Just Saving Money, -$800K At A Time

City: Braintree
Asking Price: $795,000

“Move out of the city!” they said.
“Move to the South Shore!” they said.
“Think how much money you’ll save!” they said.
“You can get a house for a fraction of the price!” they said.
“What are you fucking stupid? Just move south and all your problems will be solved,” they said.

I’m a grown man. Don’t tell me shit I know isn’t true.

 

What are we doing here? What am I saving here? $800 large for a ranch because it’s parked in sight of a body of water. I’m a world traveler, my dude. I’ve sailed the southern shores from the the Lynwood to the C Note, and scaled the holy steps of the South Shore Sistine Chapel… Jordan’s Furniture. I know where this place is. This ain’t Lake Tahoe, man. It’s a puddle of water where South Shore Plaza gremlins come to smoke their seeds and stems schwag they buy off kids from Stoughton when they’re done with the scraps they bought off kids from Brockton. I threw a trash can in this lake fucked up on Jolt Cola once. Don’t prestige me with this.

And what the hell am I looking at with this post-apocalyptic homemade tennis court? I’m sitting on a bazillion dollars to buy and renovate this 70’s dungeon and I’m supposed to invite Nicki Minaj and Warren Buffett over to play doubles on the set of 28 Days Later? Is it priced this high because there’s a… what is that a dinosaur egg on the baseline? Hell, if I had that kind of money to throw around I’d just assume buy the whole area, fill the lake with cement and build a Wawa.

Hey South Shore, you ever been to a Wawa? It’s fucking shit. You’ll love it.

Dirt Zamboni

City: Waltham

Asking Price: $649,000

Said and meant: the only time boomers ever recognize that inflation exists is when they’re pricing an ugly ass house no one wants. And here is the House that Generational Lack of Self Awareness Built.

I told you, man. I hate Waltham. I hate it. It’s the Wild West of mediocre real estate with absolutely no guidelines for how to price anything. Case in point, this ranch (yeee haw) has been on the market for almost 3 months and there isn’t a square inch of vacuumed carpet in the building.

I don’t know who these people are, or what the hell they spent their day to day walking through but they lived to ruin a carpet. Scope this Trail of Tears methodically plotted out between the kitchen and the bedroom.
Done with my egg noodles? Time to put on my cleats and immediately stomp off to bed. You think you’re stuck in a rut because you wear the same button down every Monday? It could be worse, bro. You could have a topographical map of your life’s futility emblazoned into the floor for planet Earth to see. Good god. It looks like they rode a dirt zamboni room to room. It looks like they’re clearing out space for Adam Vinatieri to kick a game winner into the kitchen. What a fucking dungeon.

The Linoleum Roadshow going on in the kitchen is not changing my mind any either. You know damn well there’s a decade old paper carton of Five Alive sitting in that fridge.

I’m not even sure what’s wrecking my brain so hard about this last part, but I cannot get past this weird ass double window corner out of my head. Just what the hell was the point of this? I feel like they backed a step ladder into the drywall at one point and decided to just make it a window, and then did it again to the other wall when they were finishing the first window. And you want me to look at this architectural nutsack-zippering for the rest of my life for over $600,000?

I can’t stand it.

Hey There, Meathead

City: Somerville
Asking Price: $649,000

Boy the way the Glen Miller played…

Boston housing shit parade…

Real estate gougers have it made…

Thooooose were the d– Oh jesus what the fuck is happening here?

You’ve got to appreciate the commitment here. Somebody set a $200 lifetime decorating budget in 1962 and did not budge an inch in 60 years. Something tells me the mixed nuts and Lucky Strikes budget had a much more flexible cap, but here were are with a vacuum sealed All in the Family drop ceiling delight fresh out of the time capsule and into a real estate market that was sorely lacking an overpriced beat up grammy period piece.

Did I say lacking? Because I meant filled to the fucking brim with.

Carpet Crypt

City: Malden
Asking Price: $424,900

On an all new X-Files: Mulder & Scully discover a family eaten alive by a parasitic sentient 60 year old sky blue carpet. The scariest part? You guessed it: the sticker price on a house in Malden.

 

 

Even the furniture is covered in carpet. Like, I can look at it and feel that slick plushy carnival game knock-off Elmo toy texture in between my fingers. Whatever symbiotic carpet demon possesses this house, it can imitate furniture to lure victims into digestive clutches. And it’s everywhere. Look at the side view of the stairs and see just how thick and oppressive it is.

Bruh, look at the table by the mirror. That used to be a full sized, and the carpet just grew a quarter inch every year until it devoured it down to just a couple of antique stumps.

If that doesn’t get you, then here’s the end boss:

Mother of god. This is absolutely the nerve center of the Zerg carpet brood. You’re gonna peel back a piece of that I-don’t-even-know-what paneling and find some withered half dead elderly Italian couple wrapped in a cocoon of carpet thread. One of them locks eyes with you… “K…k….” stammers the emaciated body in a hoarse whisper, it’s organs fuzed the carpet glue, “k….. KILL ME… for the love of god kill me already….”

