Why are vain people so stupid? Why I ask? Why?
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58 comments:
That has to be on mofo of an air-conditioning bill. But at least you get to live like a king... a king who can hear the farts and toilet flushes of his future neighbors.
zoning anyone?
Each generation corrects the excesses of the one that came before it. The hippie movement of the 60's was a reaction to the campy, uptight Ozzie and Harriet generation that produced it. The next generation will react to our mcmansion obsession in equal and opposite proportion. I have seen the signs.
At a work function I was talking with my average Joe American colleagues, who had brought their teenage daughter. This girl gave me hope for the future. While she still had the materialism and shallowness of the average teen, she was very athletic, outgoing and confident among her elders. She struck me as an 'it' girl who set the standard for what was cool and what was not.
At one point the girl told her mother that she had no desire to live in a big house - to her, it was really not cool. She wanted to use her money for clothes and jewelry and doing things instead of being tied to a house.
While she won't be home-buying age for about 10 years, she gave a perfect example of what is to come. In the same way that mcmansions define our generation, downsizing of households will define the next.
Our children will view our ever-expanding homes for the wasteful, vain, stupidity that they are.
Can't breathe. Can't breathe.
Can hardly wait until the first sandstorm on that property! Or a hungry croc to wander inside the perimeter...
"I am Tony Montana!"
"You wanna go to war with me?" Tony proceeds to snort massive amounts of blow as a cheesey synthesizer begins to play for the climatic scene...
"The world is yours"
Looks like a lovely neighborhood
That's sad
I'd hate to see how far that home has depreciated since they finished it
Where do you let the dog out to pee?
Nice view of their security wall
I cant believe they tore down all those trees and drained all them lakes to build that developement. hehe.
no trees, no much grass, all concrete tiles and drives, no freaking wonder we have global warming. it not the cars, its the lack of green space.
From Plam Beach Post 7-15-07
Pulte destroys Divosta
http://tinyurl.com/2eo8aw
Now, now, they are just maximizing their resources. Since home prices always go up and since more is always better, more home is fantastic!
Plus, it cuts down on yard maintenance costs so they can buy that extra case of Ramen.
Love the Tony Montana comment - started my day off with a good laugh. . .I have heard many of these McMansions are furnished with Walmart furniture . . .the outside is for show only. . .the inside is empty. . .hmmmm is there a metaphore there?
That's whack yo!
But whatever man, that house has just appreciated 100% or so my realtor said, so it's all good.
Martha Stewart’s Westport house went for 26% below asking price. One year on the market.
That backyard is still bigger than the backyard you get renting an apartment.
PLEASE LOOK AT ME AND HOW GREAT I AM
That is proof that we are running out of land. In the past, that McMansion would have been on a 2 acre lot.
I took the AirTrain from JFK to the E train in Queens this week. $5 each way just to connect to the NY Subway, robbery by the Port Authority! Still, from this high vantage point, I could see LOTS and LOTS of for-sale signs out near the airport in Queens. There were a few horrid McMansion makeovers on otherwise humble houses (think "All In the Family" Archie Bunker).
The worst speculation is always on the margins. I see it in the Seattle neighborhood I'm in, near my rental, in Crown Hill. On a morning walk today, I saw 4 houses for sale in about a one-block stretch. At least two of them are horrid flips ($800k!).
Why rent an apartment when you can rent this guys home or millions like it for pennies on the dollar?
Note to realtor trolls: Bubblesitters have the pick of the litter - new build condos, McMansions, beach homes, you name it
Apartments are sooooo 1990s
RE: Huge house, built on a postage stamp lot, out in the middle of a desert...
After foreclosure, these Bill Gates wannabe monstrosities will ultimately be subdivided into homeless shelters.
V.L.
Americans are never accused of having too much good taste
I can't tell you how many home I have looked at on google, only to see how it actually sits on the lot, and base my decision not to go look at it because of that photo exactly!!!!!!!
'That's whack yo',
'so it's all good' ????
Doesn't MTV cribs have a website for you?
Or try BET
That McMansion will be perfect for a brothel.
The future "Museum of Excess"......
Only fitting that this appears to be built on what appears to be ground zero of a 1950s atomic bomb test...wonder if that pool glows at night?
Hey, they just followed this great advice in a 2003 article at Bankrate.com:
Short of land, free time?
