Most Expensive Homes in Your Neighborhood

[memphis]

I'm bad at posting images. If another poster can post these that'd be awesome.
Here's a link to most expensive in my zip code:
http://www.crye-leike.com/main/browsedetail.php?addrmls=3154165&mgrp=30&ln=1&tid=memphis&mlsnum=3154165

Here's most expensive in my part of zip code (<1 mile):
http://www.crye-leike.com/main/browsedetail.php?region=West+Tennessee&zips=38120&mgrp=30&p=3&ln=22&tid=memphis&mlsnum=3144255

[memphis]

You're in 38120?   I thought you were representin' tha 38117.

Thanks for putting the pics up. I live right near White Station Middle, so I'm just over the line in 38120. My neighborhood looks a lot more like 38117 (postwar suburbia) than a lot of the newer 38120 east of 240.

[memphis]

I'm only looking at home for sale in my zip because it's easier than trying to appraise all home. Anyhow, $3.5 Million buys a lot of house in Memphis, even in this snooty part of town. County tax appraisor has this property at 5 beds/10 baths, and acre and a half of land, over 12,000 square feet. I suppose when you have a house that large, you need as many bath as possible. When you have to go, you have to go.



Fred Smith, dude who founded FedEx, lives just a few blocks from the above house, and the county pegs his property at $4M, but much of that is land as he lives on nearly 12 acres. Ditto for Pitt Hyde, founder of Auto Zone. Also just about a five minute walk for above. $4M and 6 acres.

Just within a quick walk of me and the rest of the peasants, here is the house for sale at the highest asking price, $450k

When I was a child, this entire subdivision was one large property with several horses. When the old man who owned it died in the late 1990s, his children wasted no time in cashing in and up went a few dozen large but not extravagent houses very close together,

[memphis]

Taste is subjective, of course. I find any very large home extremely tacky. Ditto for anybody who drives a Hummer or wears extremely expensive clothes. What are these people trying to prove? I'm no psychiatrist, but I suspect they are deficient in serotonin and trying to overcompensate. And I don't think that's a good plan because having too much stuff to worry about is restrictive to one's choices and well being. With just a small or medium sized place to hang one's hat, a man (or woman) is so much freer to pursue life outside of a sad culture of obsessive acquisition. But whatevs. We're all different and we're all free to pursue happiness in our legal ways.

[memphis]

And as others have pointed out, it looks so much like an early 20th century high school. Central High School in Memphis. Oldest public high school in town. My dad was class of 1965. They recently celebrated their 100th anniversary. Still a pretty good school by Memphis standards. Not so much by the standards of where you guys live.

[memphis]

Tvs are not status symbols anymore. Anybody can go to Wal-Mart and pick one up for a couple hundred bucks. Use hundred dollar bills for wallpaper if you want to impress people.

[memphis]

It's Jacobean! Don't even dare going about making criticisms if you don't know architectural history!

God, modernists are the worst. Modernism is really just terrible to begin with, and it's not surprising that its devotees aren't any better.

Balderdash and codswallop.  For pretty much any field of "serious" art one would care to name- literature, painting, architecture, classical music, etc.- the classic Modernist period between roughly 1910 and 1950 was an absolute peak of creativity, craftsmanship, and inspiration.

I will grant that post-war modernism leaves much to be desired- brutalism and the twelve-tone method were simply hermeticism for hermeticism's sake- which is why we should be thankful to postmodernism, for breathing new life into many of these fields.  (The exception is painting, which remained vital and interesting in the '50s and '60s, but has slid in recent decades.  And of course more popular styles of music, which basically didn't even try to be artistic until after WWII, in some cases decades after.)

This is your idea of vital and interesting?

And Smash, with the exception of the final home you posted, those are all atrocious, even by the standards of suburban foolery. It's like the architects got together and had some sort of sinister contest.

[memphis]

Just for the heck of it. The most expensive home currently for sale in the city of Memphis. About 3 miles from me. The realty company marketing it describes it as "the height of understated sophistication" which I think is hysterical and deserves a spot in a deluge.

