#fix and rent

[thebesthomelender]

Fix and Flip without Limits!

Lots of questions on buying a fixer upper and reselling it. There are videos and books on the subject. What they don’t tell you is how hard it is to get financing normally. Most mortgage lenders are what we would call fix and hold lenders, in fact, they often have penalties for paying off early. Until now… One of my lenders came out with this nice list of expanded criteria, check it out and…

[lenin-it-to-win-it]

[thatsbelievable]

[yuwuta]

roommate katsuki lore time: 

your job isn’t as physically demanding as that of a pro-hero, but it is equally, if not more time intensive. your friends often comment you seem dead on your feet way more often than they do, and you have to agree. so when you decide to scrounge up some extra money and hire a private chef, you think it’s the best decision you’ve made in a while. 

your friends would seem to agree—and some tease that maybe you should ask your guy if he can cater to izuku, too. except for katsuki, who seems appalled, betrayed, and disgruntled. it takes all but one week about you gushing over the meals your chef has prepped for you for katsuki to show up to your apartment in the middle of the day, while you’re at work, and the chef is in your kitchen, kindly ask him to leave forever, and get to work himself. when you come home, you’re confused and pissed when you realize katsuki has fired your saving grace, but the anger falls flat on your tongue when you’re interrupted by the blonde spoon-feeding you the most delicious bite of steak that you’ve ever had in your entire life. he’s way too smug watching you physically melt about the food, and ordering you to sit down and have a proper meal. 

he tries not to be endeared by your stuffed cheeks, but there’s a satisfaction brewing in him that he can’t quite place. all he knows is it won’t be taken away from him again; that’s why he flicks your forehead, throws a dish towel over his shoulder, and says, “make room for my shit here by the end of the week. and don’t complain when i put all your spoons together in one drawer,” before heading over to the sink to wash up. 

you don’t even get until the end of the week before katsuki is barreling into your apartment with boxes and clothes and, “this is what we call a stainless steel pan in the wild. ever seen one before?” prompting you to reach up and pinch his ear even as he cackles all the way to the kitchen. you suppose, in the end you can’t complain. you get to live with your best friend, you get free catering, free cleaning, and it takes you two months of living together to find out katsuki’s paid off your rent for the rest of the year, too. you know, what friends are for. 

[the-random-tyler]

A vote of trust.

That scene in the three hour video got to me really hard, and I had to draw it. There's something so mesmerizing about turning the act of handing over a Charter Weapon into an action as simple as pressing Q.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The housing crisis considered as an income crisis

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

A paradox: in 1970, everyday Americans found it relatively easy to afford a house, and the average American house cost 5.9x the average American income. In 2024, Americans find it nearly impossible to afford a house, and the average American house costs…5.9x the average American income.

Feels like a puzzler, right? Can it really be true that the average American house is as affordable to the average American earner as it was in 1970? It is true, as you can see from Blair Fix's latest open access research report, "The American Housing Crisis: A Theft, Not a Shortage":

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2024/10/23/the-american-housing-crisis-a-theft-not-a-shortage/

Fix also points out that is even more true of rents than it is of house prices. The ratio of rent to average income has actually fallen slightly since 1970. Rents are also, in some mathematical sense, "affordable."

Now, those of you who are well-versed in statistical card-palming will likely have a pretty good idea of the statistical artifact at the root of this paradox: the word "average." If you remember your seventh grade math, you'll recall that "average" has more than one meaning. Sure, there's the most common one: add several values together, then divide the total by the number of values you added. For example, a nonzero number of people have one or zero arms, so the average human has slightly fewer than two arms.

That average is called the "mean." The mean US wage is pretty robust: $73,242/year:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A792RC0Q052SBEA/1000

But the majority of Americans are not earning anything like $73k/year. Since the Reagan years, the number of Americans living in poverty and extreme poverty has climbed and climbed. And while their declining income sure drags down that average, it's dragged way, way, way up by another group of Americans – the ultra-rich.

You see, as Fix writes, back in the Reagan years, America initiated an experiment in redistribution. Reagan enacted policies that moved most of the nation's wealth from the great majority of working people to a tiny minority of people who ended up owning pretty much everything. Throw their income into the mix, and the average American's income is sufficient to finance the average American home, with plenty to spare.

In other words, this isn't an "average human has fewer than two arms" situation, it's more like a "Spiders Georg" situation. Spiders Georg is a Tumblr meme about a guy who eats 10,000 spiders every day and is thus single-handedly responsible for the (false) statistic that the average human eats two spiders a week:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiders_Georg

The American rich – Reagan's progeny – are the Spiders Georg of house prices. By hoarding the great mass of American national wealth, they create a statistical mirage of affordable housing.

Now, that's interesting, but where Fix goes next with this is even more fascinating. If the average price of housing (relative to average income) has stayed fixed since 1970, then it follows that the price of housing isn't being driven up by a problem with supply. Rather, these numbers suggest that America has enough housing, it's just that (most) Americans don't have enough money.

If that's true – and I have a couple of quibbles, which I'll get to in a sec – then the most common prescription for solving American housing (building more of it) is somewhat beside the point. For Fix, using public funds to subsidize cheaper housing is like using public funds to pay for food stamps for working people whose wages are too low to keep them from starving. Sure, we should do that: no one should be without a home and no one should be hungry. But if working people can't afford shelter and food, then we have a wage problem, not a supply problem.

Fix – as ever – has a well-thought through, painstakingly documented "sources and methods" page to back up his conclusions:

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2024/10/23/the-american-housing-crisis-a-theft-not-a-shortage/#sources-and-methods

And while Fix acknowledges that reversing the mass transfer of wealth from working people to their bosses (and their bosses' idle offspring) is a big lift, he rightly wants to keep the question of wages (rather than housing supply) front and center in our debate about why so many of us are finding it hard to keep a a roof over our heads. We need progressive taxation, higher minimum wages, protection from medical and education debt, and hell, why not a job guarantee?

