What are you doing today?

[CA_Bgrwldr]

That prop 13 law is great if you are a long time home owner, of had a home in the family. Once you move there and pay $2M for a house, you pay taxes on the new amount

Yes, it keeps local governments from taxing you out of your home when you retire, and the Democrats have been trying to repeal or work around for the last 42yrs, and just tried to repeal the commercial part of it last fall, fortunately it failed, but I am sure they will go after it again in 2yrs.

$2 million for a home is not common, even in SF Bay area the median home is about $1.3, of course what you pay that for there in my area runs about $150-200k, In my area the median is about $500k, and that gets you about 5 acres and about 2000sqft home with medium build materials. The stuff over $1 million, like my neighbors just sold for, tends to be large homes done in high end materials, or sits on large pieces of property.

 

[CA_Bgrwldr]

Dont forgot the #1 reason not to retire in Cali, housing prices. I think if I wanted to be able to visit grandkids that lived there, I would look at the closest joining state (depending on north, south or central Cali location)

That is what I asked, but they want to be within 2 hours drive time, and plan to move to my area which would put them about an hours drive from the furthest grandkids, and bout the same time from the airport to fly to the east Coast to see the ones in Maryland. They have been planning for this for about 10yrs now, so they have been putting aside the extra money needed. They are planning/looking at distressed properties in the $2-300k range, and remodel it, keeping their purchase price low, and in turn keeping the property taxes low.

 

[Bearskinner]

Decades ago I lived in So Cal, in the late 90’s it was $700K for a total fixer, and I was happy to get it at that price. location costs, as we were west of Pacific Coast Highway.
I was glad to leave once my kids graduated school. More than doubled every property owned by fixing up old houses, and upgrading myself. I like living out here on the ranch much better. I could never live in town again

 

[sonny580]

below zero here this week so no more work on anything ----- still trying to find a reverse idler shaft for the case 310-g crawler loader I have torn down in neighbors shop. Cant work on the case 1530 skidloader til it warms up. ---it blew a head and is outside right now.
Did put new valve stems in my dump trailer ---- all 4 of the old ones were leaking down within 10 mins of airing up the tires, so time for new stems! lol!

 

[Bearskinner]

We’ll get a couple days near zero this week too i just hauled more wood in off the back porch.its nice inserts, enjoying the wood stove

 

[CA_Bgrwldr]

Decades ago I lived in So Cal, in the late 90’s it was $700K for a total fixer, and I was happy to get it at that price. location costs, as we were west of Pacific Coast Highway.
I was glad to leave once my kids graduated school. More than doubled every property owned by fixing up old houses, and upgrading myself. I like living out here on the ranch much better. I could never live in town again

When I was working as a journeyman carpenter in the late '80's/early '90's, retirees from SoCal were the whale clients, they usually had $3-400k cash to build their dream homes with, and most seemed determined to spend it all.

 

[California]

The temperature finally got up to pleasant, near 60 degrees, so I was out in the apple orchard digging out a few stumps. None as big as this photo from a couple of years ago.

Todays project was to get out a stump from a mature tree that died, and then remove a few trees that never thrived but just made sparse inch-diameter apples. That's sometimes because there's a gopher headquarters beneath it, evidenced by a volleyball-size lump of soft grass where the roots should be. There are also unwanted volunteer oaks that pop up in the orchard. If the top has been mowed down for years, these oaks can have a deep taproot. After adjacent digging to loosen the soil, the backhoe can pull those out intact like giant carrots.

This backhoe is the greatest toy ever.

No welding recently. I haven't needed to fabricate or repair anything, for a while now.

 

[California]

re California real estate prices - I voted against Prop 13. It was, and is, bad public policy. Its one more way, like student loans for overpriced education, how the elders in charge have an advantage over youth today who won't (most of them) ever catch up with what the older generation was able to accomplish.

But I've sure benefited from it. 20 years ago I inherited a half interest in this orchard from Dad's estate. (and bought out the other half) So I pay a continuation of his 1973 taxes plus the cost of living inflation factor. For 11 acres with an old farmhouse, I pay under $1200 a year property tax, a tiny fraction of what neighbors out on the county road with their modern homes on a quarter acre have to pay. As those houses change hands, they are re-assessed to reflect current value. This is deep-fringe commute territory an hour from downtown San Francisco and modern home purchases are priced accordingly. My newer neighbors are basically subsidizing the regional roads, rural fire department, etc that I'm not paying my share for.

I expect the Prop 13 entitlement for old timers will eventually get overturned when the present generation figures our how it all works.

 

[Gary Fowler]

The temperature finally got up to pleasant, near 60 degrees, so I was out in the apple orchard digging out a few stumps. None as big as this photo from a couple of years ago.

Todays project was to get out a stump from a mature tree that died, and then remove a few trees that never thrived but just made sparse inch-diameter apples. That's sometimes because there's a gopher headquarters beneath it, evidenced by a volleyball-size lump of soft grass where the roots should be. There are also unwanted volunteer oaks that pop up in the orchard. If the top has been mowed down for years, these oaks can have a deep taproot. After adjacent digging to loosen the soil, the backhoe can pull those out intact like giant carrots.

This backhoe is the greatest toy ever.

