So my husband and I were looking at a house this weekend. It was filthy. Disgusting. Hadn't been cleaned. They did a landlord's special paintjob on the cabinets and painted even the hardware grey. The listing highlighted as a selling point the fresh paint job--and you could tell they didn't clean anything before they painted, and they got paint on the floor and the countertops. The windows had condensation on the inside because either the install job or the windows themselves were defective, sub-par products. The owners had put a security system in 20 years ago, and every single place they ran wiring to monitor if the window was opened or not had damaged the window seal.

We had our buyer's agent realtor tell us that "if the window opens and closes, it'll get rated pass in an inspection." And it was like ... do people just generally not know that functionality includes making things sealed right so you don't get moisture buildup? Moisture means MOLD. Mold means I get sinus infections constantly and can't work. This house looked like a great deal, but there were signs of poor labor execution all over the house. From a 2004 build. The only thing in the house that was executed correctly was the tile install, miracle of all miracles. It went 20 years without a crack because they did the tile right.

We discussed offering $15k below asking due to the window issue, and the realtor maintained that was unreasonable because houses are worth what people would pay for it, and because in Oklahoma you have to have a new roof to sell the property, there is likely no wiggle room in the $250k home range.

I was livid after this house showing. It's such a crock that a home should have completely failed installation, with obvious signs of it, and this doesn't impact the sale value of the house. I was livid because the entire industry is based on ignorance of the buyers. On cheap labor from Mexico and central America where no one is ever punished for bad work, except the honest good faith buyer. It's such a CROCK that the age of the house basically doesn't alter the market value except in design changes that occurred over the years. The people doing the work aren't the licensed personnel on file in residential, and the inspectors don't give a shit. They don't come out often enough to catch all of the bad work, and the cheap illegal labor only cares about completion. And you're just culturally expected to buy shit product because "that's market value", because everyone needs a home.

and that doesn't cover the neighborhood, where the entry-level single family homes have been flooded with foreigners, so your quality of life will be lower because the culture of the community you live in isn't American. I don't want Indian neighbors. I'm American. I want AMERICAN neighbors.

RFK Jr. said it really well: cushy socialism for the rich, brutal capitalism for everyone else. Because spoiler: if you make $75k a year, the median salary in our area, you can't actually afford the $250k starter home because it's over 40% of your after tax income.