The "post pictures of your house" thread

[findar]

its all about the trade-offs in the longrun, and i can easily see getting a lower paying job in a less "desirable" area for a higher standard of living. im sitting in a 1600 sq foot house, 3bed / 2 bath / 1car garage, fair sized backyard... $60k. my sister+me+roomate live here, roomate's rent is the house's mortgage payment($325). so essentially rent ends up just being the cost of paying bills.

ill get some pics after i do the flooring, itll be the 3rd major housing improvement we've done since moving in a few years ago(bathrooms/kitchen the first 2-3). honestly ive had my taste of the city life(family in LA, friends who live in the nicer parts of dallas) and while its nice, the cost of living is waaaaay too high(hi 2100 a month for a 2bdroom apartment). i wanna be able to have a fair lump of collateral when im 35 so i can vanish to hunt artifacts like indiana jones.

[Sii]

You guys all have really nice places. How old is everyone here? I just turned 22 and graduating college (tomorrow actually). I am going to go to grad school for another 2.5 years, so I should be done with school by the time I am 24 or 25. I am asking because I am really nowhere near in the shape to buy a house as nice as anyone's on here... But I would think that is pretty normal for someone my age.. right? I don't know anyone who is even close either.

What do you guys think the average age is to buy a house? 28? I am shooting for trying to get into something in the 200-250 range by the time I turn 28. Granted, I know 250 is not much for LA or something, but I live in Oklahoma City, and a 250,000 house can be 3500 square feet. Anyways, was just a little jealous and am hoping I am not to far behind the curve of you guys

[Lyrical]

Originally Posted by Sii

You guys all have really nice places. How old is everyone here? I just turned 22 and graduating college (tomorrow actually). I am going to go to grad school for another 2.5 years, so I should be done with school by the time I am 24 or 25. I am asking because I am really nowhere near in the shape to buy a house as nice as anyone's on here... But I would think that is pretty normal for someone my age.. right? I don't know anyone who is even close either.

What do you guys think the average age is to buy a house? 28? I am shooting for trying to get into something in the 200-250 range by the time I turn 28. Granted, I know 250 is not much for LA or something, but I live in Oklahoma City, and a 250,000 house can be 3500 square feet. Anyways, was just a little jealous and am hoping I am not to far behind the curve of you guys

In general, I think it takes 2 or 3 previous homes before you'd get anywhere near a dream home. As the saying goes, your first home will not look anything like your last. I'd think that unless you graduate in engineering from college, its gonna be pretty hard to afford a 3500 sq ft house. Its also pretty rare to own a house before the age of 28 (last time I checked). Most people aren't making enough/saving enough at your age.

P.S.: Don't compare yourself to others. As you get older, you will find that everyone in your neighborhood compares their material goods. And they do this by taking out more and more debt. Some of the people that you'd think are affluent have a negative net worth. And most of them couldn't get out of their debt in ten years. I have seen people making 20K a month get laid off, and can't pay their bills in just two weeks' time. Its best to live within your means, and ignore how your neighbors are doing.

There are a ton of people who are in foreclosure now because they were jealous of their neighbors. And the sad thing is that alot of people are making decent wages, but have buried themselves under lots of debt.

/end sermon.

[Alexzandra]

[quote=Salshun;1061031]Was wrong about my stand up arcade machine. It's not a MAME system, it's a Jamma. The console looks like a Sun Solaris box, all purple and shit. When you want to switch game you have to open it up and switch boards, each game is a board. They look like nyah and run anywhere form $10 to $500 depending on the game. If anyone knows a good site where you can buy them, let me know:
Ebay is actually not too terribly bad.

PCBs & Kits - Arcade Video Game Coinop Sales - Coinopexpress Is another option, but a bit expensive.

Originally Posted by findar

it cost me ~$200 in parts + a spare pc to build a decent mame arcade. fuck buying full jamma boards.

Real arcade hardware VS MAME? The real hardware wins every time. Hell, MAME is a pretty shitty emulator by todays standards anyway. nFB/FBA are much better.

