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from the but-those-square-feet-are...deep-AND-tall! dept.
I've seen the price of real estate resume its seemingly relentless rise, but this is insane. A tiny (897 square-foot; 83.6 square meter) house in Palo Alto, California is situated on a 4361 square-foot (405 square meter) lot and has been placed on the market for $2.59 Million:
The little home at 128 Middlefield Road, has two-bedrooms, one-bathroom but is just 15 minutes away from Googleplex and the other tech giants, making the small home in high demand.
[...] The home was sold back in 2008 for just $899,000 and the current price tag is actually below market value for the area today.
The house was built in 1924 and has been remodeled through the years to keep it current.
The actual asking price is unclear. The Daily Mail article (first link) claims a price of $2.59 million, but he broker listing in the embedded link shows the price being $1,988,000; quite a bit less, but still quite expensive.
The article has pictures of each room as well as the yard; it looks to me like a quite nice home. One of the pictures shows a bulkhead, but I saw no mention of a basement.
If this tiny house costs this much, what would be considered a starter home? And how much would that cost? Though I realize this story is about Palo Alto, I understand there are other places in the world with sky high real estate prices. London, Singapore, and Hong Kong come to mind.
What are housing prices like in your area... how much would it cost you to buy a home comparable to this one, or to rent an apartment of equivalent size?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Tuesday September 25 2018, @02:42PM (5 children)
I am pre-emptively laughing my ass off at anyone who decides to pay prices anywhere near these for that little shithole.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Tuesday September 25 2018, @03:02PM (4 children)
But the entire industry is setup to encourage bubbles, and human psychology means it isn't that hard.
Prices can only go up. Until sales stagnate for a long period of time, and then collapse, that is.
This one's probably a pretty safe investment for a few more years at least. The bubble in Palo Alto isn't likely to collapse anytime real soon. So... sure, I suppose if I was *making* an extra 8 or 900 grand a year just for living in that location, it would make sense. Buy the little house, live there for a few years, then sell it for a profit when ready to move.
But it really doesn't sound like a pleasant place to live. I mean, California in general, but Palo Alto in particular just seems like a concentrated encampment of pure greed. I wouldn't want to live there, and could only imagine doing it for money - and hating every minute as a result.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday September 25 2018, @03:29PM (2 children)
The price has already dropped:$1,988,000
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Tuesday September 25 2018, @05:03PM (1 child)
I wonder if the 2.6 price was an intentional marketing gimmick
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday September 25 2018, @06:37PM
Maybe they'll drop another half mil, that would be a great gimmick. Well, maybe not in CA. But who knows?
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday September 25 2018, @04:20PM
Think of all the money you'll save on household cleaning products and unnecessary volume air conditioning ! Totally worth it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @02:54PM (2 children)
I doubt it
Traffic around that area is so bad now it will take you at least an hour to go the 1-2 miles to get there.
You'll spend most of that waiting to get across the bridges over US 101.
That lot will be flattened, and a 4 million dollar two-story McMansion filling the entire lot
will be built there by Chinese property flippers.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday September 25 2018, @03:07PM
You'll spend most of that waiting to get across the bridges over US 101."
After examining the situation in 'earth' I am afraid you may be correct.
The 33-35 minute bicycle routes look more practical.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:30AM
Or a fifteen-minute walk, if it's a mile (assuming there's a walking route from there). Why would you bother driving if you're only going a mile?
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Tuesday September 25 2018, @03:07PM (2 children)
Here in London, 4,000 sq ft is GIGANTIC.
My (2 bed) home is about 1,000
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @03:13PM
The lot is 4000 square feet. 900 for a house isn't very small either, my own house is only 100 square feet bigger.
(Score: 2) by lgw on Tuesday September 25 2018, @05:18PM
4000 sq ft is the lot, not the house. It will likely be demolished and replaced with a 4000 sq foot house, though.
Here near Austin, my 3400 sq foot house was $400k, and I make what I did on the Left Coast. I don't get why people pile on the most expensive places to live.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Snow on Tuesday September 25 2018, @03:07PM (5 children)
897 sqft is now a tiny house? My house is only slightly larger than that (and I mean slightly...). There are tons of houses in my community that are smaller than that. These aren't considered tiny houses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @03:51PM
It is pretty small to me. It's only under 1/3 bigger than the appartment i had while i was studying. I had to use my kitchen table for my projects.
(Score: 1) by nwf on Tuesday September 25 2018, @04:25PM
I think it depends on in what country you live and how many people live with you. I think 900 sq ft is tiny, but most houses have useless rooms for "reasons" and waste space. The smallest house I've ever lived in was about 1500 sq ft and that was decent.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday September 25 2018, @05:02PM
There is an actual Tiny House concept (the house in the article does not apply):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_house_movement [wikipedia.org]
The tiny houses that TV shows feature are typically less than 11m^2, 120sqft. While they are often built of premium materials, having a tiny house like that listed for 2 million dollars would be news worthy.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday September 25 2018, @05:07PM
Exactly. My house is a bit over 1000 sqft (not counting the full unfinished basement), and now that the boy has moved out for college it's a bit more than I need. Hell, I could make do with half that much room. Certainly not tiny.