Try a zero-lot line home
By Steve McLinden • Bankrate.com
Zero-lot line homes, with their limited yards and increased focus on living space, are zeroing in on a community near you, if they're not there already.
With the supply of single-family urban lots dwindling across the country, and the growing number of baby boom empty nesters seeking to simplify their lives, the traditional big yard is becoming a thing of the past for many Americans. Some liken the new zero-lot liners to the old row houses in central cities -- minus the stoops and stickball games.
Also marketed as garden homes, patio homes and narrow-lot homes, their heights ranges from one to three stories and their designs and demographics vary greatly from neighborhood to neighborhood. Some come with large patios for entertaining; others are equipped with neighbor-friendly front porches that almost touch the street.
Most zero-lot line homes are built directly on the edge of a lot's outer boundary (hence the name) and are usually only about 10 feet apart and share a common fence with a neighbor. They generally have either small front yards or small back yards and just a thin strip of turf for side yards. Others are attached, separated only by a townhome-like "party wall" used jointly by a neighbor.
The choice of floor plans seems to be growing almost daily, says Walt Raczkowski, owner of Coolhouseplans.com, a home-design Web service. Currently, there are now about 800 different designs of narrow homes of less than 30 feet in width on the site, which has a total of 13,000 plans.
"The narrow-lot designs are selling better and better," he said. "They are especially popular around coastal communities where land is at a premium."
Home size grows, lot size shrinks
Meanwhile, new-home lots are shrinking across the country. The median lot size of a new single-family house sold has dropped from 9,750 square feet in 1992 to 8,612 square feet in 2002, even as floor areas increased slightly in the same span, according to U.S. Census data.
"In some parts of California, they are building 5,000-square-foot homes on 5,000-square-foot lots," said Gopal Ahluwalia, vice president of research for the National Association of Home Builders.
"The consumer is willing to accept smaller lot size ... but not smaller homes. Many homeowners will give up a large lot if it saves them an hour of commuting time. . ."
time2buy said...
That is proof that we are running out of land. In the past, that McMansion would have been on a 2 acre lot.
A big house on a tiny lot surrounded by empty land is proof that we are running out of land?!?
WTF?
"Why are vain people so stupid? Why I ask? Why?"
Well, because they are people...
By definition.
B747
Keith -
Where is this new neighborhood located?
It looks surreal.
What people have to realize is that houses are *not* being built to be homes - rather investment properties that can be unloaded after 2-3 years.
Unlike in the past, houses are not being built to last - it's pretty pathetic when I look at so many of the over-priced shacks sitting empty now along the coast.
Perhaps it's good the housing scam is coming to an end, but our bigger concern should be on what this will mean for the broader economy.
I want a big mac big suv biggg house and supersize it. Just greed pure and simple
What people have to realize is that houses are *not* being built to be homes - rather investment properties that can be unloaded after 2-3 years.
Most of these homes last 2-3 years before they start falling apart. My sister's new house built in 1999 started falling apart in 2003. She sold it to some morons from California in 2005 for a 20% profit. The realtor told them Texas was running out of land.
That's not a postage-stamp size lot. That McMansion is a lot bigger than it looks.
And it has a fence around it, too, for privacy, so the neighbors can't see in.
I'd say that lot is 1/2 acre min, not exactly tiny.
It Damn well is tiny when you cover it with a house like that!!!!!
Extra land, while cushioning and serene does take maintenance. There are plenty of buyers who want indoor square footage without outdoor commitments; PatioMansions. Anyone who has walked down Tokyo streets knows we're nowhere near a land crunch, try 5000sq ft. on a 1500sq ft. lot.
I felt insecure and small when I seen it. I pine for the day when I can walk through the door of such grandeur and say, "Wilma, I`m home!!!" HEYYY, that day may be closer than I think!
Where does the treehouse go?
This is looking better and better:
http://tinyurl.com/2k2csq
Looks like they got some Brady bunch style astroturf in the backyard.
They illegal immigrantlandscaper will have to take a job as a house cleaner since there isn't much landscaping to be done
Anonymous said...
That backyard is still bigger than the backyard you get renting an apartment.
July 15, 2007 3:46 PM
-----------
Huh? Having a huge yard that you must spend tons of time and money upon to maintain is a positive? Have you ever seen the water bill for some of these desert homes where the owners insist on grass?
Why rent an apartment when you can rent this guys home or millions like it for pennies on the dollar?
