I Can’t Stop Thinking About Today’s Housing Market
Today’s housing market has been on my mind so much lately. I’ll admit that I don’t understand economics the way an economist does, although I’ve been listening to a whole lot of economists lately trying to understand it more. But I am at least smart enough to know that what’s happened over the last few years in the housing market doesn’t seem normal to me.
If you’ve followed my blog for a long while, you know that Matt and I bought our house back in 2013 for $80,000. At the time, it was about a 1500 square foot house (before we converted the garage into my studio, and not including the sunroom, which I don’t because that room has never been usable for actual living space, in my humble opinion). And our house sits on a one-acre lot within the city limits of Waco, Texas. Back in 2013 when we bought our house, the median sale price of a house in Waco was $127,900.
As you already know, our house needed a lot of work. But I could tell that the house had “good bones”, so to speak.
Sure, it needed some updating. But it didn’t need everything that I’ve done to it over the last 13 years. A person could have very easily bought this house, pulled up the old carpet, refinished the original hardwood floors (or even just cleaned them since they were in pretty good condition), taken down the old curtains, painted the walls, and called it good. Small upgrades like lighting could have been added over time.
Of course, we bought this house specifically because we could purchase it at a low price and then spend the bulk of our money customizing it to fit our needs and wants. But the majority of the money we’ve spent has been on wants, not needs. So we went above and beyond the basics of painting the walls and cleaning the original hardwood floors. But my point is that someone could have very easily turned this into a very decent house for a grand total of about $100,000 to $120,000. In other words, the total cost from the original to the finished, livable, comfortable house could have been in range with that median selling price in our city back in 2013.
But in the 13 years since we’ve bought our house, the houses around us have exploded in price. And it’s not like we live in an area of town where you’d expect to pay a lot for houses. We live in an old part of town where the houses are very hit and miss. You’ll see really nice (but still old), big houses on big lots with lots of mature trees, and then one or two streets over, you’ll see tiny houses in disrepair on small lots with very few trees. It’s your standard old part of town in small city America.
It was only about eight years after we bought our house that the house next door to us sold for $350,000. And that house was originally on the market for $450,000!! That price, for this area of town seemed insane to me. But it sold! And there was nothing particularly special about that house. It was a flip house, and the person who bought it and flipped it did a pretty basic fixup on the house before selling it for $350,000. The fact that a house could sell for that much on our street, right next door to us, still boggles my mind today. I get messages from people who follow my blog on a fairly regular basis who have visited Waco and have driven by our house just to see it in person. So those of you who have seen it in person know exactly what I mean about our area of town.
And then last week, I noticed that a house very close by (within walking distance) was on the market. So being the nosey person I am, I wrote down the address and looked it up on Realtor.com to see what the asking price for that house is. I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw that this house is on the market for $409,000!!!
I can’t even wrap my head around this. Yes, it’s a cute house. And yes, they’ve obviously fixed it up on the inside. Whover remodeled it did a fantastic job. It looks very nice on the inside, and it’s completely move in ready. But still, a house selling for that price on that street in Waco, Texas, just blows my mind. Just seven years ago, this house was listed for sale for $95,000, according to Zillow.
Like I said, Just 13 years ago, when we bought our house, the median sale price of houses in Waco, Texas, was $127,900. Today, the median price of a house in Waco, Texas, is $285,000. That’s a 135.2% increase in just 13 years. And since Waco is a low-income city (the median household income in Waco is lower than the national median household income), that means that most Wacoans are being priced out of the housing market in their own city. The fact that most Wacoans can now not even afford a house in my area of town — the area of town where one would normally expect a first-time homebuyer to be able to purchase a home — seems tragic to me. We don’t live in the suburbs. We don’t live in a nice, new housing addition. We’re in an old part of town within the city limits.
Anyway, obviously, I don’t have any answers because, again, I’m not an economist. I don’t know how to fix this. And obviously, no one else does, either. I just know that I feel incredibly sad for first-time homebuyers who are trying to get into a house in this market. And it’s not surprising that the median age for first-time homebuyers in the U,S is now 42. Something has gone terribly wrong over the last decade, and it just makes me sad.
What are home prices like in your area of the country? What were they back in 2013 (or a decade ago) compared to where they are now?