[Hateyou]

I'd say mid to late 20s is when most people buy their first house. Also, unless you are planning on being married with kids, 3,500 sq ft is pretty fucking big. Don't forget you will want furniture and shit to fill all that space, and really if you don't have kids, a house that big is kind of pointless. It's alot of sq footage to heat/cool, and to keep clean.

The only advice I have on buying a house is start saving as early as possible. I wish I would have

[findar]

Originally Posted by Alexzandra

Real arcade hardware VS MAME? The real hardware wins every time. Hell, MAME is a pretty shitty emulator by todays standards anyway. nFB/FBA are much better.

i look at a few major factors

1. cost. it cost me <$50 in wood, <$170 in new parts to build this. a used cabinet in "good" condition runs $150-200. of course you will most likely be replacing parts right off the bat.

2. portability. i built a stand alone control panel that is seperate from the monitor(has a base that can be detached. when fully assembled at max height this is 4 foot wide, 2 feet deep, ~4feet tall). i wall mount the monitor. i also have the option to use a projector and in the long run wanted that option. a normal arcade cabinet is huge and bulky. not to mention extremely heavy.

3. use. who will use this? to be honest im mostly busting it out for a few fighting games but mostly all the action games me and my friends remember as kids. xmen, nba jam, simpsons, etc. because of all this MAME works great for my needs. im not worried about playing a lot of the newer arcade games so for that reason this works great. it also lets me have the option of turning the cabinet into a juke box fairly easy.

[Bottle]

I'd post pictures of my place save two reasons:

1). I never took pictures of it.
2). It flooded in February and currently has no flooring in.

Although it should be pretty nice when its done. I splurged on flooring and got cork, laminate, and tile for the various rooms.

I have a friend who works at a cabinet door making place. So my insurance covered my cabinets with concrete counter tops and I paid 650 bucks for the maple shaker doors.

I'm kind of old school. My place is 45 years old. Most of my furniture is 70+ years old. (except couches as antique couches are horrible.) Thankfully the new couches and tv I bought were still waiting to be picked up when my place flooded. The downside to an old place got cancelled out a bit because with all the drywall out. I had a chance to replace all the old wiring myself as well as a lot of the plumbing.

As Eomer would know. Alberta's housing boomed big time and carried over to Saskatoon (Where I live) Property in our city has always been way below the national average so I got my place for 77k last year. When I got it appraised last month it was valued at 215k.

The one thing I was relieved about is that my new computer survived the flood even though it was on and the powerbar was sitting in the water.

On edit the most horrible part of the flood was that my vinyl collection got destroyed. I almost cried (almost). So many first prints up in smoke. Insurance just can't put a value on that for me.

Oh and I'm glad the water was freshwater and not sewage.

[Eomer]

Doh, sounds like a leak or something? That sucks.

That said, when a few of my friends who were living in their parent's basements a few years ago had them flooded during a ridiculous freak thunderstorm (woo, 6 inches of rain in like 10 minutes, the radar images of the thunderclouds were really neat), they made fucking bank on it. They lived in an area with combined sewers, and so their basements were flooded with sewage. The insurance companies were so hopping busy that they just asked people for lists and valuations of anything that was even touched with the water and then paid out with no questions asked with the only condition being that anything that was touched with the sewage had to be discarded.

But because there was so much rainwater, the flooding wasn't all that poopy, and most of the stuff that they claimed for was still salvageable. One guy pretty much went on a 6 month vacation to SE Asia on the money he got from that fiasco.

[Sii]

Thanks for the advice guys. Yeah, I know 3500 is pretty large, for sure. The thing is, I will be graduating with a master's in geology and they have pretty decent starting salaries, plus I will be working with a close family friend, so my salary + benefits should be pretty high. My family also owns an oil company (completion, not drilling.. so it's not like its pulling in hundreds of millions, but it does alright) that I will have stake in. Definetly not trying to flex my epeen or anything like that douche bag was trying to do earlier, but just kinda stating that I would expect I could afford a large purchase 4-6 years after I graduate if I save.

