's $200-300k. Then add the actual cost of housing construction and you're easily looking at a MINIMUM of $500k for any new construction
They told me they thought it'd be closer to $100k even after they adjusted for inflation