Because you could rent an apartment for less than the cooling bill on that POS.
You should see what they are squeezing onto 5000sqft lots here west of portland oregon. People don't seem to care as long as the house is large enough. I have seen construction of 3500 sqft homes where I can stand between the houses and touch them both!
It is freking ugly but fine with me, it is what the market wants. I have my mcmansion on 1 acre and guess what, the larger lot is very very desirable for those who can afford it now because they don't build like that anymore. house down the street listed for 950k (4k sqft on a .5 acre lot) and sold the same week.
If you are waiting for the U.S. to end up like Japan, you better have some cryogenics lined up.
The following summarizes Japan, was excerpted from Wiki:
Most of the islands are mountainous, many volcanic; for example, Japan’s highest peak, Mount Fuji, is a volcano. Japan has the world's tenth largest population, with about 128 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area is the largest metropolitan area in the world with over 30 million residents.
About 70% to 80% of the country is forested, mountainous, and unsuitable for agricultural, industrial, or residential use. This is due to the generally steep elevations, climate and risk of landslides caused by earthquakes, soft ground and heavy rain. This has resulted in an extremely high population density in the habitable zones that are mainly located in coastal areas.
Japan (#30)
population: 128,084,700
sq km: 377,873
pop per sq km: 339
United States (#172)
population: 298,212,900
sq km: 9,629,091
pop per sq km: 31
Folks, the U.S. has plenty of land. About 8 acres for every man, woman, and child in the nation.
Rising shipping costs, anti-globalist sentiments, geopolitics, and the falling dollar move industry from China back to America's heartland, the glamour coastal cities will forget all about their "land is scarce" arguments.
Speaking of coastal areas. Did you know that the U.S. has 17.8 million household making over 100K per year (as per 2005 Census). The U.S. has 20K km of coastline bordering the sea (world factbook). That's about 3.5 feet per high income household. Surely another useless fact; however, consider that with 20 story condos and 100% percent of coastline developed (not possible I know), each household could have a 70 foot wide! ocean front unit. Even beach front is not yet scarce.
bubblegum said-
"Hey, they just followed this great advice in a 2003 article at Bankrate.com:
'With the supply of single-family urban lots dwindling across the country, and the growing number of baby boom empty nesters seeking to simplify their lives, the traditional big yard is becoming a thing of the past for many Americans.'"
Why does everyone have to cater to the baby boomers? Sure, they represent a huge percent of the population and have a lot of money, but why not consider the next two generations (X and Y) that will exist after the baby boomers are gone? I'm 30 years old and I definately want a big yard at my next house. I hate all of these giant houses on tiny lots. That seems to be all that the new builders are building. They are so asthetically out of balance. Just 25 years ago they were building the opposite; smaller houses on big (at least 0.5 acre) lots.
Whenever I travel I'm amazed at how much of that kind of crap I see from the air. I saw a ton of these houses in both Florida and Houston this past week flying in and out of those airports.
I really don't get it.
Interestingly, I saw an article about the most expensive home sale ever in Scottsdale. It was one of these McMansions on a huge lot near Troon. The clincher is that it was bought by developers! Guess what, they're going to level it, turn the land into postage-stamp lots, put up chicken wire & stucco houses, and sell them to suckers!
energy conversion machines that turned heat into cold and cold into heat could make paradise unsaleable.....
Big houses on small lots ---
is a result of GOVERMENT PLANNING.
For example: Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commmission, in an effort to curb suburban spraw; established rules regulating lot sizes for developers.
Bottom line - Developers won't get plans approved which are deemed a failure to control spraw problems. ((the result - pack'em in like sardines))
"Why does everyone have to cater to the baby boomers? Sure, they represent a huge percent of the population and have a lot of money, but why not consider the next two generations (X and Y) that will exist after the baby boomers are gone?"
----------------------
Corporate America knows the POS Baby Boomers are the ones with the money. They want to make money NOW, and are probably aware that the Boomers will leave this country a dessicated husk before they are done. They're doing a great job running it into the ground right now. There won't be much left for gen X, Y, etc...
Homes like that are called 'converters'.
They convert your hard earned money into air conditioning and heating bills!
I hope that house was built in an arid location. If it had been built here in Wisconsin there would be big issues with rainwater run off.
I love it, no stupid neighbors around.
That just looks wierd.
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