Is it not a good idea to go big in your first real house purchase so you can have it and be done with it? Being quite honest, I do not know much about mortgages or buying a house or anything like that at all. I will of course read up and all that way way before I even think about purchasing something.. So any pre-information for me to keep in mind would be awesome.

One more question.. has anyone tried to buy houses from forclosures and stuff like that? You always hear like advertisements or through the grape vine that you can get amazing houses so much cheaper that way.. is that true? Do you just have to get lucky or what? I have always wondered about that stuff.

[aychamo_aycono]

Originally Posted by Lyrical

P.S.: Don't compare yourself to others. As you get older, you will find that everyone in your neighborhood compares their material goods. And they do this by taking out more and more debt. Some of the people that you'd think are affluent have a negative net worth. And most of them couldn't get out of their debt in ten years. I have seen people making 20K a month get laid off, and can't pay their bills in just two weeks' time. Its best to live within your means, and ignore how your neighbors are doing.

There are a ton of people who are in foreclosure now because they were jealous of their neighbors. And the sad thing is that alot of people are making decent wages, but have buried themselves under lots of debt.

/end sermon.

This sounds like really good advice, thank you. I get frustrated because I'm 26 (27 this month, fuck I just realized my birthday is coming up, lol) and have zero dollars in the bank. I've been in school since I was a fetus. I'll start making money July 2009 ($42k/year + $300 month for living expenses, and a few extras, lol @ being a resident). Is that decent pay or is that shit?

The $300/month the hospital will give me extra for living will pay for about half of a good apartment in the city I'm doing my residency at, so that helps cut down living expenses. How much of $42k/year would get taxed, etc? How much would you try to put away monthly for savings for retirement. Some finance people talked to us at the hospital saying if we put away $xx dollars a month you could have a certain amount after a certain number of years, counting for inflation, etc.

?? :0

[Bottle]

Originally Posted by Eomer

Doh, sounds like a leak or something? That sucks.

That said, when a few of my friends who were living in their parent's basements a few years ago had them flooded during a ridiculous freak thunderstorm (woo, 6 inches of rain in like 10 minutes, the radar images of the thunderclouds were really neat), they made fucking bank on it. They lived in an area with combined sewers, and so their basements were flooded with sewage. The insurance companies were so hopping busy that they just asked people for lists and valuations of anything that was even touched with the water and then paid out with no questions asked with the only condition being that anything that was touched with the sewage had to be discarded.

But because there was so much rainwater, the flooding wasn't all that poopy, and most of the stuff that they claimed for was still salvageable. One guy pretty much went on a 6 month vacation to SE Asia on the money he got from that fiasco.

Nice deal. Actually, mine was a case of a broken water main break that for whatever reason flooded back into the building. Had about 10 inches of water throughout my suite.

[Eomer]

Ah, a condo then? Yeah, that shit happens to me all the time. Cept it's never my suite or building, and it's my insurance paying for it, because one of my fucknut plumbers forgot to crimp a fitting or glue a joint somewhere.

My favorite was the happy asshole on the top floor of a building that decided to draw a bath, then after he turned on the faucet, decided to go to the corner store for god knows what. Unfortunately one of the fucknuts hadn't taken the test plug out of the overflow, and a couple hundred thousand dollars later the insurance companies involved let him completely off the hook and bent us over the rail.

The joys of being a mechanical contractor. If a building floods or burns to the ground, chances are we did it.

[Salshun]

Originally Posted by aychamo_aycono

This sounds like really good advice, thank you. I get frustrated because I'm 26 (27 this month, fuck I just realized my birthday is coming up, lol) and have zero dollars in the bank. I've been in school since I was a fetus. I'll start making money July 2009 ($42k/year + $300 month for living expenses, and a few extras, lol @ being a resident). Is that decent pay or is that shit?