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
It is insane in Connecticut too. A few years ago, my son bought a nice split level with a really nice yard for $235,000. This year, my daughter bought a house, just a small ranch on a 1/2 acre and it was $365,000. There were 20+ offers on the house. This small ranch was built in the 60’s with one owner and still has all its original finishes. Good thing that she likes that aesthetic as they will not be able to afford to change anything for MANY years. They were lucky to get the house at all and it is just crazy what kids have to do to get a house. (BTW, she is almost 30 and just moving out for the first time – she had to save for many years to get a down payment). Crazy!
I live in California where we have this same effect. We bought an 800sq ft house in 2012 for 89,500. It was in town, in a lower income part of town (as in lawns are optional). Our realtor advised us not to offer so much because it wouldn’t appraise. Well, it did. Fast forward to 2019. We sold it for $230,000 and we had 25 offers, some even higher than that. Today, it is estimated to be worth nearly $400,000! For a tiny house! We’re have a bunch of newly married friends having their first babies and they’d love to buy but they’re renting in people’s converted storage sheds, barn apartments and RVs. It’s tragic. We got so so lucky.
The mortgage interest rates are also nuts. We could never afford the house we live in now. We bought it when rates were 2.8%. 😳
In San Diego California a 850sq foot 2 bed 2 bath Condo built in 1990 and never been up graded sells for $550k- $660k in a busy congested part of town once considered “poor part of town” even though my doctor friends have lived there over 20 years, because it is close to four big hospitals and a University. Cute houses, dumpy houses too!
It’s the same in central Illinois, although I think prices are coming down a little. Have you thought of asking a realtor what they would ask for your house ? You could also look your house up on Zillow and claim it. Then Zillow will give you an estimate.
I haven’t spoken to a realtor, but Zillow has our house listed at a range from $239,000 to $340,000. I have a feeling, just based on the house next door, that we could get that top range, if not more.
If you actually want to know what your house is valued at in the current market, you would need to ask a real estate agent to show you, using recent comparable sales.
Zillow has no idea what you have done to the interior of your house since it has been purchased, and honestly, it’s not necessary to tell them. It is a given that their value estimate is much less than your home’s actual market value.
Even when you add on with permits, they can have trouble interpreting that.
Here in California, new laws a few years ago made it possible to build Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) on your existing property, within its existing zoning. We can actually now build two on. ADUs are another name for guest cottages/granny flats, etc. They are fully functional smaller homes, with a full kitchen and a bathroom, and a living/sleeping area. They are given their own street address. You can use it for yourself (work from home, art studio etc.), or let a relative live there (often done with aging parents or grown children), or rent it out.
Zillow now has our ADU listed as a separate house (it has its own address!), instead of an addition to our home! And they have valued it accordingly, as a stand-alone house. Zillow doesn’t understand that it is actually physically attached to our main home. I am not planning to correct their assumptions, because we are not planning to sell.
By the way, we are doing our part in helping our local housing crisis, because we are renting out our ADU. And the income is very helpful, since retirement, as a sort of replacement for a non-existing pension.
I don’t know what the laws are like in Texas, but after you have finished your house, a guest house, if allowed, would make a wonderful successor project for you. And you would love the commute. When it is done, you could rent it out, which would be an answer for one family. It may or may not mean a loss of some privacy, but it would certainly help the local housing shortage.
Another avenue to help out with the problem is to volunteer at Habitat For Humanity. They would be ecstatic to have a volunteer with your range of craft and skills.
We bought in northern NV in 2011 at the bottom of the market. 2460 sf in a nice golf course community for 310k. Today it appraises at about 825k. We have had a lot of Californians move here so that has driven up demand which of course drove up prices. I recall you wrote once about the “Gaines effect” on pricing – but have you also had folks coming from CA in to TX? Their values are much higher than average and seem to drive up prices wherever they move to. Idahoans have definitely seen it happen.
Yes, we’ve definitely had an influx of homebuyers from California.
They’re certainly doing this in Az.
We’ve been here just 7 years and right after Covid, there was a huge influx of California buyers getting a lot more house for less money in Az.
Please don’t blame this on people from California!!! Or Greedy Baby Boomers (I just hate this) It’s always someone’s fault! It’s a supply and demand Capitalism and Human Being problem. Sellers will always want as much as possible for their product. Businesses are relocating from other states because of tax breaks and perks given to them by the state ( you could blame them but…) incidentally when a Company from California moves to another state they almost always decrease their employees salary because the supposed cost of living is lower which is not necessarily true anymore) so their job has moved, they need a place to live, and local people see an opportunity to make $ and they raise their prices. Human nature. ALSO there are huge Venture Capital firms that have bought up whole neighborhoods of “affordable” homes along with farmland all over the country driving supply down. This is a whole different conversation but they don’t intend to supply affordable housing.
Midwest Realtor here. General thoughts: A. The cost of ‘used inventory’ is being driven up by the cost of building. B. The cost of building is being driven up by the overall lack of trades people (Mike Rowe is on a life mission). C. This generation of buyers is doing it to themselves. They overlook quality construction for ‘move-in ready’ and they pay a premium for not lifting a finger.
Even in Rural Nebraska (my county has 5000) prices have increased substantially. And yes young people are being priced out of the market. BUT…(let me step up on my soapbox)… we have built a generation (or two) that doesn’t save money so they don’t have the money to remodel but they have the income to pay a higher payment. Also, after 2008 re crisis you would think that we would demand 15% downpayment but nope we are loaning 97%+ again.
So the market is crazy. But good working people with good financial practices can afford homes, but the ones with the loudest voices want it all and so they say they cannot afford them. Patience people. And also, send your kiddos to trades school!!!!
(I slowly step down).
I do understand a lot of the criticism of today’s younger generations, and I would agree with some of it. Maybe even a lot of it. But, to me, that still just barely scratches the surface of the problem.
Again, I go back to when we bought our house. We bought for $80,000. We put down $20,000, financed $60,000, and paid it off in 9.5 years. That was very manageable for us, while also putting money into remodeling our home, because our minimum monthly payment on our mortgage was only about $435. We could have purchased a home that was a lot more, and a lot nicer, and in a nicer part of town, but I never wanted to be “house poor” or strapped with a high mortgage payment that we couldn’t pay in the event of an emergency or (dare I say) economic collapse. Back then, houses in that price range were plentiful. They were all fixer uppers, but they were available.
I just searched for comparable houses (3 bedroom, 2 bath) in my zip code, and the median price (I had ChatGPT help me figure this) is $317,000. That requires a $64,000 downpayment (at 20%), and a monthly mortgage of $1628. Add in property taxes and homeowner’s insurance, and you’re looking at just over $2500/month. And a lot of those houses actually are fixer uppers that would need a lot of repair and updating. In a city like Waco, with a median household income of $54,365, that’s completely out of reach for most people in this city.
I did find one house in my zip code that’s $85,000. Three bedrooms, one bath, 1230 square feet. But it is in complete disrepair and looks like it needs structural repair in addition to all of the flooring and finishes replaced. I’m pretty daring, but that house would be more than I would want to take on, and I don’t see how anyone could live in it until a lot of repairs are done (and a lot of money above and beyond purchasing the house is spent).
So again, while I do agree with a lot of the criticism of younger generations today, I do think it’s unfair to completely write it off as “this generation of buyers is doing it to themselves.” I think there are MANY factors at play here that need to be considered.
Leave room for me on your soapbox!
The trades are where it’s at! I always encourage my friend’s kids to go into HVAC, Plumers, or welding trades.
And yes, kids should be taught basic economics and saving in high school if not upper grade school. Most are so invested in immediate gratification they never see the big picture.
There are several other contributors to the rapid increase in home building costs, current and ongoing, that should be added to the list.
One is the cost of inflation. This affects not only the mortgage rates, but adds to building costs. For the consumer, the recent and current rapid inflation rate rise brings shocking increases in costs, without equal or greater rise in income.
Another big contributor is the rapid and erratic tariff rates. Since two days ago, we now have an additional 50% tariff increase in goods from Canada. What do we get from them? Not just maple syrup. Lumber and cement.
We all need to remember that tariffs are not borne by the exporting country or company. They are paid here, by the American importer and then passed along, sooner or later, to us, the end user, the consumer.
All you need to do is step into any type of store, like a grocery or home improvement warehouse, to see how all of this is radiating through the supply chain to the checkout counter.
My background is in Personal Financial Planning, and as part of my certification, I had classes in economics, taxation, principles of investment, insurance, real estate, and estate planning and trusts .
I hear you. When my husband retired from the Army 15 years ago and we moved to Tennessee from Washington D.C., we loved the home prices down here, obviously. We bought our farm, 110 acres (at the time), and an 11-year-old Cape Cod style house and it came with barns and even an old tractor in the barn…wait for it…$450K. Fast forward 10 years later and the original landowner contacted us and asked if we wanted to buy the last 140 acres and bring the property back together…she asked that we beat the developers who were hounding her. We beat them by $5K and bought the additional acreage for $260K cash. So, now we sit on just over 250 acres, and it is all paid for, but the ridiculous thing is that for even out here in the middle of nowhere, over an hour to Knoxville, or two hours to Nashville, the realtors would hang a price tag on the whole shebang for just under $6 million…I can’t wrap my head around that in such a short period of time. We, like you, have changed some of the house that was originally 2,880 sq ft, to now around 3,450 sq ft and that is not even with the basement we have to still finish. And that was not with any additions, it was using, like you, the footprint of the house and just making the space that was attached to it livable. Not glamorous, but it is getting the job done. We still have a lot of the glamourous side of things to finish inside but that is coming as my husband retires on September 11 of this year. We are looking forward to it. We saved for the 27 years he was in the Army, and we always tried to live beneath our means, which is not easy when you are moving all the time. Then his job at the National Laboratory was a good paying job and now he will have an additional retirement, we know how blessed we are, but then again, we have worked very hard for this. My husband was a Nuclear Engineer for the Army and was one at the Laboratory and will probably even have some consulting jobs in this retirement, it seems these engineers don’t grow on trees.
We have seen down here in East Tennessee that the median housing prices are just stupid crazy and then the property taxes with them have skyrocketed to where it almost makes it impossible to think about retirement. We have friends still in the D.C. market and they paid in excess of over $35K a year for their property taxes, how is that sustainable in retirement??? I will take the fewer places to eat and shop, and the fewer people on the roads down here for our $3K a year taxes on the whole thing. You and Matt did it right and very smart. I love your blog, and your style and your hard work ethic and I still show you off to my hubby whenever he sits long enough for me to ambush him. Just know you are sitting on a gold mine, a paid for gold mine and if things ever go horribly wrong, you’ve got something to fall back on. Now as long as the government doesn’t tax the heck out of all of us, we’ll all be just fine.
Sorry I was so wordy today.
Cheers to you, Matt and the Fur Team!!!
In August 2000, we bought our house in central MA for $159,900. Today, Zillow’s estimated value is 467,000 -533,000. We’ve added a deck, roof, kitchen and bath remodel, and coverted screen porch to a three-season porch. We could sell today, but where we’d go remains questionable.
Ours have almost doubled, definitely if it was flipped. In a popular suburban zip code with great schools. A house across from us was 150k maybe when we moved in, and now after 2 buy/sells it’s over 600k. It was heavily renno’d right in 2021 from it’s OG 1970’s condition. Part is, the variety homes in our neighborhood people move to a different street to the house they like quite often some are row homes, some big single family, some duplex ranches. The HOA does landscaping but not the siding or roofs.
Like our older generations were during the great depression. I think there was a run on real estate worldwide….a lot of international people are re-investing their real estate dollars site unseen in US property. for a variety of reasons. I can be wrong, but a part of it is you don’t have to have residence nor citizenship to own properties in the USA. Add the regulations to protect the owner quite well here.
There’s a lot of places in Asia and Europe that had a housing crash. Many invested into homes vs stocks because the stock markets, banks, internationally are volatile or in-accessible. Unfortunately there’s less stability to real estate internationally, less protections… disasters, eminent domain, or skyrocketing crime. Overall many saw real-estate investment vanish, and jumped to stability.
A home in Central Montana that was worth $186,000 in 2013 is now on the market for $725,000. The two-year-old home next to it sold for $595,000 after being on the market over six months at $795,000. Bozeman, Montana has some of the highest real estate prices in the country, and locals have been forced out of rentals because the prices are so ridiculous.
I think what’s happened to the real estate market in Montana is a full-on disaster.
We bought our house in 2015 for $384,000. The last tax appraisal was close to $700,000. This was a good investment. We owe about $264,000. We have houses listed for over one million dollars in our neighborhood.
It is truly sad lately. The home prices have indeed soared out of reach for so many! We are blue collar people and built our 1900+ sq ft home just over 25 yrs ago on a half acre lot in city just north of Detroit, MI. It’s definitely like yours, an older working class community. But we found a large buildable lot that we could afford at that time. We did about 95% of the build ourselves and all in it cost us $72k for our own custom designed home and the land was $20k. Pretty decent. 2 yrs ago our sweet neighbor passed and a young couple bought the house. It’s over 57 yrs old but in immaculate condition for the age. A 2 story on a 1/4 acre but not fenced. They paid $255k ….holy cannoli!!! I cant even imagine what the taxes are after they became uncapped? Im so glad my young daughter bought her starter home just prior to covid and before this crazy spike in housing costs. She bought at $69k and now the same homes around her are selling at $189k …. timing was everything for her! She was 21 and did it all on her own! The younger kids now….dont have the opportunity to even try, sad.
I feel so badly for the young adults today! They do not have access to home ownership in most cases. There is a severe housing shortage and it doesn’t make sense. Why is there such a shortage. It is this shortage that brings up the price. I’ve been told that investment groups buy up cheaper homes to rent out and that caused the shortage. If this is the case then the government needs to step in and limit the amount of investment homes that can be purchased and allow people the opportunity of home ownership.
A pillar of our country is the access to home ownership that creates stability and can build wealth.
You are 100% correct about investment companies.
And there is legislation in a lot of cities trying to regulate this very thing.
You’d think that everyone would back this kind of thing but we’re so polarized as a country now that often legislation stalls and the corporate greed goes on.
I did some looking into this. It looks like Congress has passed legislation that will drastically limit those companies from buying up huge inventories of available houses, but it won’t take effect until January 2027. So in the meantime, they can keep buying as much as they can. And once the law takes effect (I’m still unclear on whether it’s been signed into law yet, or if that’s still pending), those companies won’t be forced to sell their inventory, so they’ll be able to hang onto everything they have, and everything they can buy between now and January 2027.
I’m glad to hear this but it all depends on enforcement. Many times the Investment Companies buy in cash. I think the law is limiting the mortgage market on how many investment property loans they will allow. This law may just prevent the mom and pop investors.
Trump refused to sign it, but because he didn’t veto it within 10 days it was enacted into
law anyway.
I live in a small town a couple hours north of Seattle and bought my 2000 sq ft home in 2016 for $395,000. It has doubled in value in 10 years! Similar homes in my neighborhood are now selling for around $800,000.
My goal was to get my first house before I was 40; I’m 75 now.
But in 1991, I did it paying 67,500 for a sweet cape cod at 1041 sq ft. with a 30 yr mortgage at 9 1/2%!! Plus I had to have private mortgage insurance; I was just out of nursing school so not making money yet. But I didn’t buy the house of my dreams in a better neighborhood, I bought the house I could afford in a so-so neighborhood. 28 yrs later I sold it for 132,000 and though it didn’t appreciate that much I felt fortunate. 5 yrs later that buyer sold it for a whopping $250,000!!!! Over those 28 yrs I put a lot of love and money into that little cottage of mine and I miss it to this day.
(And I was so proud I paid it off in 2013 I took a photo of my last check going into the mail!!)
I think part of the problem is that so many houses are now used as Air BnB rentals. What was once a family home is now someone’s investment property and only used on weekends and a few weeks of the year. I would love to retire to the area I grew up but now it’s a summer vacation spot and housing is ridiculously expensive. I bet half of the houses in that small town are Air BnBs and second homes. The school system even shrunk to a small conference because they’ve lost so many students!
I think that this is part of the issue too.
The market usually adjusts. When it gets to the point that no one can buy, prices will fall. Unfortunately, the current trend is for wealthier individuals or even corporations to buy and then rent out the houses. That keeps people from buying because rent is the same as a mortgage payment. Boomers have a lot tied up in their homes and want to get the most out of them, but if they don’t come down a little now, prices will fall and they will have to sell at a much lower price later anyway. At that point, the market will be flooded and anyone without an updated house or new build will have to really reduce the price. So better to not make as much now and get it sold. Once the market collapses we will see interest rates fall and it would be good to have the govt offer incentives like we had in 2008 to help younger buyers. Student loan forgiveness would also be good so that younger people could free up money to buy cars and houses. Whatever we sacrifice in loan forgiveness comes back many times over in consumption and that helps everyone (more buying at restaurants and retail stores=more jobs and economic stability).
I always have to laugh at the people who whine about how high the interest rates are now. When I bought my home in 1979, the interest rate was 14%, DOWN from 17% a little bit before. We refinanced twice to get it down to 8% before paying the loan off.
