Printable View
There is no prostitution on Harry Hines (well not that I can find, and I try to find them on some bored nights)... Plano fucking sucks, North sucks... best bet is either an uptown location, north of lemon oaklawn location.. or downtown/ bryan place.Quote:
Originally Posted by maxpower
There are good and bad points about every place on the planet! While one person may find Dallas a paradise, another guy could live right next door and find himself suicidal. There are people that are perfectly happy living in Grand Forks, North Dakota and there are people living in Las Vegas moaning "There is nothing to do here!"
If you are looking for an investment property, my experience is that rental property really needs to be close enough to drive by it on your way to work/supermarket/shopping. If you are looking for a vacation home, then it needs to be in a place with activities you really enjoy during your free time and it needs to be reasonably accessible so that you make good use of it. A cabin on Lake Winnipeg may be the crowning glory for the dedicated fisherman, but getting there could be so difficult as to render it nearly useless for all but the full-time retired.
For exactly what you described on my street will set you back between $350 and $400k depending on features and lot size, and I would welcome you as a neighbor! Two blocks away are the bigger homes, 3000 sq feet and in the $500 range and all built in 2003-2004. A basic 2000-2500 square foot home can be as low as $250 in the outlying Phoenix suburbs or well over a million dollars in the prestige neighborhoods of Paradise Valley. Like any city, you pay for the location and then secondary comes the house. Since over half the Phoenix population has moved here since 1985, most homes are modern construction with wiring that works, decent plumbing, bedrooms that are bigger than closets and electric outlets on every wall. A house I bought in Iowa that was built in 1915 had one outlet per room when I took possession, and many dollars later it finally was livable. I am sure you could buy it for $70 right now but then you would be living 25 miles from the nearest movie theater and 100 miles from the nearest real airport.
Of all the places in the world I have been, I still want to live in Phoenix. It DEFINITELY is not a perfect place and there are some things that people hate about it --air pollution, brutal summer heat, and the vast sprawl of a metro area nearly 75 miles by 75 miles at its widest points BUT a 2500 square foot house on a 1/4 acre lot with mountain views to the south, city views to the north, 15 minutes to one of the biggest airports in the world, and a decent standard of living for under $400 is a good deal to me.
I like West Plano, especially if your going to get a house. If you want a apartment then being closer to downtown would probably be best.Quote:
Originally Posted by deanb
I have to say though Frisco is going to give you the best long term return on your investment in a home.
If you mean San Francisco, I'm not quite as sure about that as I would have been a few years ago. The prices are getting so insanely high in the city, I really wonder how people will continue to be able to afford homes. That's one of the reasons the suburbs have become so built out and traffic is an absolute nightmare. (No joke, rush hour starts about 3:30 to 4AM in the east bay!) Perhaps it will continue to climb, but I suspect there will have to be an adjustment at some point in the next few years.Quote:
Originally Posted by maxpower
Also, power is INSANELY expensive in California, in part, supposedly, because they are trying to recoup all the money they paid to Enron 6 years ago. You get a baseline amount that one person living in a toolshed would use up in about 10 days, and everything over that is between 200 and 300% of the baseline amount. So, in the summer, your electricity can be 35 or 40 cents/KWH. I had a $900 bill last summer, and that was being very conservative with the AC. AJ's house, which at 4500 sqft is about 1000 sqft bigger than mine, had a $2700 bill for gas and electric last month when all the models were there.
And, in the city San Francisco... there's always the very real possibility that your home will be flattened in an earthquake, or, as some have suggested, the possibility that the entire city will break off and fall into the ocean :) One of the reasons I like living a little farther north (near Sacramento) where there aren't the earthquake faults :)
He meant Frisco, Texas... it's a suburb north of Dallas.Quote:
Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip
Max, I'd rather shoot myself in the face than live in Frisco or Plano. I'm an urban guy, I HATE the second ring (Plano) and the third ring (Frisco) suburbs more than you can possibly imagine. The sound of children laughing makes my skin crawl, lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by maxpower
Btw, I did know what I was getting into when I bought my house. I had been in Dallas for 3 months and I looked at homes everywhere. I didn't need a 4 bedroom house and big yard. I wanted to be near the city and my job but I couldn't live in an apartment or condo. And regardless of my proximity to Harry Hines, my perfect little neighborhood is the ONLY thing I like about the entire metroplex.
