chiliedogg

The rental aspect isn't a bubble. Until they start viciously taxing single-family home rental, home prices are going to stay high because they're not being bought as homes but as assets for rent-seeking.

The people fleeing California for Texas aren't people who love California and its politics.

They're mostly Republicans, and they're making Texas more red AND increasing home prices.

Single-family rental is also a huge thing now.

I work in municipal development, and since 2021, 100% of single-family subdivision developments that have approached the city have been for rental-only neighborhoods.

And they want to put all the homes on a single shared commercial water meter on a single piece of property instead of extending public lines, so they can't even be converted later without massive infrastructure projects and replatting.

House prices exploded during Covid. Yeah, they dipped for like 2 weeks initially, but then they skyrocketed.

Tony Stark first appeared in Marvel comics 8 years before Musk was born.

Cops love busting rallies regardless of politics because it makes them feel superior.

We might as well channel their worst instincts to target Nazis.

My last remaining ties with them are my parents. I know they're not hateful people - they raised me to be a loving person. Their brainwashing has taken the form of simply not trusting legitimate news sources, which is the hardest kind to overcome.

How do you reason with someone who doesn't trust any sources of information?

First thing is to ensure your safety.

Once you have that taken care of - what do you know about your brother's out-of-state trip? He sounds like the kind of person who will ignore the local gun laws of wherever he is going if they're stricter than where you live. If he's going to a fascist meet-up, a tip that he may be illegally armed may give law enforcement a reason to start searching the Nazis for weapons.

Yeah. I've simply stopped associating with Trump supporters. My life doesn't have room for that kind of hate, so i cut them out.

No disagreement here. I work there for the paycheck and make no illusions about it. Everyone on the entire staff feels the same way. We're absolute professionals, but we hold zero personal loyalty to the city or its citizens. They may be super rich and have the power to crush any of us, but as far as I'm concerned, they're all beneath us.

And, oddly enough, that attitude is why we're good at our jobs. Rich assholes loving together are gonna have disputes, and having a city staff that looks down on them instead of being subservient like their household staff means we're uniquely qualified to make them be better neighbors to each other.

Just this week, I got into an enforcement discussion with an Oscar-nominated filmmaker. It takes a special kind of officious prick to disarm entitled assholes and their lawyers with the power of bureaucracy.

For about 50 hours a week, I am that prick.

Except there's another bell that vibrates in response to trigger a switch!

It's like auditory entanglement.

I work in the development office of a tiny city that's surrounded by a major city. It's an enclave for the mega-wealthy. Literally every household is at least millionaires, and we have our share of billionaires.

It's surreal doing code enforcement on people you see in international news, or getting a call about potholes from a Hollywood director. Mundane civic stuff, but with extremely weird, powerful, entitled people.

Also, the houses we review are insane. We were doing irrigation inspections the other day and a lot of the sprinkler system served arboretums (plural) inside the house.

There's one I was reviewing that has 3 bedrooms, but 14 bathrooms. Because they have galleries, a library, wine cellar bigger than most houses, the staff kitchen, etc.

Our municipal code has separate ordinances for Guesthouses and Servant's Quarters (not allowed to be as big if it's servant quarters).

We have a family that bought a 10 million dollar property to tear it down and build a private soccer field for their kids to use.

We had a homeowner cut down a bunch of historic trees to make room for a new patio, resulting in a 6-figure fee for illegally removing the trees. We dropped off the citation, and they pulled out a checkbook and paid the fine in about a minute.

Rich people live in a different world, and I drive there daily.

Why do I do it? It pays half-again more than my previous city, and I occasionally get to say "no" to billionaires.