Cheap Old Houses
The cost of housing is an unavoidable subject in California because it’s all anyone I know talks about. No one can afford to buy a home, the costs are outrageous, and the few affordable options out there usually turn into a bidding war between buyers, driving prices even higher.
“It’s impossible to buy a home in America right now,” my friends often tell me out of frustration.
But that’s not really true.
There are plenty of affordable homes in America. It’s just not possible to buy the house they want in the neighborhood they want it. (Let’s be clear on this point as well: my apathy towards the complaints of my well-off friends looking to purchase a million dollar home isn’t the same as a working class family struggling to find affordable housing. That’s an entirely different can of worms).
If you look around, there are literally tens of thousands of affordable houses all over the country available right now. I know this because I spend countless hours on Redfin looking at homes across the nation (I’m sort of addicted to it; I have no desire to actually buy a home), and I follow a fantastic Instagram site called Cheap Old Houses, documenting available homes with character for prices that are ridiculously low.
As you can see in the photo above, you can purchase a charming home in Bolivar, NY—south of Buffalo along the Pennsylvania state line—for under $80,000.
“Well, I don’t want to move to Bolivar,” I can imagine my friends saying to such a response.
It’s all so similar to what’s happening with whiskey right now.
“The price of whiskey is getting ridiculous,” I hear customers tell me.
Is it?
I can buy a bottle of Buffalo Trace Bourbon for roughly twenty bucks right now, which is pretty much the same it cost me fifteen years ago. Ten year old Laphroaig is still less than fifty dollars. In some places you can find 1.75 liter bottles of 12 year old Glenlivet and 9 year old Knob Creek for less than $50 as well.
That’s pretty damn affordable, if you ask me.
“Yeah, well I don’t feel like drinking regular Buffalo Trace, or boring old Glenlivet 12,” I often hear customers say (obviously I’m paraphrasing).
Now we’re getting to the real issue.
It’s not that whiskey as a category has become too expensive, it’s just that the whiskey these customers want to drink (which is the same whiskey everyone wants to drink) now has a greater demand.
That means we’re no longer dealing with a basic necessity of life at this point; we’re dealing with a commodity.
A commodity that involves customers from overseas, using their purchasing power to secure greater inventory as an investment. Many homebuyers have no intention of ever living in the homes they purchase, just as many whiskey buyers have no intention of ever opening the bottle.
But their ability to profit from that transaction isn’t due to a shortage of available homes or a scarcity of good whiskey; it’s simply due to a laser-focused customer demand. As they say in real estate: location, location, location!
And as they should probably say in whiskey investment: the label, the label, the label!
But there’s more affordable whiskey available today than I can ever remember seeing. There’s also a reason more than twenty of my friends from the Bay Area moved to the outskirts of Sacramento this year: the housing is much more affordable there.
Just east of Bakersfield, there’s a small town at the foot of the mountains called Lake Isabella. There are plenty of homes there for under $300,000 with gorgeous views and close access to national parks and nature walks.
You could also move to Beaumont, which is strategically located between Riverside and Palm Springs, close to the Joshua Tree and all sorts of cool desert outposts. At the foot of the San Gregorio mountains, it’s an hour from the Big Bear ski resort and just an hour and a half from downtown LA.
I personally don’t want to move to Beaumont or Lake Isabella, but I’m also not looking to buy a home. I’m one of those odd people who thinks renting in the exact neighborhood I want to live in and enjoying my life is not a waste of my money, but call me crazy.
I don’t think there’s going to be a magical drop in California metropolitan real estate prices anytime soon, nor will we see Weller 107 back on the grocery store shelf for $19.99.
The folks who spend all their time agonizing over access to affordable rare Bourbon remind me of my friends who buy a fixer-upper and get bogged down in years of gut-wrenching repairs. Most of them are angry, frustrated, and unhappy, yet they continually choose to go down this path.
Some things in life aren’t worth it.
If you want to live well in 2022, it’s time to think outside the box. There’s an entire world of possibilities out there if you’re willing to adjust your expectations and refocus your efforts.
-David Driscoll