The $300/month the hospital will give me extra for living will pay for about half of a good apartment in the city I'm doing my residency at, so that helps cut down living expenses. How much of $42k/year would get taxed, etc? How much would you try to put away monthly for savings for retirement. Some finance people talked to us at the hospital saying if we put away $xx dollars a month you could have a certain amount after a certain number of years, counting for inflation, etc.

?? :0

What degree do you have? Having some type of medical degree and only pulling $42k/year seems a little low for a medical degree. I'm assuming it's not a doctor or a specialist, maybe a nurse/physical therapist?

Also, $300/month is expenses seems like a tease. I spend more than that a month paying my cell phone bill and keeping gas in my truck. I have a buddy in medical school in Reno, Nevada and his school loans pay for his apartment, all of his bills, even his car payment.

So what is it your degree is in and in what city/state will you be working? Because I have roommates at my new house, my share will only be $600/month. With my job now I'm getting $64k/year. After my child support my take home is $1500 every 2 weeks. My bills are kind of low in my life right now. I have a paid off truck. So for a given month it's the standard gas, cell phone, groceries, I have a seizure condition so I have monthly doctor's appointments and a drug prescription. So money wise, I'm not really being killed right now.

I work from home doing IT stuff, so I'm thinking when I move into my new place on the first of June I'm going to get a good computer desk and chair. I also want to build a small wet bar in the pool table/game room.

Get back to me about what your degree is in. For ANY college degree $42k/year seems really low.

[aychamo_aycono]

Originally Posted by Salshun

What degree do you have? Having some type of medical degree and only pulling $42k/year seems a little low for a medical degree. I'm assuming it's not a doctor or a specialist, maybe a nurse/physical therapist?

Also, $300/month is expenses seems like a tease. I spend more than that a month paying my cell phone bill and keeping gas in my truck. I have a buddy in medical school in Reno, Nevada and his school loans pay for his apartment, all of his bills, even his car payment.

So what is it your degree is in and in what city/state will you be working? Because I have roommates at my new house, my share will only be $600/month. With my job now I'm getting $64k/year. After my child support my take home is $1500 every 2 weeks. My bills are kind of low in my life right now. I have a paid off truck. So for a given month it's the standard gas, cell phone, groceries, I have a seizure condition so I have monthly doctor's appointments and a drug prescription. So money wise, I'm not really being killed right now.

I work from home doing IT stuff, so I'm thinking when I move into my new place on the first of June I'm going to get a good computer desk and chair. I also want to build a small wet bar in the pool table/game room.

Get back to me about what your degree is in. For ANY college degree $42k/year seems really low.

Hi man, thank you for the reply.

My degree is (will be) a M.D. The $42k/year is about average for what they pay first year residents (first year doctors). Yes it's very low! Especially when you figure that we will be working at least 80 hours a week. Each year in residency they bump the salary up about $2,000/year are so. Once you finish residency (3-5 years) you get a huge pay increase, as you become either an attending physician or go into private practice.

I agree the $300/month is a tease, but at least it's something. It's a pretty good deal where I plan on doing residency, as the living is cheap there. Here in Brooklyn, most of the hospitals don't give any kind of "extras" with the residency pay, so the $42k/year or so they get here, I don't know how they live off of it. I'm currently on student loans, etc, and I think I live better now off of loans than as I will as a 1st year resident, LOL.

Luckily my car is completely paid for. So my monthly expenses are low, mainly just cell phone, gas, rent, utilities, etc. I was considering getting a motorcycle when I get start residency to help cut down on fuel.

I dunno. Scares the shit out of me (all of the financial worries.)

[TheCutlery]

Originally Posted by Eomer

#6 - above the two man jacuzzi in the bathroom, two walls that really need something other than white paint. One probably 6-8 feet wide, other is about 3-4.

I can't believe no one else pounced on this, but I think I see your problem with never getting laid.

There's no such thing as a "2 MAN" jacuzzi dude. Rectify that little problem and you're home free.