Property porn caused a large part of the housing bubble. Its a tough addiction to break.

As a 3rd generation family real estate renovation and rental company we have seen just about every kind of housing market.

You should keep an eye on old time landlords.....when they stop buying, its officially a bubble. We know instinctively what prices we can afford to pay and still make a profit.

The worst part was being in the middle of the bubble and telling friends in the neighborhood that they were about to pay too much for a home. There is a resentment after you do that which remains no matter the outcome.

I had a contract on a three family home....poor condition, great neighborhood, nice lot, etc....for $68k . A property flipper got between me and the seller and bought it for $76k. He spent $100k renovating it and reduced it to a two family then sold it for $225k. That couple reduced it to a single family (tore out a kitchen which had literally never been used) and built a garage and a tacky brick and fake iron fence around he property line and put up an enormous fountain in the front yard.....four tiers of imported mexican glory. They got divorced and sold the house for $329k, at a loss. Then two gay property flippers moved in and replaced all the plumbing fixtures with gold swans in all the bathrooms, did some bad tile in the master shower, stained the hardwood floors almost black and sold it for $419k to some good friends of ours. The gay couple split after the sale, with one buying the home next door and repeating the horrible flipping tactics. Our friends took down the fountain, moved in and almost immediately had marital trouble. They divorced and the house went on the market for the 5th time in 6.5 years, but now the bubble had burst. SO did some pipes.

They sold short for $145k to a city employee who renovated it again and has now moved in.

If you subtract the landscaping improvements done over time from the purchase price it turns out the house was worth something very close to the original $68k that I had a contract on.

Property can be brutal for the uninformed.

I guess I missed the whole porn-porn thing.

HOW ITS MADE is techno porn.

Snarfangel: Call me old fashioned


Came to post these exact words. Leaving... satisfied.

Property porn relies on all this to be effective, to suck us in and take us on a "journey" with the person, couple or family who are buying. It reduces decision-making and stress to a superficial narrative with a "they-all-lived-happily-ever-after" ending.


What in the hell does 'living happily ever after' have to do with porn? TFA sounds like it was written by some woman who was accidentally allowed near a computer.

spunkymunky: Dammitsomuch. I only got .24 of an acre. I'll try to sneak my property line out slowly over the next 5 years to get the extra .01 of an acre.


I've been planning to do this with the neighbor behind my house. 3 lots come together at a weird angle, so if I slowly rotate the fence outward, he'll never notice his bean garden slowly disappearing.

archichris: Property porn caused a large part of the housing bubble. Its a tough addiction to break.

As a 3rd generation family real estate renovation and rental company we have seen just about every kind of housing market.

You should keep an eye on old time landlords.....when they stop buying, its officially a bubble. We know instinctively what prices we can afford to pay and still make a profit.

We benefitted from the bubble both as buyer and seller this year--we decided to downsize from a four-bedroom suburban McHouse into an urban condo. Our unit's in a century-old building that had a lot of money poured into refurbishment, but everything was finished right as the market went to hell and we paid a lot less for than what was originally asked. We sold our house in twelve days because we bought it cheap in 2001 and it appreciated significantly. We were able to slash the asking price well below assessment and still come out with a decent profit. The only loser in this was the condo refurbisher, who lost a huge amount of money and ended up having his own unit go into foreclosure. If he'd started the project two years earlier he would have made some major cash.

/timing is everything