[memphis]

And I may as well post the cheapest home for sale in my neighborhood as well. Unsurprisingly, just a block and a half away. My home is very similar except that there is no porch. I have no idea how the richers tolerate us living so nearby

[memphis]

Just for the heck of it. The most expensive home currently for sale in the city of Memphis. About 3 miles from me. The realty company marketing it describes it as "the height of understated sophistication" which I think is hysterical and deserves a spot in a deluge.

Eh, I don't think it's so bad. The materials look like very high quality. And it's not like those hideous homes that are just one giant mass, it's sprawling, which is very much in taste. It looks like the combined garage/keeper's house to a larger great house on some 2000-acre estate.

It's not ugly. It looks very well built. And it's in a beautiful wooded neighborhood right in the middle of town, surrounded by other $million+ properties. But it's not understated either. It's obviously for people who have a great deal of money and want the world to know. By definition a 13,000 sq ft home is not understated.

[memphis]

This is your idea of vital and interesting?

Rothko's not my absolute favorite (my vote actually goes to Sol LeWitt as the postwar artist with the most consistently interesting ideas), but I do kinda like his stuff.  There's a cool elegance to it.

Obviously, if you can't stand abstraction you'll have a hard time, Francis Bacon notwithstanding.  But I see no reason why painting must be figurative.

Art is certainly not my area of expertise. I took the art history survey class in college just to meet the fine arts requirement. And that's about the breadth and depth of my knowledge. So maybe I'm missing something vital. Maybe the simplicity of it works for some people in the same way I like the works of Dr Seuss or Shel Silverstein. But, to my eye, there is something very lacking in the paintings of the postwar period. I'm very unimpressed. And it's not just because of Rothko's lack of representation. The following doesn't impress me much either. And it's a pretty good likeness

In contrast, I have a bit of an erection for cubism. There's just so much more je ne sais quoi

[memphis]

My home is very similar except that there is no porch.

Wow, that's great!  That looks so much like so many rental houses my dad had over the years.

They're asking $85k for it. Could probably be had for $75-80k. Would probably rent for somewhere in the neighborhood of $800/month. Very stable, centrally located neighborhood in the "good" school district. K-5 school is 10 minute walk. 6-8 school is 5 minute walk. Backs up to much newer gated neighborhood of $200k houses. If you want it, come and get it.

[memphis]

5 bedroom, 9 bathroom here in the Memorial section of Houston, bout two miles from me. Asking price is 15 million.

How many square feet is that palace?

[memphis]

In my neighborhood, the most recent one to be sold went for about $225,000.

This is what $225,000 gets you in Starkville, Mississippi.

4 bedrooms, 3,000 square feet on 1.3 acres, built 1998.  

What's interesting to think about is that Starkville is by far the most pricey real estate market in Mississippi.  A comparable home in Jackson, Southaven, Tupelo or the Coast would only be about $160,000 to $190,000.   In somewhere like an Atlanta or Houston suburb it would catch >$400,000.  I understand that real estate is all about location, location, location but believe me, Starkville isn't all that!    

You can't buy a car in Norway for that

One of the benefits of living in a stigmatized state is that housing is very affordable. Less demand and whatnot. One thing I noticed on the drive between Memphis and New Orleans that I took over Christmas (both ways actually) was that the most substantial industry in the state is the giant Nissan factory in Canton. The Japanese must be unaware of or indifferent to the curse. Fair or not, I don't think many American big businesses would even consider having substantial operations in MS. Here's the most expensive house currently for sale in the MS burbs of my hometown. Street Name is Plantation Oaks Drive. Seriously? Did these folks not get the memo that the Wind Done Gone? $750k, but I wouldn't even consider living down there at any price. Way too much stigma for this American.

[memphis]

I'm know I'm kicking up a hornet's nest here, but Oxford is also a much nicer town than Starkville. You can tell that the state's elite have been sending their children and their money there for a very long time. Even the frat houses are beautiful and very well maintained.

[memphis]

As any landlord knows too well, the trouble is finding good tenants who pay on time, don't cause any trouble, and don't destroy the property. How did your father tackle this challenge? Memphis also has high property taxes. You'd be paying about 2k/year on this property.

[memphis]

As any landlord knows too well, the trouble is finding good tenants who pay on time, don't cause any trouble, and don't destroy the property. How did your father tackle this challenge? Memphis also has high property taxes. You'd be paying about 2k/year on this property.

Lol   2k is high??

On an $85,000 property? I'd say so.