Aunt B. has been talking about buying a house, but it’s a bit daunting.

Okay, so, I’ve been talking to everyone I see in person about buying a house, everyone except for a banker, because I just don’t want to go in and waste time if I can’t afford a mortgage.  And so I’m playing this f**ked up game in my mind where I talk about getting a house and I dream about getting a house, but I go to the mortgage calculators online and they say that I can’t afford a house.

Never mind that every month I write a check that is a house payment.  Hell, it’s probably more than the payment on this place.

Is it a good time for her or not? There are plenty of real estate folks out there who might be able to give her some logical good advice but also remember, buying a house is also about our inner emotions and fears about setting down roots.

What does one do?

The Rich half of country duo Big & Rich is building a home called Villa Rich on top of a hill in Nashville.  It could easily be called Villa Big if the photo at That’s Messed Up is accurate.  It reminds me a little of a water slide.

But even better is this link brought to us by our beloved CeeElCee.  He directs us to the architecture company’s design of the home and it’s well worth a peek.

I adore Evil Amy who happens to be house-hunting right now.  She wrote a post giving real estate agents and home flippers some excellent advice - if only they would listen. 

• If I were a listing agent and someone came to me and said, “hey, I want to sell this house, but I have piles of crap everywhere,” you know what I’d say? “Rent a storage unit and call Professional Organizer Person.” OK, so the listings in my price range aren’t exactly the kind that one would want to pay to have professionally “staged,” but you could at least bother to not have a giant, rabid pit bull caged up in each room of the house. Just make SOME effort.
• “Bars on windows” is not a feature, no matter how many exclamation points you put after it.
• and my personal FAVORITE (besides telling lazy agents to take some pictures and stop lying on the listing!)… Just say no to Boob Lights. They’re not that much cheaper than good lights, and they look half ass. And like boobs.

I don’t know what’s worse when I show houses:  1) the used underwear laying on the floor, 2) the cockroaches ambling across a counter-top, or 3) the neighbors screaming profanities at each other.  No wonder the seller wants to move.  While some things are out of their control, picking up underwear and spraying the house for bugs is something a seller can do.  Just do it or you won’t sell the house or you won’t get what you want for it.  And Evil Amy will write about you!

Read Evil Amy’s whole post right here.

Saturday and Sunday, April 19-20, are going to be a big real estate days in Nashville and the surrounding communities.  The Historic Germantown blog brings us news of the Fifth Annual LIVE IT UP! Downtown Home Tour to “showcase urban living in Nashville.”

At the LIVE IT UP! Downtown Home Tour, you will experience the exciting urban environment, the unique architecture, and the contemporary developments available or on the way. From true lofts to luxurious spaces….panoramic views…floor to ceiling windows…unique floor plans….original historic elements left in the design…you’ll see it all downtown!

That’s totally my cup of tea.  I’ll probably go on Saturday because I’ll be holding my own open house on Sunday. Watch The Tennessean on Friday, April 18, for a special section on “Affordable Housing” as a supplement to the weekend paper.  A map will be printed with locations of open houses participating in the Sunday “Tour of Homes.” Only homes priced under $150,000 can participate. 

Wannabe country music star Jessica Simpson may be making a big move - from L.A. to Nashville.  Casa Sugar is reporting that she may have purchased a 10,925-square-foot, 7-bedroom, 8-bath home in Nashville, TN, known as “The Queen of Northumberland” for $3.47 million.

I found it online and it’s a really pretty house. The inside is gorgeous:

And now, Daisy Duke:

Six Meat Buffet brings us a link explaining the mortgage crisis using simple stick figures and some saucy, adult language.  It’s a must read.

Stick Customer: Gee, I’d like to buy a house, but I haven’t saved any money for a downpayment and I don’t think I can afford the monthly payments.  Can you help me?

Stick Lender: Sure! Since the value of houses will always go up, we don’t need downpayments anymore!

My picture is nowhere near as good, but since stick figures are the only ones I can draw, I take every opportunity.

Menh.  Go read the real good stuff here.

Foreclosures are just bad for everyone involved.  Not only do decent hard-working people lose the roof over their heads, but to rub salt in the wound, the value of your home dips because of their hard luck.  My friend and colleague Butch gives us a scenario about about how foreclosures hurt the neighborhood.