It’s too late for him. And maybe for you. The carpet knows you’re there. It can smell your fear. And you’re in His world now. A rumbling comes from all around you. The drop ceiling tiles shake. You hear the rattle of the tattered strands of Christmas tree bulbs (???) above your head. The dingy Froot Loop green and orange carpet quivers beneath you. Each fiber gyrating feverishly in anticipation as you feel the hot breath on the back of your neck.

He has come. And He will feast. Again.

Ya, But That Dirt Coat There… They Put That On At the Factory.

City: Somerville
Asking Price: $599,000

It’s the smelly kid from kindergarten… IN HOUSE FORM.

 

Look at all these friggin spaccones out there dumping change on clean houses. Who are you trying to impress, dutchess? You want a house that’ll take a beating? Then you want the dirt coated house that can stand the test of today’s modern high paced world. And you want it bad enough to start a bidding war at 600 fucking thousand dollars.

I mean, read the description. It’s an amazing opportunity:

Recently available == Occupants finally died of dirt inhalation.
Amazing Opportunity == Amazing opportunity to also die of dirt inhalation.
Potential to Upgrade == Bulldozer Friendly.

It’s also such a desperate “must see” that there are no interiors here whatsoever. I get that it’s a raw deal to judge a whole family on a street level view of a house, but fuck these people. $600,000 for a house they’ve not only clearly been neglecting, but had to have been actively fanning the exterior with cigar smoke, and stock car exhaust every night. This dump looks like they gave the facade a coat of egg wash, and then got everyone in Foss Park to come empty their vacuum cleaner bags onto it. And someone thought a fair reward for terrorizing a piece of real estate should be $600,000. Whatever Florida condo these people move to I hope a hurricane picks it up and drops in it Rwanda.

This isn’t a new development either. Check the date on this Google screenshot:

May 2016. This wasn’t like there was a fire recently or something drastic. This house has been the pigpen estate for years now. And the white house next to it is clean. Whatever crematorium exists upwind of this neighborhood, at least 1 family had the dignity to hose down their house once in a while.

Thank you to everyone who has sent me the Globe article on the dilapidated fire damaged house up for sale recently. It’s funny to laugh at when you don’t know that obscenely priced and abused houses are the norm, not the exception.

Dibs on the Panda Chair

City: Somerville
Asking Price: $875,000

I want to start with the description here first.

This is Somerville in a nutshell right now: Property Developers Welcome… regular people fuck off… and also don’t forget about the green line station that may or may not be operational in a decade. A family simply couldn’t buy an $875,000 house that needs hundreds of thousands of dollars in renovations and expect to maintain their investment. This is a dog whistle for property developers to come in, gut the building and turn it into a pair of million dollar condos that are also completely unafforadable to anyone who lives here. “Buyer to do due diligence,” yeah no shit. That’s how a buying a shitty house works, but sure, I appreciate the reminder that I’d be making up for 50 years of neglect and still losing money.

But enough of that. Let’s get to it…

Wow! Do these people know how to stage a living room or what? Can you say millionaire bait? Why yes, that IS the same panda beach towel Elon Musk has covering the stains on his chaise lounge. I also dig that the recliner is the exact same shade of small intestine pink as the rug. Like someone got mad that they were banished from the panda chair and piled up carpet scraps to have an equally unpleasant place to sit.

Now, you might not have much of a food budget after you dump your life savings into this fabulous money pit. Life hack: get extra nutrients from chunks of drop ceiling that fall into your pork and beans. Lots of $900k kitchens look like ice fishing shacks, so you can probably save on cosmetics here. Someone has already gotten the job started by smashing and water damaging the ceiling tiles in the three season trash room as well. I don’t know who invented a claw hammer that could spray sewage water but I bet you’re glad as hell that they did now.

> Intern: Hey ummm… Do you think the room looks too empty and draws attention to fact that the carpet is held together by hair and skin flakes?
>> Veteran Real Estate Savant: Just stand stand back and let daddy work his magic.
*Takes the 20″ Zenith out of the TV stand and dumps it on the ground*
> Intern: *Wipes sweat from his brow and genuflects* I was wrong to doubt you, sir.

Ahh the age old question of which came first: the indigo psychadelic zebra throw or the matching Kleenex box? I should talk though. I wish I could accessorize my life this meticulously. Makes me ponder what else is in the plastic storage tote of wonders.

Remember that “partially finished” basement? Hope you like FUCKING ASTRONOMICALLY liberal definitions of your adverbs.

 

What’s finished here, partial or otherwise? The stray spraypaint on the limestone? The oil stained concrete and smashed sink? The open-air toilet auger? Hanging a fluorescent light and then… I’m assuming from the appearance here… walloping it with a baseball bat every single day isn’t exactly my idea of interior design but there’s a lot about art deco I don’t know, I guess.

Fuck this house. Fuck the condo epidemic. Fuck boomers and greatest generationers that stumbled into a house for a stack of 50 cent notes and a bowl of beef stew, neglect it for 50 years and expect to be Scrooge McDuck-ed on their way out the door while lecturing everyone under 40 about the way the world works.

