Quoting Dave Drum to Jim Weller <=-
said I was pre-qualified for U$225K I was gabber-flasted.
The banks pre-qualify people for the absolute maximum people can bear
with out quickly defualting. Prudent people take far less.
I told him "I don't need that much house."
Indeed.
this one ... went for the 25.
You live in an extremely depressed part of the world. Our smallest
mobile home plots (30' X 90') run $50K and then there are condo fees
to the barren land condominium on top. I once sold a foreclosure in
very poor condtion for $30K but the mobile home demolition cost was
$20K more.
Full size, fee simple lots are $150,000 (A large part of that is due
to our rugged terrain and climate. The developments costs are high.
Developers can get raw land tracts for as little as $120,000 an
acre. Also construction costs are high for the same reasons and so
are re-sales.
Yellowknife's average home, including condo apartments and older
mobile homes is $440,000 and the average house with garage runs
$550K to $750K. The cheapest house I have sold in recent years was a
1950s bungalow, vacant for years, and very moldy. It sold for
$163,000 and the place will be demolished to make way for a 4-plex.
MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.06
Title: Gingerbread House Construction
Categories: Info, Holiday, Cakes
Yield: 1 help file
Gingerbread
First I made templates out of corrugated cardboard. Two side
walls, a front and back wall, two roof sections, two porch roof
sections, two porch floor sections. (My gingerbread house is a
two-story American farmhouse with a corner porch.)
I prepared and rolled out the dough on baking parchment, then laid
the cardboard down and cut out the walls. After the cutouts were
cut, I removed the cardboard. I also cut out the windows to leave
open holes. Before baking, I poured melted sugar into the windows
to make "glass."
Then I baked the gingerbread sections. After they were baked, but
still warm, I put the cardboard back on them to see if they were
the same size, because cookie dough often spreads a little when it
bakes. Sure enough, the pieces needed trimming. So I trimmed them
with a sharp knife, and Lynnie and I ate the bits we cut off.
Next, I put all the house parts on racks to cool overnight.
The next day, the cookie pieces were cooled and dry. I put the
walls together with royal icing, propped them up with mason jars
so they would stand, and left for work. When I came home that
night, the icing had set and the walls were solid.
Next I glued the roof and porch floor in place with the icing.
The roof wanted to slide off the pitch of the walls, so I kept it
in place with a couple of straight pins (I removed the pins after
the icing hardened.) Then I left these bits to harden overnight.
The next morning, I put on the porch roof. It needed to be
propped with mason jars, too. I also put on the porch columns
(candy canes) to hold the front of the roof up. When I got back
from work that night, the house was ready to finish.
The roof came first: I buttered the roof with a nice thick layer
of royal icing and shingled it with Necco wafers. Shingled, mind
you, over- lapping the the wafers like little slate shingles, not
putting them edge-to-edge. I did that on both the main roof and
the porch roof.
Next, I piped white frosting around the windows and door, for
molding. I piped red frosting on the windows for the window panes.
Between the windows I glued little candy wreaths, then piped green
frosting between them to make holly bunting, and piped red bows to
"hold it" there. I made the foundation out of sugar cubes, and
downspouts from candy canes. And I glued various Christmas candies
all around the house for decoration. When I was all done, I made
frosting icicles hanging from the eaves.
From: Dave Sacerdote Date: 16 Dec 96 National Cooking Echo Ä
MMMMM
Cheers
Jim
... Neekha's very first gingerbread house looked like a crack house.
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