Housing

Manufactured Housing is very odd the state’s assessment records

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Manufactured Housing is very odd the state’s assessment records. Some towns assessors don’t use that code at all, preferring to either leave the housing style field blank or describing such structures as Ranch style. For example, Coeymans doesn’t have a single building that is Manufactured Housing but Cario has several hundred. In some towns its inconsistent – varies widely by property – probably whoever was assessor at the time.

But then again, assessment records are riddled with errors. If you look at the City of Albany assessment records, only two buildings were built before 1850, a fact that doesn’t take long to disprove.

I often see advertisements promoting buying a home

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I often see advertisements promoting buying a home. 🏡

A lot of friends and colleagues are buying one, and indeed I think it’s a good investment if you have a family and need a larger dwelling that you plan to stay in for a long time. Paying a mortgage is a good way to be forced to build wealth, but it’s certainly not the only way – low-cost index funds, retirement funds and certificates of deposits with automatic deposits are other ways to build wealth.

While rent is an expense that is forever gone, you have to live somewhere. But lower-rent apartments can be quite affordable, allowing you to save and invest elsewhere. Plus a small rented space is going to be cheaper to heat and light, and the benefits to having access to public transit to get to work and walk-able neighborhood rather than having a car. Costs like utilities, transportation, repairs, mortgage fees and interest are non-recoverable even if you own your own house. Indeed, running my own numbers, I can’t find a way I would gain wealth faster owning a home with all the related expenses before renting.

While I concede I’ll probably stick around in New York State for a while longer, maybe a decade or so, I just can’t see setting down roots locally. Albany doesn’t feel like my home, and I’m not interested in community or local politics. I want an opportunity to reboot my life at some point, try a new community on for a change. I’m also not that interested in owning a fancy house, I’d rather have more land and not a fancy house. And I don’t want land for purposes of profit to sell it, but to use it for homesteading, hunting, and wildlife observation — any building should be just ancillary to provide housing but need not be permanent or appreciating in value. 

NPR

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State Laws Fail To Disclose Flood Risk : NPR

One year later, their house flooded.

The house had also flooded less than a decade earlier, and it was in a flood plain. The federal government knew both of those things — the Federal Emergency Management Agency keeps track of flood insurance claims and publishes flood maps that states and cities use to make planning decisions. But no one told the Obbinks they were moving into harm's way, because no one was obligated to: not their real estate agent, not the seller, not the inspector. Or any government agency, or the real estate website that listed the property.

NPR

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Americans Lack Information To Stay Out Of Disaster’s Path : NPR

None of the landlords, real estate agents, sellers, appraisers, bankers or home inspectors the families interacted with explained the risk of flooding or wildfires, because no one had to do so. Only about half of the states require that information about flood risk be disclosed to homebuyers, and just one state requires that such information be given to tenants. Only two Western states require disclosure of wildfire risk.