Spring has sprung

It was cold last night and it'll be cold tonight, but it's awesome during the day and it'll be in the 70's by the end of the week. Soon I'll be putting hundreds of miles on my bikes and riding the motorcycle in daily. Isn't it amazing what a good mood better weather can cause?

Buying a house sucks

I've had the means to buy a house for a long time now, but never wanted to do it because I didn't ever expect to stay where I was for long enough to see any benefit. Of course, had I bought something when I COULD have bought, and sold it when I moved to NY, I would have probably made nearly 100% on my investment... but hey, I have new things to cry over. Ithaca housing prices are pretty good. A house that would cost about $400k in Columbia would probably be about $250k here. So that's cool, in theory, but property taxes will be $7k to $10k a year on that $250, house. Anyhow, the taxes up here make me so angry that I figured I'd get that out of the way first. For the record, if you live in the house you get a discount on that tax amount or 30%, I believe. Really, I try not to think too hard about it because it just pisses me off.
I don't particularly like houses. They mean maintenance, responsibility, and they tie you to an area more than renting does. Nonetheless, I would like to stop moving around constantly, have control over my environment more, have a place to house my toys, and get a tax "break." With all that said, I'm looking for an investment garage with a house. My informal lease where I'm living now ends in late May, so I'm basically going to have to live somewhere temporarily in hopes of finding a house while I'm in that temporary residence. There just isn't that much available in my price range that has a 2car garage or space to build one that is near one of the schools so that I can rent a room, that doesn't need a significant amount of work in order to be up to date. Houses here are mostly older (1950ish) which means lots of single paned windows, wooden garage doors and wooden siding that is peeling or rotting. Maybe I'm just asking too much but when I look at some places that sold in the past year for the price I would be willing to pay that have the features I want and are in good condition, it makes me unwilling to settle. Of course the next big question is "how long will I be in Ithaca?" I don't have a good idea of that, but I like it here and my work is interesting, so who knows.

I can't imagine anyone actually read down to that last section of ranting and I wouldn't blame you. Here's the cliff note version:
- NY taxes suck so bad that it makes it pretty easy to justify renting until you're going to buy a house to live in for quite some time, or raise a family.
- Most houses here are old so they have crappy windows, wood siding that looks awful, small master BR's few bathrooms (1.5 usually), and a number of other things I could complain about.
- All that said, there are houses out there that are in my price range that would make me happy, but they're not for sale right now. I guess I'm just being impatient.

I'm welcoming myself to blogging

Some people write in journals, and I did for a while too, but then I happened to think that I don't believe that I ever looked at it again, so it was good for getting thoughts out into the world, but the thought that it provoked was the only lasting effect. Of course if this is available to every random person and crazy whack job out there, I'll be a little discrete with my entries, but only a little. Having moved to a new place, I would really like to stay connected with friends and family that I find it a greater challenge to keep in touch with than ever before. Fortunately, with the advent of the 21st century there are a multitude of ways to stay connected, this being one of them. So those were a lot of words that didn't say much- I'll try to be more concise in the future...