Looking for a Place in Gaithersburg
Yesterday, I've once again started looking for a place to live in Gaithersburg, MD. Main search tool is Craigslist. The price range is shockingly wide and is solely dependend on people's greed. I understand that they've signed up for some obscene mortgages, but that's not really my problem. Nobody forced them to get in way over their heads in the whole housing bubble.
The situation right now is getting a little bit more desparate for those people. I've been looking at the places off and on for about 6 months now and demographic situation started to change recently. Back in the summer you wouldn't even see any WASPs renting out bedrooms in their houses. Mostly, ethnic minority families that thought they could quickly turn around profit by buying a house and selling it next year for substantial profit.
Most of them didn't have contingency plans in case the market cooled down. This summer they realized that getting rid of the house is very hard. WASPs, apparently, were in for a little longer haul than the rest. Only now that I see them trying to supplement their income by renting out spare rooms. Season for house sales is over until next year's spring and even then no one's sure if the situation will improve.
Another indicator of lowered expectations is the fact that people are willing to forego a credit check on their potential tenants. I usually don't even bother with going through all that BS. My credit isn't perfect (few unpaid ER & ambulance bills), so paying $30 to get turned down by some morons who think that my credit is going to give them indication of my paying ability is illogical.
So, here I am, still entertaining myself by going to other people's houses and amazing myself by obscene amounts of rent money people trying to extract for their basements, closets, and shared bathrooms.
The situation right now is getting a little bit more desparate for those people. I've been looking at the places off and on for about 6 months now and demographic situation started to change recently. Back in the summer you wouldn't even see any WASPs renting out bedrooms in their houses. Mostly, ethnic minority families that thought they could quickly turn around profit by buying a house and selling it next year for substantial profit.
Most of them didn't have contingency plans in case the market cooled down. This summer they realized that getting rid of the house is very hard. WASPs, apparently, were in for a little longer haul than the rest. Only now that I see them trying to supplement their income by renting out spare rooms. Season for house sales is over until next year's spring and even then no one's sure if the situation will improve.
Another indicator of lowered expectations is the fact that people are willing to forego a credit check on their potential tenants. I usually don't even bother with going through all that BS. My credit isn't perfect (few unpaid ER & ambulance bills), so paying $30 to get turned down by some morons who think that my credit is going to give them indication of my paying ability is illogical.
So, here I am, still entertaining myself by going to other people's houses and amazing myself by obscene amounts of rent money people trying to extract for their basements, closets, and shared bathrooms.
posted by Seth at
11:24
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