Meatloaf Manor

City: Somerville
Asking Price: $999,000

Quick history lesson:
In 2011 the city of Boston announced Somerville was following through with a long dormant promise of a green line extension from Lechmere out to Tufts for no readily apparent reason. Somerville has more than adequate bus coverage, and two red line stops. Nevertheless, in 2012 the city went to work…err… sort of. More specifically, they razed a bunch of buildings outside Union Square, bullied business owners who refused to sell by driving down property values, and forced people out of their homes via eminent domain.

And then the vacant lots sat there.

For years.

The empty fields of gravel, that once housed homes and businesses, sat there as the city debated a $73 million dollar deficit in the construction budget that miraculously no one considered until after digging up a giant chunk of the city. Those useless patches of rubble sat there doing nothing and have to this day. However, two things… two very noticeable things in Somerville, did not sit still: a large displaced rodent population free to roam Union Square, and the rent.

It’s April 2017. By the MBTA’s own recently revised timeline, the new stations won’t even open until 2021 the earliest, and will not reach full scale until 2030. Meanwhile the rent has been climbing and climbing independent of any actual train station. A one bedroom apartment in Somerville costs between $1800 – $2500 a month, it’s never going down, and someone had the balls to put this godless piece of shit on the market for almost a million dollars.

Ding dong! It’s your new million dollar de-leading hobby. Hope you lead asbestos and splinters. Consider this paragon of peeling pomp the vaunted gateway into what I’ve come to think of as Disney’s Haunted Meatloaf Manor: an austere palace of the financially damned that came back from the grave to haunt a criminally insane real estate market. Behold their weary tales of stale cigarette smoke and property neglect.

First, stop on our spooky tour: the lonely dining room. In the real estate biz we call this “staging.” The act of positioning furniture ever so subtlety as to paint a mental picture of what it’s like to wrestle thoughts of bankruptcy and suicide alone on your flimsy folding chair in your million dollar mansion on your LBJ-era nicotine brown carpet.

Ever fantasized about living in a gingerbread house? How about meatloaf stairs instead?

The ghastly pièce de résistance for certain and every millionaire’s dream: a kitchen that looks like the ruins of a woodland insane asylum. Just keep your eyes on that prehistoric pink wallpaper and gnaw on that CVS brand microwave dinner there, Rockefeller. Definitely don’t concern yourself whose severed what is in that not-at-all-unsettling child’s backpack.

Choo choooo. Last stop on the tour. Well if you can find some drywall sturdy enough to hold an eye bolt for a noose it’ll definitely be the last stop as you descend into financial ruin from the untold amounts of money it will take to fix this shithole. Aw shucks, looks like someone beat you to it though. Oh well. God bless. Happy Halloween. And a spoOooOky foreclosure!

 

 

Good News: It Doubles As A Coffin

City: East Boston
Asking Price: $599,000

What exactly are we doing here?

A phony brick facade to wall off your real life claustrophobia. Does anybody need to be next to the airport and a liquor store this bad that they’d spend their life savings to cram themselves into this? What about this looks comfortable? The tiled living room or the recreated Margaritas lounge area crammed into what would be a closet in a normal home. Why the hell are there so many tables crammed into this tiny room? You tell me. Are you reaching for your checkbook thinking spending the rest of your life scooting by piece of furniture every time you move an inch? The metal legs screeching across your hardwood an inch at a time. Each one a tiny chuckle at the choices you’ve made.

Sir, That’s A Load Bearing TV…

City: Waltham
Asking Price: $739,575

I hate on Waltham a lot. It’s really because Waltham kind of sucks. The traffic sucks. Downtown is a dump. Across the river from where I got married is a park where crackheads yell at geese all day.  There was a short-lived land rush of 20-somethings there in recent years for cheap rent. That’s over with and now they just sort of exist out there like some remote forgotten civilization fighting for a seat at the two bars that aren’t a carbon copy of a VFW basement. But the thing that gets me most about Waltham is that every house looks like it’s owned by some guy who launders money through a limousine rental company, and there’s no real discernible reason as to what exactly separates a $400k house from a $800k house. Case in point, this slice of dimly lit paradise asking over $700,000.

How many CRTs are they still clinging to? Do they come with the house? You can’t even throw those out anymore. Do I just move my stuff in around it? Does it get any other shows besides Wheel of Fortune?

The listing says this a 4 bed, 3 bath home. I guess I’ll just take their word for it considering these are the only interior photos of the whole house. Does it count as 2 bathrooms if there’s a pair of toilets stacked in the corner of the garage? I also dig the realness of the real estate agent that photographed this bedroom with his finger on the lens and didn’t even crop it out. This spot’s got to be worth 3 quarters of a million dollars if the people selling it don’t even need to make it look nice.

Pretty Expensive In Pink

City: Arlington
Asking Price: $619,000

Agent: In lieu of a lead paint disclosure, the seller has coated the house in Pepto Bismol.
Me (A Paint Biologist): Ahh yes, the scientific opposite of lead. Where do I sign??