Wednesday, December 06, 2006

OK....what'll $84k buy me?

Fubarrio and Golden Lotus ventured once more into the great wild world of trying to find a place to live in Montevideo this last week.

We found some things that were very interesting. Sadly for fuBarrio and GL, fuBarrio's small monthly stipend check (a settlement from the failed 'dna replacement therapy' that left fuBarrio a dog in bad need of some orthodontics, the hairclub for canines, and aggressive plastic surgery) doesn't cover the "nut" on the featured house here.

Before you ask, "no", the house does not come with the old guy out front either -- he is however useful for appreciating the "scale" of the house.

The house is located in "Prado". Prado is the old original "residential" neighborhood (read: burbia). However, it is the burbia before cars were as common as they are now, so it's a little closer in than the new "burbia" (Carrasco). Prado has some *very nice* older homes that go for 5X the cost of this one.

Once you enter the home there is a narrow hallway, VERY high ceilings (throughout) -- between 12 -15 feet, doorways leading to 'sitting' rooms on either side.

The center of the house, through the doorway in the middle of the first picture, has a large atrium area with a glass skylight (there are actually two of these skylight rooms, one further back in the house as well).

The entire house is VERY well laid out, flows well. The last picture is the rear room and one of the doors that lead outside (with the colored glass). fB's foto skills are pretty poor, and trying to capture scale was difficult (shoulda put the old guy in each picture! :) )

Click on a couple of the pictures and check out the details of the floor. The house was a bit dusty on the inside, and it makes it look like somebody's old linonleum (or something e equally hideous) back in the states. But this is actually the original painted tile from the 30's in each room throughout the center of the house.



The rooms on the each side of the house (not pictured) had wooden floors that were the most obvious thing in need of fixing (very old/soft/creaky). The kitchen had been "refurbished" but that really just meant putting in new countertops since the Uruguayos don't like including appliances with homes (or apts for that matter!)

A nice house, but once we figured out that they meant 84K DOLLARS, and not uruguayan pesos it was quickly obvious it was out of *our* price range.

Rather than focus on fuBarrio's obvious lack of skills as a provider, GL was kind enough to rationalize it away as being too far from the center of town for our particular transportation needs....(for some reason or another the Uruguayos are reluctant to let someone that looks like a hairless dog have driving privileges).

Uh...I don't know about you, but this looks like it has a little more potential that your typical $429k new construction sh*tbox 75 minutes from any culture or employment opportunities in the "other America"-- but if you came here you'd have to miss out on the fun of paying that $5k in property taxes each year.

So, I guess like anything else, you gotta take the good with the bad! :)

peace,
fuBarrio

p.s. to try to appreciate the scale of the home, click on the picture with the "colored glass" door. if you can, see if you can spot the door handle. the door handle is at the proper height for a full grown European (not "Tatu") :)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

27.5k in Prado
Have you seen this one? or others listed on Mercado Libre...

fuBarrio said...

hey enzo,

the link you provided looks like a nice little house...very suprised to see a price that low...dug a little further and saw this in the ad:
PRECIO CONTADO: u$s 55.000

PRECIO FINANCIADO : u$s 27.500 Y FACILIDADES HASTA 7 1/2 AÑOS

basically says, 27,500 down, and financing of 7.5 years for a total of 55k.

didn't see if there was interest attached or not.

that would explain why someone hasn't already bought it with their credit card already! :)

ciao,
fB

Anonymous said...

Yeah, wasn't exactly sure how that all works. Most people post there asking for the final/total price. It is crazy how they post the lowest price on the ad. Still the newly remodelled place for around 84.5k, is that a terrible price?

fuBarrio said...

Enzo,
I *think* the totally refurbished place is actually 55k all in.

the 27,500 is the down (50%) and the other 50% is over 7.5 years.

not a bad deal at all, imo..good find. but like i said, "value" means different things to different people.

one thing to keep in mind....Financing is VERY rare here. So, when you see a price, they are expecting someone to come up with 100% cash usually....certainly keeps the "flipping" and debt fueled speculation that has made great parts of North America almost unlivable (well..unbuyable actually) without accepting extraordinary amounts of debt/risk, imo.

also, regarding the 55k place, i haven't seen or inspected, nor do i know the neighborhood well enought to comment (prado has nicer and less nice areas)

ciao,
fB

Anonymous said...

Enzo,Please Please go back and bore the congregation at your forum
or did you use up too much space with all those stupid posts of yours.How many is it now a zillion?
Found that RE post a few weeks ago and knew that the 55000$in Bright Red was was there for a reason.Didnt even need to know Spanish just took a little common sense! your buddie, bruce

fuBarrio said...

bb,

how's tb supposed to build readership with such hostility?...r u trying to add some excitement by playing the "contra vida" role like in professional wrestling? :)

btw, thanks for the "non posted" comments.

fB

Anonymous said...

Bruce, Haven't heard much from you lately. I am glad to see that the holidays are treating you well. I wish you and your family a very merry holiday season.
enzo

Anonymous said...

How 'nice' to hear from you again Bruce. Since you appear to have so much time on your hands and such a vast knoledge base, perhaps you would like to assist our beleagered White House. We here have already absorbed your words of wisdom. Perhaps you will find a warm reception in D.C...ot Iraq.