If you like contemporary architecture, check out this guy’s website, where he has a number of houses and projects displayed.
Here’s a remodel of an old house situated in the Northern part of South Africa. It doesn’t look like it would cost that much to build, and you get a stylish indoor-outdoor experience. Note the pool in bottom-right of the first photo:
Click on these to enlarge:
Befuddled sellers should click here:
http://sandiegohomeblog.com/2010/11/02/low-voter-turnout-and-the-real-estate-market/
Amazing home. Love those steel beams and the catwalk. The lighting is outrageous too WOW
from #1,
“It’s just that those buyers are more patient, creating a logjam of sorts, where everyone is waiting for both a record low price and perfection. They’re the extremists waiting to cast their votes for the outliers.”
Is it extreme to want a decent home in a decent neighborhood at a reasonable price for said neighborhood? I am still seeing homes that are overpriced (like its 2005). Sellers asking for twice what they paid for the same home in 2000.
Or, its a home that a now elderly couple bought in 1968, made no improvements anywhere to the house, and they want 2006 prices (talk about late to the game).
And I’m the extremist?
“Sellers asking for twice what they paid for the same home in 2000.”
If you bought their house in 2000, you’d probably be asking 3X what you paid. Every seller thinks their house is worth more than it really is.
As buyers, my husband and I are not on the sidelines but actively searching for/making offers on our next home. Numbers 1, 4, and 6 (I love that price is listed twice) aren’t mutually exclusive as the author points out. But sellers by and large seem to think they are. Those that get it are selling. I’m an IT project manager, and in my business you have 3 variables/sides to a triangle to bring a project in: 1)Time, 2)Resources ($/bodies), 3)Requirements. All 3 have to be in sync, if one side of the triangle is shortened/lengthened, the other 2 must also or the project will not be delivered as expected by the customer. Perhaps if sellers could apply this metaphor to their home, it could create a more realistic price, at least hopefully they’d figure out why something is askew. 1)Sold Comps/trend, 2)Condition, 3)Price. Not sure on the proper 3 variables, but you get the idea.
Jim, another cool house. With all those glazing it will be impossible to get this build in California to meet the Title 24 energy code.
kompeitou,
I think the extremists are the majority now.
My experience is that most buyers are conservative, waiting for the perfect deal. That’s why 99 listings get passed over in the mad rush to the one that is attractive.
I always wonder what these perfect houses look like with normal people living in them. Where there are toys scattered all over, Juniors skateboard sitting on the coffee table, half of the breakfast dishes still lingering in the kitchen and 3 days worth of unopened mail on the counter.
Wow, just wow…
Wsh it was 2006 again so I could “buy” one of these palaces.
Ok.. you made me drool..
I really don’t like the pseudo Tuscan-ranch style that seems all the rage these days. The underlying structure is still the old style ‘stick’ house with faux-brick etc slapped on the stucco. So many houses look like the next, yet they are asking more then the price of an exotic car for these.
This on the other hand is NICE!!
Not to mention that I do like the architecture of Falling Water too (though the construction has a bit to be desired)
Its probably priced at about $1 000 000 or possibly less. I like the way they have used armoured glass instead of steel bars on the windows (or have multiple full time armed guards). One of my rental houses is within 1 km of those Northcliff houses also at the top of the mountain with a view over Johannesburg, 3 beds 2 baths, Oregon pine kitchen, 200 square metres on 2400 square metre land. Yours for about $300 000, presently rented at $1 300 per month with steel bars on the windows, 2.8 metre steel pallisade fencing and photo electric beams on the exterior burglar alarm. There are 2 internal infra red protected zones in the house on the internal burglar alarm with a steel gate between the bedrooms and the living area of the house!
Remember the north of the country is close to Zimbabwe and so is full of desperate starving Zimbabweans (Robert Mugabe’s lot don’t allow the distribution of the USAID food properly) and the flood of refugees (economic and political) from the North has only decreased slightly since the end of apartheid.
Where I live my neighbour 3 doors down returned fire and killed an armed Zimbabwean robber this year so as they say in real estate “location location location” its just that where the Gang Bangers hang out in San Diego there are no homes like the one you illustrated, where I live a squatter camp shack slum can exist 2 kilometres from really deluxe upmarket homes.
Thank you Andrewa for reminding me to be thankful and grateful for what I do have, not what I think that I want. I sometimes have tunnel vision focusing only on what ‘I’ want, not necessarily need and the strife that so many endure just to survive. Let alone have food on a table and a roof over our heads and safety and security that I and my family enjoy.
Good luck building that in the US. The glazed area alone won’t cut it with 99 percent of the building codes. Of course for that kind of money you might be able to get your own personal zoning commissioner elected or something.