No welding recently. I haven't needed to fabricate or repair anything, for a while now.

View attachment 1462

Is that a homebuilt back hoe? It sure looks to do a fine job.

 

[California]

Is that a homebuilt back hoe? It sure looks to do a fine job.

No, not homebuilt. it's a 3-point backhoe that was sold as OEM by both Kubota and Yanmar dealers around 1980 with those brand logos on it.

It was made by ARPS, the American firm that also supplied Deere's nearly identical small backhoe at the time. This one has Kubota brand color and logo, while the OEM Yanmar one was Leisure-Suit green like my 1980 Yanmar tractor . Aside from color this is identical to what would have been original on my 1980 Yanmar YM240.

I was lucky to find it. The seller just put 'backhoe' on Craigslist and nobody called. I asked him a lot of questions and he revised his listing to answer them, in particular identifying Kubota brand, and suddenly he was buried in calls. He phoned me back and said "you better get up here, I'm getting offers sight unseen that exceed yours". I was lucky. I've only seen one or two of these on Ebay, none local.

In the 15 years I've owned this 40 year old hoe I've replaced a couple of seals, and a hose or two that I've ripped off rasseling downed trees - normal maintenance for a backhoe. Everything works as it should.

Another photo: I got the little YM186D snagged in the fence, when it went in a hole. I pulled it sideways and got free without damaging the fence.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I need a back hoe lots of times and it is also my go to tractor. I prefer it so much that I finally sold my 2010 model LS P7010. It had 186 hours on it after 10 years. My B26 has about 700 so you can see which gets used the most. I have about 850 hours on my RTV so it gets used most of all.

 

[Bearskinner]

I find I use my backhoe and log Grapple more than anything else, even the bucket loader

 

[CA_Bgrwldr]

re California real estate prices - I voted against Prop 13. It was, and is, bad public policy. Its one more way, like student loans for overpriced education, how the elders in charge have an advantage over youth today who won't (most of them) ever catch up with what the older generation was able to accomplish.

But I've sure benefited from it. 20 years ago I inherited a half interest in this orchard from Dad's estate. (and bought out the other half) So I pay a continuation of his 1973 taxes plus the cost of living inflation factor. For 11 acres with an old farmhouse, I pay under $1200 a year property tax, a tiny fraction of what neighbors out on the county road with their modern homes on a quarter acre have to pay. As those houses change hands, they are re-assessed to reflect current value. This is deep-fringe commute territory an hour from downtown San Francisco and modern home purchases are priced accordingly. My newer neighbors are basically subsidizing the regional roads, rural fire department, etc that I'm not paying my share for.

I expect the Prop 13 entitlement for old timers will eventually get overturned when the present generation figures our how it all works.

Yes, Prop 13 wasn't the best fix, but given local assessors treating property like money trees, and abusing their ability to do so, the people reacted, and Prop 13 was the result. Sure, to new buyers it seems unfair, but in reality it isn't, the older owners have been paying taxes much longer and unlike younger buyers, are no longer using public schools, the biggest consumer of property taxes.

Student loans and property values, like incomes, are relative to the era, when holding for inflation, it doesn't cost any more to buy property or go to college now than it 25yrs ago, it just seems that way, the main issue today is the Millennials don't want to sacrifice themselves financially while paying back their loans now that they are wanting to buy homes, new cars, etc.

 

[Bearskinner]

It’s a society of instant gratification. They see there elders driving new vehicles, living in nice homes, and want that all TODAY. Not thinking about the fact that some people saved to be able to get that new truck or live in a desirable location.

 

[Gary Fowler]

It’s a society of instant gratification. They see there elders driving new vehicles, living in nice homes, and want that all TODAY. Not thinking about the fact that some people saved to be able to get that new truck or live in a desirable location.

So true. Todays youth seem to want to start their careers as a VP rather than work their way up like their mothers and fathers. Not so much instant gratification as Instant Entitlement. What gripes me most it politicians calling SS entitlement, we paid for this and it belongs to us not the government.

 

[Bearskinner]

We all must remember that the Government does not GIVE you anything, they have not taken from you in the first place.
As our voted on representatives , why do they feel they do not have to represented us anymore? I did not vote them in office to rule over us.

 

[CA_Bgrwldr]

We all must remember that the Government does not GIVE you anything, they have not taken from you in the first place.
As our voted on representatives , why do they feel they do not have to represented us anymore? I did not vote them in office to rule over us.

That is the problem with so many of them, especially those that seek politics having failed in their careers in the private sector. Whether or not Jefferson stated it, or some other Founder, or simply made up by someone else, the quote "When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.", holds true, and from time to time, as our current set of federal elected office holders found out, the real power in this country still lies in the hands of the people, and not their elected office.

 

[Bearskinner]

I’ve read that 78% of all dem presidential candidates since WWII were lawyers, and over 60% of those have been disbarred.sounds about right

 

[Gary Fowler]

Back to the what are you doing topic. I just finished moving the 20" of snow off my driveway and making a path to my shop and chicken pen. I just couldnt wait for the warm up to melt it all and got tired of the snow melt coming off my Kubota RTV after driving it to the shop and pen each day. All the snow would pack up under the axles,rims and frame and then melt off in the garage. The piles I left might take a while to melt though.