House Hunters International is the best travel show in America

I have to confess that I am obsessed with that show. If you ever wanted to know what it would be like to live in a foreign country, watch this show. The show, hosted by Suzanne Whang on HGTV, travels throughout the world and shows you the house hunt of a particular hetero or homo couple, and the occasional single.

The locations are what keep me coming back – Malaga, St. Johns, Belize, Buenos Aires, Panama, the Greek Coast, Berlin, Edinburgh, Hong Kong, Tel Aviv, Fez etc. The areas are usually charming and are where most people would want to live.

It also doesn't hold back; there are trade-offs, sometimes significant ones. But I think that's what I like most about seeing places like Fez (squat toilets), Tel Aviv (bomb shelters in the apartment) and Hong Kong (so tiny).

It's also a peek into the culture. What is a kitchen? How much privacy can be expected? Where do people put their clothes? What items unite the global Ikea culture?

Finally the people looking for property are fun to watch. Their ages run the gamut – retirees, budding families, empty nesters, and even single people looking for their first place. But being the human behavior geek, it's the dynamic between the couples that I find fascinating. How much of partnership is it?

Great show.

Return to the bad old days

Photo credit [NYT]

I read an article in the Washington Post via Huffington Post on the next wave of housing distress – renters. Landlords and management companies all over the country own mortgages that are under water and under pressure. What does one do when the building isn't making money? Cut back on maintenance.

I recall the bad old days of the 1970s and early 1980s in NYC when faced with poor tenants, housing violations and dilapidated buildings, landlords set their apartments on fire to collect insurance money. Alas this is on a national scale but I'm sure more so in the usual suspects – California, Arizona, and Florida being three of them.

This may get worse before it gets better.

House of Cards

CNBC drives me nuts sometimes – must everyone shout? – but they do have some of the best financial journalists out there.

On my flight to Atlanta last night, I watched 'House of Cards' – an excellent piece of financial journalism and story reporting by David Faber.

The special talks about the sub-prime mortgage crisis from all angles – the buyers, the lenders, the analysts and the Fed. There's a certain political wing that puts all the blame of our current condition on minorities. But when seen in aggregate, no one escaped blame. People lied – on mortgage applications, to Wall Street, to insurance companies, to other consumers and to other countries. Financial models were calculated based on a never ending rise in asset prices, which beggars belief.

I fear the housing market will be in the crapper for a long time. The supply of homes simply will not align with demand for a long time. Immigrants are leaving, robbing many areas of the bodies to fill these homes. Jobs are disappearing, reducing the population that can afford to buy one.

Relatedly, this census will be an interesting one. Much of the growth, and the decline, is felt in the Sun Belt. Without jobs, I wonder if there will be another mass migration. Will people return to their hometowns to be closer to their network of family and friends?

Crazy Japanese Truck House

OK, I saw this and had to post it, in light of all my musings on small spaces. Two students converted a delivery truck into a mobile home, of sorts. Half of the truck literally folds up to make a sleeping loft. Very very cool.

Hat tip [PSFK]