The lender just wants enough money to pay off most of the loan regardless of what it’s worth.  The house could go for $150,000, but the bank sold it for $125,00 just to get rid of it. 

Butch links to an MSNBC news article that I’ve seen floating around at Comcast, The Tennessean, etc.  And while you’re digesting that troubling information, here’s more from CNN.  My cheerful outlook is dimming.

I really enjoyed reading a post by Les Jones about his Mom’s First Brush with Electricity.

Once the family had a place with electricity her dad bought her mom an electric clothes washer. There was room in the kitchen for the washer, but her mother didn’t want it there. She wanted it on the porch so that everyone could see that she owned a washing machine. I used to wonder why people around here used to have washing machines on their front porches and I guess that’s why. If you had never owned an electric appliance in your life you’d be mighty proud of it and you’d want to show it off.

So now if we see a washer on the porch - or a couch - maybe we should be proud that we have electricity and a nearby furniture store!

In all seriousness, we sure take things for granted these days, but it hasn’t really been that long since our modern conveniences came on the scene. We have the nice LCD panel TV sets where things are brighter, clearer, crisper, but I vividly remember the day I stepped off my school bus when I lived in Arkansas. My 10-year old legs ran all the way home so I could see our brand spanking new COLOR television! No more black and white! We didn’t have a remote control then … had to wait a few years for the mute button (the best part of the TV remote). When I met my husband, his grandmother still lived in a home with no indoor plumbing and heated by a coal stove. The trips to the outhouse were not fun in the heat of summer nor during frigid winters.

Given oil prices and water shortages, I wonder if it’ll take just 50 to 100 years to come full circle in the way we live.

Last year at this time, I was curled in the fetal position whimpering in my dark bedroom.  My phone wasn’t ringing.  While at work, these phones weren’t ringing.  Something was up in the real estate world and that something was real estate business was waaay down.  January through May ‘07 were early indicators to me that the economy was turning bad.  We then started hearing the news about subprime loans hitting the housing industry below the belt.

I am still hearing news of gloom and doom.  U.S. News & World Report just published an article called “Nightmare on Main Street” describing how our subprime disaster has “cascaded into a global financial mess.”  However, contrary to what everyone else is saying these days I think the market is getting ready to rebound.  I base this solely on my own incoming calls, inquiries, and gut feeling.  The difference, though, is my calls are now for higher end homes rather than the “affordable” homes ranging up to the $150,000 price mark.

My first thought is that people with money are doing what they should be doing… buying low now to sell high later.  But if that was the case, I think we’d see more of the lower prices moving quickly rather than the $400,000 up market soaring.  In considering my own higher end clients, these are people who have thought of an idea and pursued it like Newscoma does her Bigfoot.  These are the true stories showing that through a lot of hard work and luck, you can build a hugely successful business.

Meanwhile for others, hardship continues to rock their worlds.  Earlier in the week, the marketing director for the company stopped by and showed a map of foreclosures across the nation linked through our web page. 

I was shocked that Tennessee has as much red as it has, yet thankful I’m not an agent in a western state, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, or Michigan.  I am seriously considering a move to Maine!  (Just kidding, too darn cold for me there!).  Nevertheless, I still believe the recovery of the housing market will begin long before the economists-in-the-know are predicting (late Fall and into 2009). 

So let’s take a jog around the park and see what’s going on in the real life housing market and neighborhoods.

UPDATE:  Well hello MCB.  I published this while at lunch!  So here’s the rest of the post…

Four Door Handbasket may have found an affordable home in the Sylvan Heights ‘hood.  When “they” say “time is of the essence” they mean it.  If you love it, don’t let it slip away.  Jeffraham’s scooter nearly slipped away in is ‘hood.  But he scared them off defending his bike like Braveheart defended his true love.  Didn’t she die? 

In Southern Beale’s neck of the woods, the mosquitos are under a death watch.  Maybe.  Unless the neighbors opt out of the mosquito spray.  When our yards were sprayed in Kentucky, they were done with a “stay indoors for two hour”-type warning. 

And finally, Chris is bragging on the group of private citizens who’ve weighed in on a design for a new Music City Center.  Nice

Okay, now I’m done.

UPDATE 2:  Some day I’ll figure out this whole time stamp stuff. 