LOL actually i seem to recall mentioning something along those lines to him a few shows back, the look on his face was err.. classic to say the least LOLQuote:
Originally Posted by Madame0120
Regards,
Lee
houses near us go for $850,000 to around a million and a half. there are neighborhoods within an hour drive where the houses go for more like $400,000 and up, but these aren't neighborhoods i'd care to live in for a variety of reasons.
btw, regarding the glendate arizona area. my son lived there for a year, and at the time - in 1993 and 1994 - houses were going for $65,000, and we're not talking 2 bedroom starters, either. the houses there have gone up and up, and i suspect are still going up for a while. i'd definitely look into this area as a place to invest.
Yee haw! A Venting About Dallas Thread! As I have wondered out loud often...why do you live there? If you don't like suburbia, it's weird to me that you live in Farmers Branch...of all places.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xstr8guy
On the other hand, Dallas is a good place to make money, which was the subject of Lee's thread.
People complain about Dallas attitude, but you know compared to other places, I find Dallas to be very egalitarian. They don't care about the color of your skin, or even so much about your sexual orientation... it's all about what ya got. :cash:
I much prefer that, as opposed to when I visit other cities around the country (which are allegedly so much more forward thinking)... and the black guys go to black gay bars and hook up with other black guys.... or the latinos just go to latino gay bars and hook up with latinos. It's all like a segregated GAYVN category.... as opposed to everything being an actual mix.
Steve
Ya for sure I was taking about Frisco, Texas I would never want to live in San Francisco, for some of the reasons Chip said, and some of my own too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xstr8guy
Not sure why you hate kids man? Personally I love to live in a area that has trick-or-treaters, kids riding their bikes, and every time I see a kid clime a tree it makes me smile. Also Frisco as you know is all most a totally new town, the mall is new the roads are new, and so on. And with the pollution explosion and the type of homes they area building, I can not see how you could go wrong as far as a return on your investment goes. Frisco is the New Plano, and even if you don’t like suburban areas its money in the bank, just look at the 450% growth in 10 years
forget Bostom the prices are through the roof (no pun intended) and
owners need to get a reality check with everyone leaving Mass
I don't live in Farmer's Branch. I live in Dallas near Farmer's Branch... Forest and Webb Chapel. And I live here because in 2000 and in the midst of an impending divorce, a friend offered me a career (and life) change opportunity. I took the offer and honestly have no regrets. Even though I bitch about Dallas, it's better than where I came from which is Minneapolis/St. Paul. I just couldn't take the long bitter winters anymore.Quote:
Originally Posted by desslock
Well I'm in Hollywood so anywhere from $500,000-$10 million!! I won't be buying a house here anytime soon!
Oh Eddie you aren't trying. That's Hollywood.... just do what the other smart people do there, and that's sleep your way to the top! :bunny:Quote:
Originally Posted by vs eddie
Steve
I tried to do that in Dallas but I couldn't find anybody to even talk to me, let alone sleep with me! Lol. Luckily I met my partner who had just moved down from Oregon. If I had met him several months later, Dallas would have ruined him too. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by desslock
Btw, it's not even open for debate that Dallas has 'Dallatude'. That's like saying Austin isn't a college party town or San Francisco isn't gay friendly. Sure, there are exceptions to those stereotypes. But stereotypes are usually derived from the truth.
You know you and I diss Dallas on different levels. Some of my favorite points of note regarding Dallas are: #1 the shopping opportunities are absolutely fantastic. That is one shop shop shop city where you can get anything... of course let's just hope you aren't looking for anything else.
#2 I think Dallas is the biggest drug city on the planet Earth.
When I was high school, everyone talked about it. My best friend in high school explained it to me exactly this way in 1986 "The city of Dallas is ON drugs." Nowadays.... it's just funny how it all seems to me true. You know how prices for commodities are set on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange? I think Dallas effectively does this for drugs. Just open up the Wall Street Journal and look past the printed spot prices for Kruegerrand gold, Canada silver and West Texas Crude. They now have columns for yesterday's closing Club Dallas Spot Price on GHB and X.
Steve :cheekymonkey: