superpat

Reading the accommodation ads on the excellent Craig's List (http://www.craigslist.com), I am slightly mystified as to what a duplex is... And a fourplex?



Cheers,

Pat

Pulaski

A semi detached, and a fourplex is a terrace of four houses. In most places only poor folks live in duplexes and moreplexes. They are cheaper and if your budget runs to it you'd be better looking for something else, i.e. a detached house.

superpat

We're looking in Silicon Valley, so it may just have to be a duplex/fourplex!

So... it seems like a duplex house is a semi, and, from other research, a duplex apartment is a maisonette.

Ah - two nations divided by a common language.



Pat

Patrick

Come in Pulaski this is planet earth calling! Duplexs and moreplexes are not for the plebians at all, and especially not in Silicon Valley (in fact I think they cleared out all the poor people from silicon valley years ago, along with orchards).

In some parts of the states there is a lot of land and very few people and in these places (known as Kansas and Arizona) Duplexes aren't common. In places like Boston, NY, Silicon Valley where land is a premium duplexes and moreplexes are very common and usually the first step on the property ladder. I live at the beach where land is very expensive so the sub-divisions are littered with duplexes and moreplexes to allow people to live at the beach. You head 20 miles in land and you can get a detached on 7 acres for the same amount.

You can take the man out the class system but you can't take the class system out of the man!

Pulaski

The last time I looked at a map Silicon Valley and the north Carolina cost was not "most places".

I admit I made a sweeping generalization, but I stand by it - in most parts of the US duplexes are not particularly desirable housing. Even on the outskirts of the New York metro area, where property prices are fairly crazy, the duplex properties are barely more than up-market trailer parks.

You may be right about California, I haven't been there and can't comment.

frrussre

Duplex NYC is usually an expensive apartment configuration. 2 units one above the other, staircase or elevator joining them together. Triplex, even more expensive. Can be $10 -$20 million. Or $500k.

Reg. Frank R.

You can't make this stuff up:


Listing ID: 279866
Price: $41,500,000
Bdrms: 9
Rooms: 18
Baths: 9.5
CC/Maint: $8,000.00
RE Tax: $13,940.00


5 STAR TERRACED TRIPLEX PENTHOUSE
5 Star Ritz Carlton Penthouse - Terraced Triplex. Create a Terraced Triplex Penthouse that is rivaled by none. The top three floors of the legendary Ritz Carlton Hotel at 50 Central Park South can be yours. The 33rd Floor is meticulously finished space with herringbone floors and a top of the line kitchen with the breakfast room facing the Park. The marble baths are done to perfection. The 34/35 Floors have had all of the air conditioning and mechanicals installed. The completed home would offer over 10,000 square feet of living space with a 400 square foot terrace, three wood burning fireplaces, a glass atrium and 360 degree views including staggering Central Park, river and city views from oversized thermopane windows

frrussre

Listing ID: 256878
Price: $23,000,000
Bdrms: 5
Rooms: 11
Baths: 5
CC/Maint: $6,523.40
RE Tax: $8,320.00

Yes that is 23 million



PARK VIEWS FROM PARK AVE
The most glamorous 5,000 square-foot duplex penthouse in all of New York, in a condominium building of unsurpassed prestige and services. Comprising two full floors, this magnificent home commands dramatic vistas in all four directions - all of Central Park, the George Washington and East River Bridges, and the great Manhattan skyline

Patrick

A 2 bed duplex a couple of roads away from us (detached sub-division) went for $180,000 and we live in east buck**** NC, another 2 bed duplex is on the market to rent for $900 a month. Seeing as the average wage around here is lower than anywhere else in NC, and NC isn't that well paid I would say poor people don't live in Duplexs.

frrussre

Patrick, at $40 + million for the small Pad above, I don't think rich people live in them. Only the really really loaded rich, Bill Gatesish.

Reg. Frank

Ps plus the other expenses.

Pulaski

There is something of a pecking order in US housing:

Trailer (in trailer park)
Trailer (on own lot)
Duplex/ triplex/ quadplex, etc
Apartment
Condo / Town house
House (detached)

Houses could arguably be subdivided into ranches and others, where ranches are less desirable than other houses in the same neighborhood (well, they are cheaper).

Many of the homes listed above may look similar e.g. a townhouse is two or more houses built as a terrace, but marketed as a more desirable home, and therefore more expensive.

Also apartments and condos are physically indistinguishable in most cases, though there is also a difference in the legal/ ownership structure, and in New York, for example, there are fair sized townhomes and large duplex houses built in a very nice parkland setting, and with a sports club facility for owners, that is legally a condo.

The more you dig the more confusing it gets!

Patrick

I think the mother ship is calling you back! Where do you get this crap from - there is a pecking order for housing! You are either an idiot or a snob.

Its all relative, we have duplex's for sale close to me for $180,000 and detached houses 15 miles down the road for sale at $90,000. We have mobil homes 3 streets away from us that go for over $120,000 and are owned by upright citizens (not trailer trash). You cant buy a duplex in some parts of the country for less than $1000000 - are these duplexs lower on the pecking order! The millionaires who live in them probably don't think so. Your statement is ill informed, sweeping and quite offensive.

Whats next, breaking housing down by race? Maybe you can offend more people by doing that...
White men who wear white vests = mobil homes
afro americans = duplex
Latinos = apartments
white people who don't understand Opera = town houses
white people who don't like Norah Jones = ranch houses
White 6"5 men who think they are little Lord Fontelroy = detached (not ranch)

I bet you drive a BMW, how you can see through the wind shield with your head so far up your own ass I will never know.

Patrick

lairdside

I lived in a duplex before we moved to our current home. It was like a semi-detached house in the UK, basically two houses side by side as opposed to above one another. It was a condo too, which just means that the property isn't freehold and the land is owned by a Homeowers Association.

It sold for $600,000.

No cheap duplexes here......

Pulaski

It sounds exactly like the duplex that we looked at near New York - a new build being sold for well over $400K.

Pulaski

That is exactly my point! You are an obnoxius jerk, what the **** is your problem?

I am trying to pass on what I have learned, though experience, to others, you are just trading in insults! If I had known what I now know, in looking for houses, then it would have saved me a lot of time.

It goes without saying that price is the ulitmate arbiter of who get to afford to live where, and if a place seems too cheap to be a good place to live then it probably is.

Can we leave it at that?

Patrick

Where? Your point seems to be that poor people live in trailers and duplexs and rich people live in detached houses (not ranches) which is ridiculous. You have put your own class system on the housing.

I hurt your feelings by saying you drive a BMW? Are you for real? In my experience it is usual for people who beleive that status is everything drive BMW's, you obviously have a hang up on your status in society and where people come in that status. Your imposing some British Middle class system on the houses in America and you have the balls to call me obnoxious! I can't think of anything more obnoxious than forcing your own values on other people - you are the Jehovas witness of housing!

No your trying to pass on your own opinions about who should live where, you can tell you come from a class obsessed society.

[/QUOTE]
It goes without saying that price is the ulitmate arbiter of who get to afford to live where, and if a place seems too cheap to be a good place to live then it probably is.
[/QUOTE]

I agree with the first part but not the second, there is a huge difference in cost in housing round where I live. You can pay a million dollars for a small duplex near the beach and $50,000 for a detached house on a subdivision in a good area if you head in land. This makes

1) relative to the location

2) an individual decision whether to live in a nice neighborhood or on the beach.

We live in a 4 bed detached 2 blocks back from the beach on an island and for the same price a work mate of my wifes bought an 8 bed mansion with a boat slip off the island but on an inlet and again if you go to Baldhead Island or Wrightsville beach you couldn't buy a parking space the money we paid. Its all about personal preference, so keep your snobbish views to yourself. Next time an american asked me if people like Hyacinth Bucket really exist in the UK I will send them to you

Patrick