Extreme Makeover: Needs Extreme Volunteers

I also read the article and it seems like these people didn’t have a clue financially. They were given a golden opportunity and blew it.

They didn’t own the home to begin with. Extreme Makeover bought the house they were leasing, tore it down and gave them a brand new house. On top of that the builder paid the mortgage on the new house off, paid the property taxes for a year and gave them 500 dollars each month towards utilities the first year. So basically the first year that they lived in the house was pretty much free.

Flower stickers are peeling away from the wall in the children’s room? Wallpaper is starting to peel? A canvas canopy blew away in a storm? All homes need upkeep! They didn’t realize how expensive it was to run the outside carousel? WTF sell it and get a swing set!

And like Balth said they spend $300 a month on landscaping costs? Neighbors complained about weeds growing in their desert landscape??? She has seven children (another clue.) I’m sorry 9, 11 and 13 year olds can pull weeds.

They have to run 3 air conditioners??? Run one and consolidate activities when it’s hot. Buffalonians with large houses do this in the winter by spot heating main rooms and heating just what is necessary.

A year after the show (still getting the stipend from the builder) they took out a $405,000 adjustable rate mortgage? They then used it to do questionable changes to the house. In 2008 they sold the two cars and made a $14,000 mortgage payment to stall foreclosure…

Lets face it; it was the parents that were the train wreck here not Extreme Home Makeover.

I don;t think Buffalonians are thriftier than those in other parts of the country because they're smarter or more noble and "authentic" than those in the Sunbelt. It's because they have less money.

Also, with home prices being very low in Buffalo, home improvements that would be seen as an investment in another region, which would have a very real effect on increasing the value of the home, don't have the same effect. With a $500,000 house in suburban DC, the result of a $40,000 kitchen improvement would be a $600,000 house. In Buffalo, add a $40,000 kitchen to a $100,000 house, and you get a $110,000 house. When I go online and look at houses in the Buffalo area, the percentage with 1950s and 1960s kitchens are unreal compared to the rest of the country.

I do think those that live in the Buffalo area, and other cities in the Rust Belt, stay in their houses longer than those in other parts of the country. Here in Austin, there's a LOT of housing churn, and even in established areas you don't see the families that have been in the same house for 20+ years; something that's more the norm in Buffalo.

You're exactly right

> And when we, as HOMEowners, remodel or repair, it is not
> done with what doesn't work well anymore--exorbitant,
> dubious "resale values".

So you're saying that vinyl siding, aftermarket picture windows that are often proportioned much differently than the originals, metal awnings, and decorative rococo metal porch and stair railings and supports are what works? Maybe those types of "improvements" are rare in EV and Allentown, but check out any other city neighborhood, and it's the norm. It's _very_ difficult to find a pre-WWII era working-class or middle-end house in Buffalo outside of EV or Allentown that hasn't had its architectural integrity utterly destroyed with plastic and "classy" metalwork. I've traveled a LOT, and other cities, including weather-beaten Rust Belt cities like Rochester and Cleveland, don't have an urban pre-WWII housing stock where the exteriors are as so heavily modded as in Buffalo.

Sorry. I'll take a modern kitchen or bathroom over windows and siding that had their origins in an oil well.