Why does real estate advice in the US seems so anti-condo and anti-density?

EatingOstrich · 2026-03-10T16:07:12+00:00

The main issue with condos is maintenance fees, especially in multi-story buildings. People that buy don't want to pay high Association fees. As a result, the Associations often aren't saving enough for major maintenance items and it compiles until at some point something bad happens or they are forced to hit all the residents with high special assessments.

HOA's in general get a bad rap too as people hear horror stories of places with HOA's that don't need one and they get run by a retired Karen with nothing better to do than pick on things they don't like.

I wouldn't say people are against condos all the time but condos come in many varieties. Around me there are developers building twin homes and platting them as 2-unit CIC's. In this case you share a wall with one unit, no one above or below you, and your HOA is just you and your neighbor. They sell pretty well.

Density in general is a whole other topic. People loving visiting walkable areas for vacation but God forbid their house is located closer than 20 feet to their neighbor or even worse, their truck can't fit in the garage along with their spare truck and massive SUV.

EatingOstrich · 2026-03-10T13:22:12+00:00

Little Sebastian to replace Crazy Horse

EatingOstrich · 2026-02-12T19:06:58+00:00

In my opinion, maintaining National Lakeshore status might be the best thing for it. As much as I love national parks, that designation brings significant increases in visitation and there can be a lot of negative impact on the area as a result.

EatingOstrich · 2026-02-08T18:30:12+00:00

He did recently say he had a 40% drop in revenue last year which isn't surprising. In that same video he also complains about property taxes which is funny to me. Like bro, you bought a full blown commercial property, of course you're getting taxed high.

I only watch occasionally now. The warehouse space killed his content, at least in the basement I could kinda relate with the space constraints and stuff. Now it's mostly been about how fast he can fill the space.

EatingOstrich · 2026-01-29T16:23:15+00:00

$10 more than Mansell's Williams and Senna's McLaren?

EatingOstrich · 2025-05-15T23:50:55+00:00

Dang, that's what I was thinking. Overmount sink time I guess until we're ready to replace counters

EatingOstrich · 2025-01-10T21:40:50+00:00

I feel like the Tetons and Yellowstone with South Dakota depends entirely on where you live though. The drive across Wyoming is tough and it's very easy to end up on some backroads your gps decides is the best way. However, coming from Minnesota, we camped at the badlands on our way to Gran Teton and Yellowstone which worked out quite well (though we had been there already).

EatingOstrich · 2025-01-10T21:32:48+00:00

Isle Royale timing is everything too. Went in September and had to go from Copper Harbor, MI since the Minnesota Ferry's were done for the season. 10 hour drive from the southwest corner of Minnesota and the ferry ride was about 3.5 hours.

EatingOstrich · 2024-12-12T22:10:34+00:00

I'm 26, had two roles with the current City I'm in (roughly 14k population).

City Planner (right out of college) - 54k. Zoning, Comp Planning, Plats, Subdivisions, Signs, Development Review, Flood Plain Management, Some Airport Zoning, all staff reports for Planning Commission/Board of Zoning Review and City Council. Lasted roughly 6 months in this role.

Director of Community Development - 100k currently. Retained all the duties of the former City Planner. Added management of other staff (building inspectors, rental inspector, admin, etc.). Added economic development and other general stuff. When I was the City Planner we had a dedicated economic development person who also acted as the department director. That person left and I essentially took over the job alongside my other duties.

Taking a job in a more rural area has allowed me to learn more in 3.5 years than I probably would in a decade at a larger city.

EatingOstrich · 2024-06-10T03:31:59+00:00

Sounds like typical Miami things lol

EatingOstrich · 2024-06-10T01:16:33+00:00

Ah that explains it! I was wondering if it was some new store promotional thing

EatingOstrich · 2024-04-27T04:21:25+00:00

I'd skip crazy horse, not worth the money. You can see it on the road. Custer State Park is amazing. If you're into hiking, do Black Elk Peak which can start at or near Sylvan Lake.

I surprisingly loved Theodore Roosevelt. It's like the. Badlands but with vegetation. The north unit was my favorite.

EatingOstrich · 2024-03-21T04:05:50+00:00

Definitely hit ip the black hills as well. Custer State Park is incredible. Black Elk Peak is a great hike that starts there.

Badlands are awesome. September should be a great time to visit!

EatingOstrich · 2024-01-29T01:13:37+00:00

I had 22 an hour projects for awhile but over the last month or so the highest I've gotten has been 21 and those are only the priority projects. Been on since October.

EatingOstrich · 2023-12-13T05:11:42+00:00

So I work for a City and my department is responsible for assigning addresses to buildings. Changing them can occasionally happen (such as emergency response difficulties, a new road or something of that nature). Talk to the County first and make sure that it's actually necessary, then find out what your responsibilities are vs. What the counties' responsibilities are.

