From: "Sean Gallagher" <dendro-AT-toad.net>
Subject: Re: Capitalism sucks - Reasons to be cheerful
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 07:53:00 -0700


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>If I sell up my shoe-box, pay off my oustanding
>$65943.73 US Dollars and realise my entirely notional
>equity of $220,000 US dollars, how much of Indiana would that get me?

Location, location, location.....

In Baltimore, you can get a rowhouse free of lead paint and bullet holes for $60,000 plus-- or for as little as $200 if you don't mind the lead paint and bullet holes so much.  Of course, we've had a few houses fall over here in Baltimore recently when renovators found the only thing holding the bricks together was the lead paint....

If you don't mind living on the frozen tundra, my folks live in upper New York State just south of Montreal, where you can get 20 acres of woodlot with a 5-bedroom house for around $200,000. It's great, if you don't mind being snowed in from October to April.

Whereas $220,000 would buy you a walk-in closet in the Silly-con Valley region--or at least a 5 year lease.  My company tried to get me to relocate from Baltimore, but since "starter homes" out in Palo Alto start at $1 million (for a 2-bedroom one-story bungalow on a lot the size of a 2-bedroom one-story bungalow), I resisted.

My cousin, a professional musician (he plays trombone in a funk band in SF called "Say What?" as well as a salsa band) lives in a studio apartment that he rents for the paltry sum of $1000/month--in other words, almost 80% of what he takes down every month from his gigs.

Woody Guthrie is still right --- "If you ain't got the Dough Ray Me..."

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