Chris Elrod has been writing a great series on warming up your winter interiors.  My favorite, of course, is the cheapest least expensive.  You can paint, get new curtains window treatments, change your room, accessorize!, and put in new shag carpet.  Shag really is making a comeback, but not the purples, greens, and oranges of the past.  I’ve seen a lot of speckled beiges.

Singer Michelle Branch just bought a home here. 

Singer and longtime Big Time Listings fave Michelle Branch has paid $1,350,000 for a house in the Belle Meade area of Nashville, Tenn.

I want so badly to show you a picture of the stone home, but alas I must respect copyright photo laws.

Michael Jackson may lose his merry-go-round and the rest of his estate due to nonpayment of mortgage. 

“There are plenty of lenders willing to work with him. The real estate market is very bad right now and Jackson is being affected just like many other Americans,” the source said.

I wonder if the [maybe] Bahrainian had a subprime loan when he bought the Neverland Ranch.  Maybe he had an ARM.  Or maybe he’s been laid off work or had a major medical problem.  But not to worry!  The same source says it’s unlikely that Jackson will allow the home to be foreclosed when he just caught up with the taxes on it a few weeks ago. 

Speaking of taxes… Slarti posted a while back that property taxes may be going up.

I don’t know what this will mean in your household, but in ours, reappraisal means our annual taxes go up. Most of the time, pretty substantially. It’s like a tax hike without anyone having to take the political hit for instituting a tax hike.

Meanwhile, the foreclosure market is alive and well in Spring Hill.  Local agent Rodney offers some advice about buying a foreclosure:

Yes. There are alot of foreclosed properties on the market. However, there are alot of existing and new homes that have significantly come down in price as well.  …AND…

Most home owners who have fallen in foreclosure over the last 2 years, owe just as much on the house as it’s worth. In reality, the banks want as much of their money back as possible. So, don’t always assume it will be an even better deal than an existing or new home.

I read not-too-long-ago that the Tennessee Bankers Association has asked the state to set up a database that will track foreclosures in the state.  The link in the Tennessean is lost behind a pay-for-a-password-archive, so you bloggers who hate bloggers who regurgitate the news have lucked out!

In the business, we call it REAL(i)TY tv.  Some of the shows are dreadful, others not so bad.  To help you out, Katherine Coble reviews the good, the bad, and the ugly.  See if you can figure out the show:

Show 1 - The Good
I admit I have a certain amount of glee when people point out a house they think they’d like to live in and she kindly tells them that the house goes for about triple the amount they can afford.

Show 2 - The Bad
Most of the time they want the valuation in order to get a large Home Equity loan for more renovations. But it still smacks of greed. I’ve seen people throw a fit because their house only appreciated $300K in two years. I just don’t get that mindset.

Show 3 - The Ugly
After watching about nine thousand half hour episodes I’ve decided this show could also be called Fools And Their Money. It’s gotten so bad that the newest episodes begin with a disclaimer about “real people risking real money” lest any of us other real people get an idea in our head.

Go ahead and try to guess what shows Kat is describing!  Her full post over here is very insightful and funny!

When I drive by the humongo homes in Brentwood and other areas, I sometimes wonder where I’ve gone wrong in my life.  Although my husband and I have worked for years and years, we still stress when it comes to paying bills.  I’ve asked the question before: what do these people do for a living to afford these homes?  I’ve often heard from lenders that the people have no back-up plans and one missed paycheck or illness will do them in… just like other everyday folks like me running after the American dream.  They’re in debt up to their eyeballs.

*Tamara K. links to an article in USA Today that says home ownership is just plain and simple unaffordable for many people - especially those who work in the service industry.  I just read or saw that the service industries comprise 70-80% of jobs in the country today, but I can’t find the source so take that statistic with a grain of salt.  Meanwhile, Tamara says,

They should have farmed this study out to the Department of the Obvious, who could have done it much cheaper. If they wanted to run with the theme, they could have pointed out that home ownership is also out of reach of the incarcerated, minor children, and the deceased.

Owning your own home IS the American dream, but my advice is to forget it if you’re not ready.  Don’t be so anxious that you hurt your long-term financial stability because you jumped in too soon.  Put up with those obnoxious neighbors (hey, you get them when you own, too), that greedy, lazy landlord, and living without a garage.  Try to save some money.  Yes, this is a good time to buy but take your time and make sure you have a couple of mortgage payments set aside in preparation of an emergency situation.  The waiting is never fun, but it’s better than losing your home.

