Re: "Targeting" the wealthy
From: Lion Kuntz (lionkuntzyahoo.com)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 03:11:21 -0700 (PDT)

--- Chris ScottHanson <chris [at] cohousingresources.com> wrote:

> Someone said...
> "When resale value is a big issue you can pretty well bet your  
> neighbors are planning to be temporary."

I said that some messages back. I've been peripheral to the real estate
racket and the construction biz off-and-on over the past 40 years of my
life. I have a personal view as well as cognizance of the dominant
paradigm. I was thinking personally. I worked under a mentor who
specialized in "resale value". He taught me his philosophy. It went
like this: "There are two ways to make money in real estate: buy a
property and run it down getting all you can get out of it without
putting anything in that you absolutely don't have to, or buy run-down
properties undervalued for their neighborhood and fix them up and sell
them at market value" He did the latter, holding properties for an
average of six months before turning them over. He increased his "net
worth" by $8 million in the year I worked with him, so he has some
valid points.

When you are buying a property with the resale in mind before you have
even acquired it, yes, you are temporary, not any kind of "neighbor".
 
>   "OR, they are realistic, know life changes, and they recognize that
> they might want to send their kids to college one day.
> 
> In this country, with tax laws the way they are and have been for  
> many decades, home ownership is THE significant way to invest in  
> one's future, and in ones retirement.  Wanting that investment to be 
> safe, and secure and meaningful, is a natural thing.

The part you forgot is where you live when you have cashed in on your
investment. The kid is in college, yes, I get that part, but you sold
the house according to your theory, so where do you live? Oh, this must
be the part about living in the tent that I didn't understand in
earlier discussions.

 
> If you don't like private ownership of land, consider the  
> alternative, where the "king" or the "General" who is currently in  
> power owns everything, and private ownership is beyond  
> comprehension.  Much of the world lives this way today.  In all case 

Now you have wandered away into incomprehesibility. My liking or not
liking private property is not any issue. The transience of people
drifting around buying and selling property as a priority precludes
other values such as stability and permanence. Rootlessness is not the
only meaningful way to approach life. It is not mandatory. To sink down
roots and become a member of a community is not abdicating anything to
kings or general -- in fact, it is a formidable defense against them.
Divide-to-conquer goes back as far as Julius Caesar who was both an
emperor and a general. An utter lack of commitment to place is hardly a
powerful counter to the machinations of the mighty.

 
> the "people live in poverty" when they can't own their own land.
> 
> Chris

In 1923 a German man received a letter from his banker telling him that
his 3,000,000 Marks savings account was being closed because it was too
small to justify the costs of administration. The value of the stamp on
the letter was 5 million marks. Paper money is not the correct way to
value wealth, and pray you never learn that lesson the way our German
learned it during the hyper-inflation of '23.

Owning land is one thing, buying and selling land as a routine is
something completely else. You seem to have confusion that they are the
same thing. I am not confused.

 
sincerely, Lion Kuntz
from Gates Road "Community", where some neighbors have known each other
for more than 50 years.

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