Real Estate Absurdity: 28 Listing Photos With Unusual Design Choices

We managed to get in touch with the creator of the subreddit, u/tavenger5, and they were kind enough to have a little talk with us about it.

"I started 'Ridiculous Real Estate' after seeing weird or over-the-top extravagance during my own house hunting," the Redditor told Bored Panda. "I wanted a place to share the ridiculousness, and it seems others do too." Indeed, since its inception in 2016, the online community has grown to 27.7K members and while the number doesn't sound like much if you compare it to some giants like r/AntiWork, for such a narrow niche, it's quite something. The best part is that it remains active and still receives new content.

"The community has a keen eye for the bizarre living environment. Original content often comes from locals searching for a new place to live," u/tavenger5 said. "These are likely pics that others would never see unless looking at real estate in the same area. The community really brings light to the strangeness that some people enjoy living in or around."

Being familiar with all the trends of the subreddit, u/tavenger5 said that "it seems like there are a lot of homes out there that people build or make into something that resembles a castle. In 'Ridiculous Real Estate', the more cringe the better."

And while you might like to philosophize with a friend over a beer that there is no such thing as bad taste, a scroll through these pictures should convince you otherwise. "There are some submissions where it's obvious the people that inhabited a house couldn't change their situation if they wanted to or not. That is different from bad taste," u/tavenger5 highlighted.

"Bad taste happens when someone made a conscious decision to do something in their house that they think is perfectly fine (or are clearly into it), but most people would agree that it looks or functions in a strange way. Other ridiculousness comes from over the top style of the times that hasn't changed since."

Lately, 'Ridiculous Real Estate' must have seen an increased number of submissions as the Covid-19 pandemic upended the home-buying process. Historically-low mortgage rates coupled with an inventory shortage created a red hot market, with houses selling within just hours of being listed, often for well over the asking price.

And while no one knows exactly what the future has in store, housing experts told CNBC Make It that in 2022, buyers can expect similar trends to the past two years: elevated prices, low inventory, and fast turnaround.

Zillow predicts that it will continue to be a seller's market and home values are expected to increase by double-digital percentage points, but Skylar Olsen, principal economist at Tomo, a home-buying app, thinks it won't be quite as wild as it was this year.

"None of us can promise that [finding] housing will be easy," Olsen highlighted. "But it feels reasonable to promise that it will be easier than this past year."

The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates a few times in 2022, which means mortgage rates will likely rise. Both Redfin and Realtor.com predict a 30-year-fixed mortgage rate will reach 3.60% by the end of 2022, compared to an average of 3.30% now.

But according to Olsen, that’s not necessarily bad news for buyers. The silver lining of higher mortgage rates is that fewer speculative buyers will be in the market (because there is less money to be made). That could help the average person.

"When you have higher interest rates, it becomes more of the people who buy homes just to live in them. That’s something the market will benefit from, coming back down to sanity."

“When buying a home in the next year or longer, it will be important to watch new listings, including ‘coming soon’ listings, and be very prepared to not only visit the home quickly, but prepare to decide and extend an offer almost immediately,” Glenn Phillips, CEO and lead economic analyst for Lake Homes Realty, told CNBC Make It.

But with that said, don’t overpay for a house that, for example, includes 13 dead people out back. Prices will be up, so be careful not to take something outside of what’s reasonable for your budget.

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