This is in a small city / big town in MN, nice private ravine lot with woods in back, cost less than 1/20th what that thing costs.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday September 25 2018, @06:16PM
Nope, this is a "small house"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_house_movement
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday September 25 2018, @04:20PM (4 children)
So when is the Internet going to make your physical location not much matter? And take down these crazy high house prices?
One thing that puzzles me is if IT people are so smart, why are so many willing to shut their brains off when it comes to making rational housing choices? When you have, what, a $3 million mortgage, even with a $200k annual pay package you'll need decades to pay that off.
Or do they figure to sell after a few years and light out for parts of the country with cheaper housing? One risk with that is another Dot Com bubble bursting, leaving them underwater.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @05:09PM (1 child)
'member when Yahoo and IBM called all their remote workers back to the office or get sacked? I 'member.
Who knows what the big idea behind that is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @05:58PM
Pepperidge Farms remembers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @06:44PM (1 child)
A fresh graduate from one of the nation's elite technical schools would no doubt find a SV environment, full of like people, stimulating to be in, regardless of the ridiculous cost. Until they are unpersoned for being old or committing crimethink.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday September 25 2018, @11:57PM
> Until they are unpersoned for being old
I seriously suspect one of the motivations for age discrimination is that young workers lack experience to have a good feel for when too much is being asked of them. They'll shut down their social lifes, won't have any significant others to hang with or kids to raise, work late for no extra pay, not really understand how much worse it is to have a pay package that is on a 1099 basis rather than a W2 and which does not include health insurance, skimp on sleep, ignore their health, and darn near kill themselves deathmarching to get that project finished by the insanely short deadline that management in their greed hoped was the absolute fastest it could be done. Their newness to the workplace makes them naive, easy targets for all kinds of sweatshop bullcrap-- the gaslighting, bullying, fake threats that their careers will be ruined forever if they don't buckle down and work even harder, etc. They'll be too afraid to dare to contradict management almost no matter how crazy the demands get.
And of course management can drive home the point that their jobs are very, very insecure and they need to toe the line, by periodically terminating yet another long time employee who turned into an old codger and dared to act a little too independent.
Yeah, anyone who'd pay that kind of money for a house marks themselves as a chump. They might as well post a sign on their ass that says "do me, boss!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @04:49PM (4 children)
There are soooo many signs a crash is coming. All the charts and historical patterns are pointing that way; I'd be really surprised if there were not a recession within the next 18 month.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @05:07PM (2 children)
The only question is what will set off the next recession? It's been bubbles in real estate and dot-com before that.
My long shot prediction is that if Trump stays in office much longer, he's going to take a shot at all the interest USA is paying to China, for all the treasury bills the Chinese have bought. So far the guesses have been that China might try to hurt us by selling some of their treasuries, for example, see https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-chinas-treasury-hoard-isnt-much-of-a-weapon-in-trade-spat-with-us-2018-04-06 [marketwatch.com] . My thought is that Trump will try to default (or lower the interest paid) on the Chinese-owned T-bills...think about what that would do to international markets.
(Score: 2) by lgw on Tuesday September 25 2018, @05:24PM (1 child)
I think the next recession will be a very normal, boring recession with no accompanying bubble. You get one of those every 10-15 years, just the normal business cycle.
The next bubble>/i? is the sovereign debt bubble, and it will be devastating, world-wide. My only hope is that the EU debt bubble implodes while the US economy is healthy, so the the US debt bubble delays its implosion until the EU recovers a bit. That may be a far-fetched hope, though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @11:50PM
Even small recessions often hit specific sectors hard, depending on the timing.
And the upswing has never lasted 15 years. There were two adjacent "mini recessions" around the late 1980's that some don't count as a recession, but if you add those two up, it's about the same as a normal recession.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday September 25 2018, @09:36PM
The other day I read an article in I think it was Forbes that said today's businesses are heavily over-leveraged because of low interest rates, and that many will be unable even to make interest payments when rates rise so as to cool the overheated economy.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 25 2018, @05:24PM (5 children)
My current residence is a three bedroom, 1.5 bath with a large kitchen, dining room, and a tiny library. It weighs in at barely over a thousand square feet and goes for around $700.