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/25/canada-reads/#tcherneva

I love Fix's work, and this report is no exception. He does it all in his spare time. Some nice progressive think tank should give him a grant so he can do (a lot) more of it.

That all said, I do have a quibble with his conclusion about the adequacy of the American housing supply. In California, we have a shortage of 3-4 million homes, a number arrived at through the relatively robust method of adding up the number of California families that would like to have their own homes and subtracting the number of homes available near those families:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_housing_shortage

How to explain the discrepancy? One possibility is that the price of housing is artificially low, because more than 181,000 people are homeless here. Hundreds of thousands of more people are living in overcrowded housing, with multiple families inhabiting spaces intended for just one (or even a single person). If all of those people were competing for housing, the price might rise even higher.

Think of the people who have given up looking for work – because they're not in the workforce, wages go up. If they were competing in the labor market, wages would fall. Maybe all those people would prefer to have a job, but they're missing from the statistics.

That's one theory. Another is that we're getting tripped up on averages again here. California does have some towns with many vacancies, extra supply that is pushing down prices; it's also got many places with far more people who want to live there than there are homes for. It's possible that there's enough supply on average across the states, but – as we've seen – averages are deceptive.

Ultimately, I think both things can be true: we have a wage problem and we have (many, localized) supply problems. Both of these problems deserve our attention, and neither is acceptable in a civilized society.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/24/i-dream-of-gini/#mean-ole-mr-median

[lackeyhenchman]

We stopped in a store that we've always thought must be a front because they only sell lamp shades. Turns out they're awesome but also sell a texting dictionary that had me almost peeing my pants (THMAPMP)

[citrussmoke]

good morning birkinators i'm unfortunately at work rn

[oifaaa]

Do you own your place? I thought you rented.

Nope brought a house last year after saving up since I was 16 - saying you own your own home is impressive until your boiler breaks and you remember all your savings went to your down payment last year

[fishymom-art]

Hello 👋 New follower on board, I love ur fix a beast au🥹 and I just wanna ask what is the relationship between dark choco and cloud haetae cookie now in this au

(I love ur art and au,I hope u make more. have a good night/day/afternoon)

They’re like siblings!

[aalloochaat]

no but sick!eren would be the biggest menace ever and im here for it tbh

stage one of eren getting sick? denial. he’ll pretend he’s not sick, even though he’s coughing so hard you’re afraid his lungs are gonna fall out. 

claims he doesn’t get sick, doesn’t need to be taken care of because “im not a baby, goddamnit!”

he is the biggest, clingiest, whiniest baby you’ve ever met. 

can and WILL pout that you’re not giving him any kisses. tries to pull you close for cuddles, but you resist, keeping a safe distance.

“i’m not getting sick too, eren u dumbass man child”

“NOOOO BUT I LOVE YOU BABY WHY WONT YOU KISS ME ☹️☹️☹️☹️”

he’ll settle down once you put on a tv show (because i firmly consider him an ipad kid) and give him some homemade chicken noodle soup. he almost cries because no one has made soup for him before.

one thing about eren is that he gets SO emotional when he’s sick he literally becomes the 🥺 emoji

he’s delirious as fuck because of his fever but god forbid he’ll ever have medicine for it. because according to him, “ ‘s all part of a conspiracy theory, pretty girl! they're gonna like, control us!!! i dont trust the hospitals they just want money1!!!! just… just rub some dirt on me and i'll be brand new !!!!!!!”

“eren, your father is literally a doctor.” “yeah but i hate him so he doesn’t count!”

has to be spoon fed or he’ll refuse to eat. once he starts feeling better after eating, he WILL try and sneak out of bed to run around and show off his sTrEnGtH only to puke up all the food because he got dizzy. 

he’s also very unpredictable ??????? he just doesn’t like being sick but isn’t willing to do anything to become better but at the same time complains about being sick and wanting something to make him feel better BUT WILL LITERALLY REFUSE MEDICINES? (he wants you to baby him even more but he’d rather go on a date with that stupid horseface than admit it)

whines about being bored, pats his lap and winks at you when you ask him what he wants to do. you just roll your eyes at him.

what a pathetic little mess of a man. you love him <3

[pheedraws]

[WIP] something something need to sit on that man's lap

[whirlwindwonderland]

EMERGENCY COMMISSION SLOTS (3/3 OPEN) (Goddamnit Not Again)

HEY FRIENDS!!! Sorry to once more barge in here in a panic, seems like I literally just did this last year, but I am! Once more!!! Being beset by catastrophic technological troubles!!! Why is this my life!!!

My drawing tablet, which I've had since 2019, is on her way out. And I. Do not want to go back to being stuck in the Traditional Art Only hell-zone or lose a decent chunk of how I pay rent every 2 weeks. SO!

If I can sell 3 voice animation commissions, I'll be able to replace her without tanking my ability to pay my rent. So I have 3 slots open for animations, which I will be working on as quickly as possible with the currently dying tablet as soon as I get any orders.

Thank you so much for your consideration, any signal boost at all is a big help and im once again very sorry to be asking for big help again so soon ;u;

[lynxthewolf1]

God damnit which flavor of star bound character are youuuu!! They can't all be whores its not mathematically possible /ref

They are not all in fact whores but I think the audio im referencing is the whoreifacation of bound smp in a nutshell. /j /lh

[dazav-art]

This is my first Yellowjackets fanart I’ve ever posted!

I found this pose on Pinterest and I had to use it for Jackie and Shauna.

[qkmlh]

Do you think the only two things Dean would consider his, wholeheartedly with his entire being, would be Sam and Baby??