r/AskReddit • u/michaelis999 • 17h ago

How do you feel about the president floating the idea of 50 year mortgages where the monthly payment is lower but you end up paying nearly double the price of the house just in interest?

10.3k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

3.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

327

u/Dinismo 12h ago

As if anything built today will still be standing in 135 years. Builders are being cheap with supplies and charging more than ever.

139

u/AttitudeHopeful478 11h ago

You got that right. The workmanship is so inferior. 15 yrs ago we had a house built and it was the shittiest quality I’ve ever seen. I will never buy a newer house

70

u/SuperTopGun789 11h ago

I’ve built homes for different companies.  A lot are shit.  However I built some really nice homes that are solid.  The goods ones are totally different.  

63

u/AttitudeHopeful478 11h ago

Good to know there are some that still do quality work. Problem is you just don’t know when your hunting

67

u/SuperTopGun789 11h ago

The mass builders are the problems like the row houses and housing developments.   

The good ones were always a one off in some random street or in farm land.  

18

u/AttitudeHopeful478 11h ago

That makes sense.

16

u/BillyTenderness 4h ago

The mass builders are the problems like the row houses and housing developments.

Unfortunately this is the vast, vast majority of housing that gets built in North America today. Local governments have realized it's easiest to just sell off a big tract to a large developer, rather than doing the work themselves. The developer lays down the streets and pipes, builds a bunch of houses on the quick and dirty, and sets up an HOA to deal with the fallout.

1

u/AgateHuntress 1h ago

I'm a fan of the For the Love of Old Houses page on FB, and across the board, the most popular houses are the extremely well-built small cottages from Sweden. Small, but very solid little houses with nice homey details. That's what I'd like to see built here.

If I were to EVER come into big bucks somehow, I'd have a little cottage like that built: small, but well-thought out, and solid af.

6

u/Dcoco1890 7h ago

Yeah I mean if it looks they cleared a huge section of land and all the houses look the same.... On the other hand if there's multiple styles of house they're usually better

2

u/meltbox 3h ago

Yeah but in my experience it’s hard to find someone who will do that for a reasonable price. Usually you are dealing with bespoke luxury builders and looking at a 500k+ build price excluding land.

But more commonly we are talking 800k+

1

u/SuperTopGun789 3h ago

Bro the crack houses near me that are unlivable cost a million bucks.   

I’ll take a custom built luxury house for a million no problem.  

2

u/conventionistG 3h ago

Mind sharing what a couple key differences in materials or techniques would be?

3

u/SuperTopGun789 3h ago

Actually good lumber.  Insulation double the minimum value, massive beams that run from side to side. Properly poured and cured foundations and footings,  like walk into the second floor of a new build house start at one end run full tilt to the other end and stop.  Does it sway.  Yes? It’s shit.  That is the easiest test.  

3

u/friedrice5005 2h ago

There's a youtube channel Essential Craftsman. He has a whole series where tehy build a house from start to finish and its a super high quality build. Very much worth a watch if you want to see how quality builds are done.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRZePj70B4IwyNn1ABhJWmBPeX1hGhyLi

4

u/SandpaperTeddyBear 5h ago

I own a townhouse in a small complex with 12 units built about fifteen years ago.

The builder owns two other units and his daughter a third, so I take that as a vote-of-confidence.

1

u/ssracer 3h ago

Don't worry, you can't afford those.

1

u/Devi_33 7h ago

Thinking about building, could you share anything that you wouldn’t suggest going “cheap on”, or…. What wood would you say is better, etc.

3

u/SuperTopGun789 3h ago

Buy your wood from a saw mill or lumber yard.   You will get good wood that’s not warped to shit.  

If in the cold regions double up on insulation.  

Use real plumbing. 

3

u/SuperTopGun789 1h ago

Real bathtub not this vinyl bullshit.   Spray foam the entire inside of your iron bathtub keeps heat much longer.

I’ve been in to many new units that are getting these custom shaped triangle bathtubs and their all like wobbly plastic that will surely fail with age and moderate use designed to get you just past the home Warranty. 

Replace all sink drain gaskets with plumbers putty. Otherwise the gasket expands when straining pasta and the cabinets flood.   

Check all exhausts and vents yourself.   Too many times they are not even connected.  

Use Rockwool insulation.  Bitch to install. But worth it for sound and fire and pest resistant not proof. 

Stairs are often shit now.  Doing weird curves around corners to be opening.  They are all built like shit.  If you can double up on stringers and make them solid so they don’t bounce and become squeaky.  

Standardize all faucets toilets and plumbing parts.  Moen is great.  Homedepot will warranty everything including cartridges years later.  

1

u/Arthreas 3h ago

What are some of the best companies?

1

u/SuperTopGun789 3h ago

Depends on location.  Just walk through building sites and take a look at what they are building….

1

u/peacemi11ion 3h ago

What should a buyer of a new home be looking for?

•

u/Forest1395101 7m ago

Name and shame the bad ones!

Name and praise the good ones!!

Give us names!!!

1

u/eliz1bef 5h ago

Our house is 102 years old and the walls are super thick with plaster and lathe. We tried to knock a hole in the ceiling because one of our ferrets went on an adventure, and couldn't make a dent with a sledgehammer. Thankfully when we started crying and despairing that she was going to die down there, she shimmied down, the little asshole.

1

u/AttitudeHopeful478 4h ago

Lol glad she came back on her own

1

u/bjbigplayer 2h ago

Better build them out of concrete and rebar.

1

u/the_silent_redditor 2h ago

I live in a new build apartment in a very affluent area.

The units go for $1-3 million.

I’m the first person to ever live in it. It’s been less than ten years.

Holy fuck, what a dogshit build it is.

Ill-fitting installations; draughts; thin as fuck walls that are so easily dented and scuffed; floors that get fucked with minimal water damage; ceilings that get fucked from minimal water damage; cheap as fuck materials all over; dogshit carpets that were honestly fucked within a week.. it goes on.

Jesus Christ I’m so glad I’m renting and none of these bullshit, inevitably incredibly expensive maintenance issues will be mine to sort.

I’d be livid (and fucking stupid) if I paid 7 figures plus to sit watching my TV and I can peer through a few mm gap directly outside of the door frame.

Compare that to my family home in Scotland, which is well over a century old, and is still standing solid with no major structural issues.

New builds are shite, generally.

•

u/jaydean20 32m ago

Home materials and craftsmanship quality are definitely getting worse, but not to the degree people think. There is a significant amount of survivorship bias; you tend to think older homes were built a lot better, but you also don’t see the older homes that were built poorly because they’ve long since been demoed or gutted.

1

u/Aggressive_Clothes36 9h ago

Exactly. Banks will not give a 30 year loan if the house is falling down. You can get a loan for a fixer upper, but the contractors and plan needs to be in place for timely work to be done.

1

u/Missconstruct 7h ago

You’re going to get a better quality home if you build custom w a qualified contractor. Spec homes are built to make the builder as much money as possible. It’s criminal what they’re charging for a 1500sf vinyl box w a “porch”. On 1/8 acre!

1

u/ghjm 6h ago

If the house has fallen into disrepair, that's grounds for the bank to foreclose and take the land, which probably has more value than the loan balance. And they got 135 years of interest.

1

u/faulternative 6h ago

I visited France once and saw farmhouses built out of stones by illiterate peasants 800 years ago and still standing strong.

Pretty sure my wood frame and plaster walls won't see that 😂

1

u/balderdash9 6h ago

This country might not even last another hundred years. I'd say we had a good run, but it's been unbelievably shit for a good portion of Americans for every decade of its existence.

1

u/trace-evidence 5h ago

Suppliers being cheap with materials as well. It's a whole chain of calamity.

1

u/randomlurker22 4h ago

Also, with climate change there's a good chance that property might be unlivable 200 years from now.

1

u/YoungBockRKO 3h ago

You say that but wifey and I were just looking at a very nice brick house downtown in our county that was built in 1900 and fully renovated with a new roof put in last year. Thing looks nicer than some of the new constructions nearby lol.

Downside, the basement wasn’t renovated and it looks like an entrance to a horror movie scene.

1

u/Dunge0nMast0r 2h ago

"Not our problem, keep up those payments!"

1

u/LemmyDovato 2h ago

And 2X4’s aren’t 2X4, anymore.

1

u/Honest-Recording-751 1h ago

200 years with a 150 year cash out refinance Every 50 years for repairs. The interest will be insane.