I’m in BC Canada. We were able to port our mortgage from the house we paid $199k CAD house and sold for $299K 3 years later to a house twice the size in a bigger lot in another city that we bought for $280k. We are now assessed at $605k 10 years later. There’s a house three over that’s for sale for $710k which is a 10k drop. The house across the road was recently vacated by renters who had been evicted, then squatted before disappearing one day. When the property manager came to clear out the house they found 28 mattresses in the basement. None of the neighbours ever heard a sound or saw any traffic in or out (backed up with cameras, and confirmed by one of the contractors involved in the cleanup who lives next door to that house). The owners bought several years ago just before the mortgage rules changed, flipped it, then listed 6 weeks later and couldn’t sell so rented it. They had to tear out all the cabinets, flooring, drywall in the lower level because of bedbugs and bodily fluids and repair/replace everything (with some renos still needed upstairs), before listing again. It was assessed this year at 691k and just purchased for $775k.
We bought our first house in 2012 for $120k. It was 1100 sq. ft. on a quarter acre lot. We sold it in 2018 for $170k and it is currently listed for $245k. This is in Louisville, KY.
Import 40 million people, pay for their housing and see what happens. There is not a thing wrong right now (housing, fraud, food prices, etc.) that won’t be improved by removing people who do not belong here. This isn’t a race issue, or a religious issue. It is simply wanting a country based on the rule of law. Sorry, I don’t like getting political, but too many people dance around this issue for free of being shamed for stating the truth.
When we bought our first home, the price was 3.8 times the county’s median income. Currently that same house is valued at 6.3 times the county’s median income. It’s genuinely terrible for young first time buyers.
There’s a lot of causes for our current housing shortage, absolutely none of which are the current generation’s doing. Available financing for housing development has never regained the levels it was prior to 2008. Almost nothing was built for a few years after 2008 and we never increased production enough to catch up. Restrictive zoning has both increased building costs and reduced supply.
I’m on the cusp between the Baby Boom and Gen X. I think it is crucial that we look in the mirror and admit the policies and politicians we supported did unintentional but immeasurable harm to the housing market. I strongly believe we have a responsibility to work to undo as much of that damage as we can.
I bought half a duplex in a suburb of a suburb of a suburb of a city here in the middle of the US. Paid $70k. Six years later, I sold it for a bargain price of $170k. Paid cash for my current dumpy little mobile home, $58k. It is currently valued at $137k. The town where I live has a whopping 474 population.
The main reason why prices have skyrocketed over the past few years is because of corporations and hedge funds buying up all of the residential homes and then renting them out for insanely high costs. that leaves nothing left for young homebuyers. Of course, the media and big corporations are trying to lay the blame on baby boomers. They’re saying that because boomers aren’t selling their homes and downsizing, there are no homes on the market for young families. I actually had a coworker tell me once that it was my husband and my responsibility to society to downsize and sell our home to a young family. Newsflash! That’s BS. We’re in our early 60’s, the tail end of the boomer generation. We struggled our entire adult life to be able to afford our home. We bought the rural property with a 2-year-old doublewide on it in 1988, (with a 13% interest rate), with the intention of eventually building someday. Thirteen years later we were able to build. We are now debt free. Our house isn’t a McMansion. It’s between 2200 and 2300 square feet. We don’t have a garage or a manicured lawn. Every bit of space in our house is used on a daily basis. One of our adult children currently lives with us. We can’t afford to downsize. We couldn’t sell our home and use the money to pay cash for a new home, because of the outrageous house prices. I refuse to go back into debt.
Whether or not boomers downsize doesn’t impact the overall housing shortage. Playing a round of musical chairs doesn’t change the fact that the circle is still short a chair.
I don’t know if anyone will read far enough to see this comment but…. If their employment or retirement status allows, consider Alabama. I am in Birmingham, houses in neighborhoods similar in description to Kristi’s can be bought needing rehab for $100,000 or less. Rehabbed mid $100’s. Newer and/or nicer areas, $200’s up to Million’s plus. Just look up Mountain Brook, AL on Realtor.com. Smaller cities and towns further from major metropolitan areas have large lots or acreage and 3/2’s with 1500 to 2000 sf be found starting in mid $200’s. So, it does depend on where you want or need to live.
It is terrible in Idaho!! We live close to Boise and the Vally we live and surrounding area has been developed into huge subdivisions, apartment complexes, strip malls, etc. Our roads can’t handle the traffic, not enought Drs or teachers. Our grandchildren may never own a home. 10 years ago we invested in rental home and purchesd a 4 bedroom newer house for $89,000. which we sold a few years later of $225,000. It now is on the market for $500,000.