Just need to vent...

USG makes a nice wood-fibered basecoat mix. When I can find any.

 

"... send drywall from there to here more profitably than we can make it and sell it here." Most of that gypsum board was imported in 2 years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Home repairs increased demand above capacity of domestic suppliers or Canadian sources.

Much if it I read was made by a German group Knauf operating factories in China. That simply shows that global supply chains might not be fully described by anti-nation slogans.

 

United States - Producer Price Index by Industry: Gypsum Product Manufacturing - 2025 Data 2026 Forecast 1965-2022 Historical


Gypsum price index history. I will interpret price peak mid-2006 as that rebuilding boom, and price valley 2008-2011 as partially resulting from imports. Other interpretations may well exist.

 

I see a steadily increasing manufacture of gypsum products, but no breakdown of whether the firms that make the construction products are churning out drywall and joint mud to the neglect of their traditional plaster product lines.

Don't landfill your scrap drywall! These guys can peel the paper off and get the gypsum back into the supply stream.

They're after leftover drywall scrap from new construction. Drywall taken out in demolitions can have all kinds of unwanted stuff attached.

 

It is my reading that US coal-plant flue-gas desulfurisation with limestone created a big pile, of which little was into made new gypsum panels. Part went to road building and most went to landfills. This coal-plant exit-stuff contains ash with mercury and other exciting ingredients. Probably good that (domestic sourced) gypsum panels have not much of that.

 

So there's a recall on our 2024 Corolla Hybrid.....apparently the brakes can lose power when being applied during a turn. (I haven't noticed it but now want to go test it!)
Anyway, the recall says Toyota will do a free software update on the skid control ECU. But, when I just called, she said they have to "order parts" and to give them a week AND they'll need the car for the day.
What? What part is that? Why does it take all day?
Not too happy about the all day part since we live about 20-miles from the dealership but we'll make it work.

 

If there's a recall, you should be able to look it up for free at NHTSA's site (if that website is still up and the information hasn't been scrubbed).

Reading through the recall, you should find it gives a TSB number where the instructions for performing it are found.

You might be able to find that TSB on NHTSA's site also, or search around for a copy, or download it from TIS.

If there is a part needed, the TSB will say so, as well as showing all the other steps of performing the service.

 

Have I ranted on housing prices? It's just a pain to come to terms that I will never be able to afford a house, at least not in the state or perhaps even in the country that I currently live in.

 

In local news:
500+ eggs whisked away during Seattle breakfast heist, police scramble to crack case

 

Houses have always been expensive.
Some people own houses.
Others are owned by their houses.

It's a good way to build some wealth if you start early and deny yourself a lot in your younger years - but Americans particularly seem to have moved away from the multi-generational households that our grandparents and great grandparents followed, and that immigrants line up at the border to emulate - in a nation we're told is horribly racist and lacks a 'living wage.'

Since I moved into my present 3 bdrm/2bath home about 13 years ago I've replaced or repaired every major appliance including the HVAC, installed fencing, painted and floored and made roof and chimney repairs.
I'm also saving for a roof replacement at the shockingly low price of between $15,000 and $20,000 and I will be replacing the driveway and putting in a shed - the latter of which will raise my property tax.
We have a steep homestead exemption which reduces my taxes to about $2500 which is about the same as my catastrophic loss only home insurance policy whose deductible is well over $5,000.
SO, it's still 6-5 and pickem as to whether we own our house or it owns us.

I have 5 acres of land in the county that I love and sometimes I sincerely believe that if I were single I would give up the convenience of my big city life in a nano-second and sell the house for a medium grade mobile home, some chickens and a couple of dogs.
...AND a tornado shelter.
Living in a subdivision with HOA Nazis does come with some advantages. It's pretty quiet, we're within walking distance of stores restaurants and a hospital.
I'm grandfathered out of the HOA, THANK GOD! but still bound by most of the rules if only through peer pressure.

Home ownership?
Yeah.
It's a thing - but I can't take a single brick with me when I leave to go topside...all too soon, and so for me it's not the end-all, be-all.

MY mileage.
Yours might vary.

 

House$ vs salary$ medians
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/median-house-prices-vs-income-us/

 

we bought houses in 80, 86, 91, 96, and 04. if you start small, do some work yourself and trade up, it can be fairly lucrative

 

I don't mind repairing a fixer-upper. But if I can't even afford the fixer-upper, it becomes a moot point.
What I'm scared for is if rent shoots up and I can no longer afford rent either. I guess that would definitely be the time to move.

If you go back even further, back before the mid 60's you could buy a house making a minimum, full-time, single wage.

Sounds nice, but my wife and I can only afford half of the cheapest two bedroom condo in our area. I did see a studio apartment for sale that was about in what we qualify for, but I'm afraid it was a bit too small for all of us. The cheapest house or half-a-duplex will come in at about 4 times what we could qualify for. So, unless the boys move out and another studio apartment comes on sale again, we can't afford something small in our area to start out on.

 

LOL .... flashback to the disgusting dump I could barely afford in 79. After 3 additions, new roof & stucco over 5 years? Even in the highest crime / nastiest area of Downey (only SantaAnna was worse) .... the price doubled - which allowed us to move to nicer Orange County socal. May die 10 years prematurely from all the stress of doing that while raising a daughter & earning a law & broker's license. Likely the grandkids won't even appreciate their inheritance

Ultimately that's the vent.
.

 

I do realize that there are people who cannot afford to buy a home, and people who cannot afford rent.
twas ever thus. Solutions are elusive. I’m in favor of forcing companies to divest their residential real estate holdings

 

@hill proposed a very real way most of us started out our housing ownership journey.

@bisco story in post 2492 is a similar story.

I could add my story but it is the same as theirs.

It is difficult to do home ownership these days but still doable following @bisco and @hill templates but that is the way it always was. People would have to move to another area to afford housing or work ot or even a second job to make ends meet.

Our first houses were almost always not our end goal and had multiple hurdles and problems to solve even as makeshift housing. Our current home and I hope final home is our fifth home - the first four homes were all stepping stones that met some of our needs but none met all our needs until this one.

The current situation doesn't have anything to do with corporations holding real estate.
If that is an issue in a certain area then an individual may have to move, most areas don't have that issue.

 

You could be right, I don’t know details, but how can we know if they do or they don’t?

 

The county recorder's office. Last I read, China was buying up properties and not even putting in tenants. Just holding as things continue to go Sky High

 

i read an article about a non profit financed by silicon valley to help first time home buyers by buying up homes and then renting them with an option to buy. when interest rates rose, the scheme fell apart and they were left with 7,000 homes.

 

For many of us in the Silicon Valley area the impediments to buying a house are not physical nor financial. It's simply that they are listening to their friends about how hard it is to buy a house. I had a friend who was convinced that he needed 20% of the purchase price as a down payment. He also was convinced that he needed a FICO score above 810 points. He was told that he had to be married to qualify for a loan, and he was a single man working in IT. None of these old wife stories held any water.

He bought a house for $700,000 in San Jose with a 5% down payment. His credit was fairly clean, but it was not over 800 points.

The moral of the story is that you MUST check with your bank or savings and loan to verify the home mortgage requirements. Pre qualify if you can, and you will be ready to buy when the right home pops up.