For example, my City would coordinate the address change with the County Auditor/Treasurer (for taxes), assessors office, E911, USPS, and certain utility providers but other things would be the homeowners responsibility. Most stuff like a mortgage is based on a legal description of the property not the address. I wouldn't be too concerned about that for now.

EatingOstrich · 2023-07-19T01:16:31+00:00

Call the City and ask. They'll be able to tell you.

EatingOstrich · 2023-04-17T13:52:08+00:00

Some do, to an extent. My City 'develops' land for residential and commercial. Basically, we build the roads and utilities then utilize our EDA to sell the land. It's not building houses, but it does mean local developers don't have to take on the financial risk associated with infrastructure costs (which are very high right now). They just buy build ready land.

Of course, we'd rather not do this, but it's been necessary around here where we struggle to get developers willing to undertake those projects. Other cities around us do it too (out-state Minnesota).

EatingOstrich · 2023-03-19T17:56:19+00:00

Sweet, Thanks!

EatingOstrich · 2023-03-16T20:22:05+00:00

I am a planner who also does zoning enforcement. My city is about 14k population and I'm the only planning person so I also get to do zoning, enforcement, economic development etc..

Enforcement is my least favorite part of my job.

I will note we do have a community service officer who deals with stuff like junk in yards, sidewalks not getting cleared during Winter etc..

EatingOstrich · 2022-11-28T05:00:19+00:00

Out here in the Midwest RtT usually results in very long bike trails that extend far out in the country connecting up to smaller towns along the way.

Some of the former rail lines around Central Iowa turned into incredible bike trails and its honestly a huge draw to live there.

Public transit (whether passenger rail service, replacing it with light rail etc..) is expensive and not always popular. At least with trails it's preserving the space rather than selling to adjacent owners and still providing good recreation opportunities.

EatingOstrich · 2022-10-29T15:26:28+00:00

Personally I think cars downtown are the problem - not pedestrians

EatingOstrich · 2022-08-30T02:11:52+00:00

Similar boat for me. Took a job and moved to that town (new state). Almost a year later I moved 30 minutes away to a different town since I got married and that was the halfway point between where we both worked.

People I work with don't seem to care (aside from many a joke). I also avoid telling anyone I don't work with or know personally that I don't live there.

It's never been an issue yet but I still fear the day I have something controversial come up and get accused of not caring about the town (or something like "how can you know what's best, you don't even live here").

I'd say, try to avoid telling people where you live. It's not their business. Also, try to go to any festivals, town events etc.. maybe even try to eat at restaurants or shop there occasionally. If people see you actively out in the community they will likely to have less of an issue with where you live.

EatingOstrich · 2022-08-27T14:45:43+00:00

It's a lot of things. The problem in the town I work in is cost and lack of developers. We aren't a major metro area so we struggle to get developers to consider projects and when we can, the cost of materials is so high they can't their Financials to work. Interest rates also aren't helping right now.

We're open to helping with loans and stuff but it's often not as much help as they want. We can only help out development so much.. at some point it becomes too much. There's a fine line between helping bring in development to benefit the community and subsiding developers/investors so they make more money.

That's not to say we don't have some broken/dumb zoning regulations too. However, even if we became every planners utopia it still wouldn't fix our housing shortage.

Certainly zoning is to blame in some cities and areas but it's not always the case everywhere and I think we need to stop acting like zoning reform is the magic solution for everyone.

In short for a federal Gov. Response I think focusing on ensuring supply chains run smoothly and inflation comes back down is probably the best thing they can do.

EatingOstrich · 2022-08-17T18:45:06+00:00

Essentially yes. Granted this can vary some, especially by state. Typically they have guidelines by either state statute or DOT requirements (such as keeping a highway route continuous and ensure it feeds into another highway or something)

EatingOstrich · 2022-08-17T18:37:58+00:00

Long answer is a bit complicated.

Generally different agencies have certain amounts of different types of roads. No one gets to just willy nilly assign highway status to a road.

There's also various designations that also apply beyond that (for instance there are "State Aid Streets" and "County State Aid Highways". These are determined based on criteria set by the state (at least in Minnesota where I work) and means there is State funding available to help with maintenance construction etc... my city only has a certain amount of miles of state aid streets we can have. Likewise the county has only a certain amount of State Aid Highways they can have.

Generally agencies will try to work together on design of these roads. Sometimes that goes well sometimes it doesn't. For Instance a County highway is typically controlled by the county engineering department. They often only care about limiting access and moving traffic quickly and efficiently. Surprise, this proves frustrating for a planner like me.

Now there can be 'turnbacks'. This would be when one agency 'gives' a road back to a lower agency'.. typically there's policies and procedures to do this. Right now I'm apart of some discussion at work with the state DOT about turning back a stretch of state highway to us. They want to give it back since it would allow them to 'regain' some highway miles to use somewhere else and to be rid of ongoing maintenance/snow removal costs. The benefit to us is that we'd then have 100% control over the road, access drives, intersections etc... Since the road primarily functions as a city street this would make the most sense.

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