In other housing news - or in this case nonhousing news i.e., homeless - Chris Wage brings us this information.  There are ramifications of homeless policies.  Very sad stuff.

*HT: Les Jones.

Repeating it from Southern Beale’s view - which I agree with - about most Planning Commissions, SoBeale described the overbuilt condo units in Nashville as the fault of the “flaccid Planning Commission.” 

It’s the fault of greedy out-of-state developers who are not invested in our local community, just here to make a quick buck and move on. It’s the fault of a flaccid Planning Commission that never saw a construction permit it didn’t like.

In my own neck of the woods, I live near a massively massively overbuilt subdivision whose developer is from out-of-the-country (as in not in the U.S.) specialized in “affordable housing” and who allegedly had two of his ”guys” named as members of the Planning Commission.  The members of the Planning Commission approved everything that came before it unless constituents got in their faces.  The result?  Poorly constructed homes stacked on top of each other with neighborhoods now crying woe-is-me because of cars parked in mudpits formerly known as yards and drive-by shootings because many of the buyers brought their criminal spawn with them (not ALL the homes, mind you - just a few bad apples spoiling the barrel).

So yeah.  If I had a magic wand to wave, I’d make all members of planning commissions and developers LIVE where they’ve built, with no option to sell and move for at least four years.

Back to Southern Beale: The good news about overbuilding is that eventually the market will even out between new construction and existing homes.  I see builders (and building industry employees and ancillary companies) suffering most while we go through this adjustment period (I know, duh!).  People will continue to buy, but in a buyers’ market they have more to choose from and will be in a better negotiating position.

In other news, if you are working with a Realtor and he/she seems a tad paranoid to you, this is why.  A 24-year old real estate agent in British Columbia was killed on Sunday showing a home.  If your agent seems skittish, it’s not that Realtors don’t trust you… rather it’s that we are kind of partial to living.  Don’t be offended if you’re asked to show your driver’s license prior to a showing (and a copy of it is made).  It’s just a safety measure.

The latest cut by the Feds to the interest rate isn’t exactly being met with open arms and glee. CurrencyTrading.net posted a list of reasons we should be critical of the Federal Reserve including several that are fairly obvious:

• Warning signs ignored The argument: Early subprime whistleblowers, including a senior Fed official, tried in vain to elicit a reaction from the Fed. It’s true that the Fed should never act as a regulator, but it could have easily called for lending reform. … and …
• Reward for bad behavior The argument: …Fed policy in the wake of the economic slowdown seems to reward it [bad behavior]. Financial stocks have been justifiably hammered in recent months, but the Fed’s recent economic interventions are tailored to bailing them out first.

My personal mortgage lender appeared last night and this morning on Channel 2 News talking about how the rate cut doesn’t necessarily equate to a rate cut on home loans - that there are a lot of factors that come in to play (credit score! type of loan!) when financing a home.

Mortgage rates fell Thursday, in the wake of another federal rate cut, but not necessarily because of it. “People automatically think that because there is a federal rate cut there is a mortgage rate cut. Quite honestly they don’t correspond to each other,” Scott Matuk, broker with First Community Mortgage, clarified Thursday.

Finally, Miranda at the Loan Shak found a parody of what the rate cut means to “everyday” people.

Here’s a link to the vid! (Note, Ginger the techno-savvy one has embeded this video below for your viewing pleasure).

I’d love to save a thousand a month on my four million dollar properties. Ha.

It’s only been a short time since I discovered LeBlanc over at a natural deficiency of moral fiber and since then I have fallen madly in like with his posts, like I did with Newscoma two years ago.  So here I am flailing around as Miss Real Estate and Neighborhood person who needs to find some more real estate and neighborhood bloggers.  You can sense the desperation when I can tie-in spackling with real estate - even this kind of spackling.

There’s some of THAT spackling that needs done at my house.  Meanwhile, shoot me your URL at that linkie-email-hoo-haw on the right (aka tips @ musiccitybloggers . com) if you write about neighborhoods or real estate and I’ll add you to my feed reader or reader feed.

Oh, and thanks LeBlanc for Le dessin animé.

