https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5436-Agana-Dr-Santa-Barba...

I can cry that my dream flat in London is more expensive than I expected 30 years ago but that just shows how stupid I’ve been the last 30 years

It's not that it's cheap here, not by any measure, but it's not nearly so dire as y'all want to claim.

Lots of people are paying millions extra just to live up winding roads on a hill, where the commute is longer, and you need a geotechnical engineer to design your patio.

I would also add, the forklift driver who bought the house for 40k in 1971, by state law (Proposition 13), is still paying 1971 valuation property taxes and contributing essentially nothing to local school funding, funding which is mostly covered by you according to a "new guy has to hold the bag" type scheme. In a state obsessed with fairness, a most unfair policy.

Should you wish to modify the property, conventional area wisdom is to just do so unpermitted. Boomers don't like construction because it increases supply and they want no supply, only demand, home price go brrrr. Environmentalists don't like construction because the more nature the better. Others don't like construction because they make it their business to set the vibe of the area as static and frozen. These political interests culminate in a construction permitting process that basically autorejects everything, paradoxically increasing public danger because everyone now does everything unpermitted.

Even the famously wealthy Steve Jobs ran afoul of it and couldn't buy his way out. He had a property he wanted to modify but they wouldn't let him touch it at all. So he just let it sit and rot to make a point. Ultimately the government agreed his plan was better than a rotting house.

It just doesn't stack up. This world is cooked. The steak used to be medium rare once upon a time, but now it's pure charcoal.

$4.888

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/86-Rittenhouse-Ave-Athert...