By the end of the year I should be in the 4200+ square foot, two story place that TR just bought for barely more than the small lot it's on is worth. It's going to take that long to get it livable. Mind you, it's also going to keep both of us fairly busy most days for the next year or two (as time and funds allow) doing the necessary and desired repairs and remodeling. By the time we finish with it it should have gone from ~$30K to ~$200K and be one badass place to live. Between the two of us we can do every bit of the work except running the trackhoe to dig the trench for the french drain we're putting in (because neither of us in fact has a trackhoe). See, things like this are why it's a good idea to pick up all the skills you can in life.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by MindEscapes on Tuesday September 25 2018, @08:33PM (1 child)
Check out equipment rental sites in your area. Trackhoes are indeed available to rent at fairly reasonable prices and are not difficult to operate. Especially one sized for a french drain. If you were doing a full on footer drain replacement though the size easily rented may not have an adequate reach. I am pretty sure that the one we rented a couple years ago would handle depths to about 5 feet easily though.
Need a break? mindescapes.net may be for you!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:47AM
Full on, below the footer of the basement installation on three sides (4th side is entirely sloping downhill and mostly paved). The dog was boned quite well when this place was built. It's amazing it hasn't fallen in yet.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday September 25 2018, @08:34PM (2 children)
$700! Where can I get a house like that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @08:50PM
Here [birdcagedesign.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:48AM
Small towns not right next to major cities all across the nation. This particular one is in Humboldt, TN.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Informative) by gumby on Tuesday September 25 2018, @05:57PM
It’s on a very busy street so getting in and out of the driveway will be tough, and the house will be noisy. Also it’s in a flood plain from the nearby creek. A similar house a couple of blocks away on Guinda went for 7 million last month.
(The middlefield house is on a slab and has no basement).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by TheFool on Tuesday September 25 2018, @06:31PM (1 child)
It wouldn't exist here - towns won't allow you to subdivide lots that small, and if you were putting that kind of money into making a house look nice you would be doing it to one on a much larger lot. $50k will get you something slightly larger and not as nice on a lot 4x the size, that's about the best estimate I can get.
Because I was curious, I also looked up how far that money would go. $1.5m would get you a modest house on 900 acres (3.6 sq km) of land. I guess if you didn't like the house it came with you could just build a new one with that extra $488k.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @08:55PM
So, where is this utopia?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday September 25 2018, @06:46PM (1 child)
Is that thing a heavily modified single-wide trailer / mobile home?
That would explain the effort to call it a "tiny home" because for cultural reasons people hate it being called a "mobile home" or "Single-wide"
Regardless, I live in a recreational state and there's mobile home parks out there for retirees and whatever and a good $15K will get you into a lot and a trailer. You will have to pay maybe $500/mo as a HOA fee for upkeep of the surrounding park. Or maybe less per month if its a dump area and not so nice of a park.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 25 2018, @11:19PM
I think it was built in 1924, the article said? There weren't a lot of mobile homes back then.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday September 25 2018, @09:31PM
This was in April 2000. My ex and I rented quite a nice three bedroom home - one for my office, one for her studio - in St. John's in 2000. I don't recall the rent but I do know that it was quite a lot less than what we paid for a two bedroom half of a duplex in Santa Cruz.
Towards the end of 200 we purchased a Jesus Big four bedroom with an oversized two car garage on 1.7 acres of wooded land in midcoast Maine for $130k.
I'm living in Vancouver now because I don't want to contribute to the housing problem in Portland. Five years ago I heard there were 4,000 homeless people there, I expect it's a lot more now. While there are homeless here in Vancouver there are far fewer, and the rents are half of Portland's
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday September 25 2018, @09:34PM
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 25 2018, @11:33PM (1 child)
I look at that building, and it looks like an old shotgun house. One room to the left, one room to the right, with a covered walkway between the two rooms. There may or may not be a front porch, seldom a back porch. Someone closed in the walkway, providing a little bit more sheltered living space.
Father in law built one that was contemporary with the house being advertised. He built it next to his well, with the porch extending out over the well, so that he need not go out in the rain to fetch his water. Back before electricity and air conditioning, that covered space between the two rooms was the coolest place to be, all summer long.
The lot and the house are worth about . . . . a couple thousand dollars. There is nothing to it, other than a place to lay your head at night.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:17AM
Doesn't look much like a shotgun house to me, unless you mean something completely different. What I've known as a shotgun house is a house that is usually found only in the south, and are long skinny houses with the rooms laid out sequentially - i.e. no hallway, so to go from the front (usually the living room) to the back (usually the kitchen) you had to pass through all the other rooms, which usually is just a single bedroom but sometimes two. Never seen one in California though that doesn't mean they don't exist. Also, they were mostly done building shotgun homes in the south by the 1920's, and the ones that haven't been torn down are usually older.
(Score: 2) by aim on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:30AM
Come have a look at prices in Luxembourg (the Grand Duchy of), then we'll talk again.
Those 2.5mil sound about right for close to the center of Luxembourg City - most for the grounds alone, the house being more of a hindrance to be torn down and replaced by a modern energy-efficient building (which on a lot this size may be 200-250 square meters of livable area). That's for Luxembourg City anyway.
Go a few tens of km away into the country (aka: pampa) and prices go way down. Cross the border (to the west, south or east it's only some 20km), and you'll have maybe 1/10th the cost.