$800 or $1200.  Plus $300 p/child.  The Great Tax Rebate of 2008 will be squandered might cover a portion of one mortgage payment.  I think Sarcastro may be on to something:

Forget helping everyone. Not everyone can be saved from their own financial dumbassery. You can’t control what free people do with their money. Maybe a few will pay off their mounting consumer debt. Rest assured, they will be right back in the soup a month or two later. Most, of course, will blow it.

He suggests paying off existing mortgages for about 750,000 census-registered Americans.  I would gladly throw my $800 in the pool if there was a chance I could have my entire house paid off.  Afterall, the chances seem a little better than winning the Powerball.

One of the joys of old age is that if the draft ever comes back, I’d be ineligible.  My phone rang some time ago and it was none other than the best of the bad - BadBadIvy - seeking to draft me for something completely different than military service or kicking hockey pucks.   Instead, she asked if I’d consider becoming an editor at MCB to cover Real Estate and Neighborhoods.  When I’m not listing and selling homes in Middle Tennessee,  I write for Shak & Jill, This is LaVergne, This is Smyrna, and my own personal blog. 

Writing is in my blood.  I have a B.S. in Journalism and spent years in corporate communications before my family and I relocated to the Nashville area about 4 1/2 years ago.  However, when we moved here I was incredibly disappointed in the agent we had chosen to guide us through our real estate transaction.  Always the pretentious one, I thought I could do a better job than she did and enrolled in the required classes to get my license.  In all honesty, my first year was very difficult because in real estate, it’s all about who you know in order to gain referrals.  This new transplant didn’t know anyone… the nicest person I sort of knew was my daughter’s bus driver because he always smiled and waved at me in the morning.  But never a quitter, I stuck with it and have found that it’s one of the best jobs in the world.  As an agent, I get to have fun (set my own hours), help people, and make money.  A pretty good gig, all around.

With today’s real estate market, we hear over and over and over and over and over a lot about how the housing bubble has burst.  Ironically, real estate agents in Middle Tennessee don’t necessarily agree with that national assessment.  The national media like to ignore the fact that all real estate is local.  Just because home sales in California, Nevada and Florida have tanked, it doesn’t mean that all markets have fallen apart.  I heard earlier on some network morning show that the housing market won’t recover until 2009.  I say BULL-DOOKIE!  In middle Tennessee we had our fourth best year EVER in 2007 and right here at the end of January, my phone is already busy.

So don’t be discouraged when it comes to real estate.  Like Malia, Ned, Jim did before me, I’ll throw you a quote:

Well, real estate is always good, as far as I’m concerned.
Donald Trump

You go, The Donald.

From Rob Robinson over at thinktrain:

The A.A. Birch Criminal Justice Building (above) is landing some high praise from Skyscraperpage.com architecture fans along with the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. One user made the point that these are “two buildings that Nashville can be exceptionally proud of.” I agree, and I’m encouraged to see so many landmark structures and locations appearing during the last 10 to 15 years. Downtown Nashville, in particular, is a much different and much better place, I think, than it was as recently as 1993 or so.

With so many new buildings going up around the city, it makes me proud to know that we are being recognized for some unique and interesting designs.

…so let’s build some more on top of a battlefield. Okay, I think it’s commercial development, but still. Cravensworld writes:

Just finished reading Robert Hicks’ novel “The Widow of the South,” it takes place during the 2nd battle of Franklin November 30, 1864. On the Union side there were 2,326 casualties. The Confederate total was 6,261. There are 1,481 of the Confederate dead buried behind the Carnton mansion which is where “Widow” was set.

Right now the battlefield itself is under siege by developers. I’ll be the first to say I don’t get all misty eyed when I hear Dixie (there’s a lump in my throat, but it’s bile) but I do feel like we need to preserve more of our historic places no matter how unpleasant the memory. Didn’t someone say “If we don’t remember our history we are doomed to repeat it.”

My rant is only tangentially related, but this reminds me of how pissed I am at developers in my neighborhood. I live in what may be the largest neighborhood in TN, and houses are for sale all over it. I don’t mean just a few, I mean out of about 30 houses on my street, 10 are for sale. Yet every day I feel shaking from where they’re blasting. Blasting out more hills to put yet more houses on. Seriously, do they really need to build more houses when so many are for sale?

And it’s not just the developers who tick me off- recently on the This Is LaVergne blog we were talking about more retail for LaVergne  and several people talked about wanting Walmart to come to LaVergne. Why? There are 2 stores within 5 miles of 37086. There are 8 within 15 miles of 37086. Do we really need yet another WalMart in town? I don’t think so.

I understand the need for growth, but I think things are beginning to get ridiculous.

Ariah Fine has some ideas about the Economy Of Jesus. Quite simply, he believes that Christians should operate on a different economic level and with different interactions than non-Christians.

* Whenever possible, foster a gift economy.
This goes beyond just sharing stuff. Instead, it encourages people to
give stuff without expectation.
* Christians should try to open source all of their intellectual property.
Instead of seeing our creations as our property, we should see it as
belonging to the Body of Christ. I believe that this is more faithful
to our theology than assuming that we “need to work within the system.”
We don’t anymore.
* Garden with friends and share the bounty.
* Supplement your gardening with Community Supported Agriculture.
* Share housing. It frees up money for other
things, fosters sharing of resources, encourages hospitality, and helps
us live the way that most people in the world live (and the way folks
in America lived before the 1940s).
* Start making and fixing more things yourself.

* If you can’t make it or fix it, buy it used.
* Instead of investing in your future, invest in the futures of others through micro-financing.
* Reclaim Christmas as a celebration of Christ, rather than a
celebration of affluence.

He goes into detail about these points at his blog. Many of them are interesting points to ponder for those of us who are Christian.

Blue Collar Muse has an excellent post about the social costs of subprime bailouts.

The first price we pay is in the area of relationships. If we bailout people in financial trouble, how do we decide who gets bailed out and who doesn’t? This is precisely how resentment between groups begins? Why are folks with mortgage troubles more deserving than those with big medical bills? Both face financial challenges that might destroy them financially. Why bail out one and not the other?

This can only produce people angry with the system and each other. We choose one group over another, pitting them against each other for pieces of a finite pie. If we bail out mortgage holders, there will be others wanting money. Once Constitutional constraints are discarded, which permit nothing like a bailout, there are no guidelines to determine who hits the bailout lottery. It’s purely a subjective decision.

There’s much more in the post and it’s all very good for pondering.

I love me some 100 Oaks. I don’t know why; loving 100 Oaks is sort of like loving your crazy uncle who drives an AMC Pacer and has one change of clothes. In the 17 years I’ve lived here, it’s been about 3 different things.

It’s getting yet another makeover, and Rob Robinson seems pretty excited about it even though there’s no talking robot show.

I like what I’m hearing about this project because it preserves what is working well on the property (major merchants such as CompUSA, Michael’s and the Hollywood 27 theaters) and makes good use of what is not working at all (the all-but-abandoned interior space of the mall).

The Blue Collar Muse has some thoughts about the Countrywide Bail-out.

These sorts of lenders ought to suffer for their greed. Left to the mercies of the market, they do. The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter reports since late 2006, 170 lenders have gone under or are in serious financial trouble from marketing subprime loans. These firms have no claim to taxpayer funds to bail them out of a mess they helped create. As with 1980s junk bonds, high risks caught up to high returns and they are paying the price. Lenders which refused to offer subprimes or kept a good mix in their portfolio, are doing just fine today. Further, good loans at good rates are available and becoming more so.
…
This brings us to the other half of the equation, the borrower. If we fault lenders making bad loans, we must also fault borrowers taking them. The truth is, not everyone can afford a home at any given point. Home ownership is an earned privilege, not a right. Still, some borrowers ignore easily predictable consequences for the “joy of homeownership” at any cost. Now that the cost has come-a-callin’, taxpayers, via government bailouts, should not be the ones to pay.

I know this question comes up a lot around these parts, but I tell you I still feel the need to ask it.

Dan went to a breakfast about Signature Tower, the building which is like Michael Jackson’s wedding night with Lisa Marie Presley. It’s often talked about, much speculated over, never witnessed and slightly frightening in both concept and execution.

But I guess they’re still gonna build it. I have no idea who these potential occupants ARE, though. Check this out:

The lead developer also extended an offer for”2nd home in the city” units that are 870 sq ft and are available for $400K, with 5% down and 2% when the building is topped.

All I can think of is various executives trying to tryst with Miss Kubelik. Are there really a whole lot of folks with homes in the outlying counties who also want to spring more than a third of a million bucks for a crash pad?

If so, what exactly do they do for a living?