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Post by lisacharlotte on Feb 26, 2021 1:15:48 GMT
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Post by laurasw on Feb 26, 2021 1:21:24 GMT
You can get a pretty nice house here for $350,000 in a really great city with wonderful schools too. Property taxes are in the $7000 range. www.har.com/homedetail/4228-evergreen-dr-friendswood-tx-77546/13587974We bought our house in 2004. It is 2500 square feet with a pool that we put in. We are on about a 1/4 acre on a cul de sac street with no back neighbors. Our house is appraised for $285,000 right now and we remodeled the kitchen and bathrooms last year. If we were to put it up for sale we would probably list it at $350,000-$375,000. We live in the suburbs south of Houston and have a great school district which is another great selling point. Hey neighbor! I'm in Pearland :-)
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iamcaro
Full Member
Posts: 127
Mar 12, 2019 2:51:15 GMT
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Post by iamcaro on Feb 26, 2021 3:04:25 GMT
Is anyone sad about the Frozen wall stickers? Someone lived there. It may not be my cup of tea, but that was someone's home for better or worse. Yes, and if IRC there is evidence of mold on the walls of that room. I think this photo struck me as the most sad.
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Post by bc2ca on Feb 26, 2021 3:30:02 GMT
Yeah, I'm often asked how I afford a decent house in Seattle on a professor's salary, and my answer is -- I had the good luck to be born in the 1970s and to have first bought a house decades ago. If I had to try to buy a house now without the equity from another house on the current prices of houses . . . well, I could buy a house in Seattle, but it would not be the house I'm living in, that's for sure. Having only lived in high real estate cities (Vancouver, Seattle, San Diego) this is 100% true. The $350K price point gets you a mobile home or condo around here.
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Post by bc2ca on Feb 26, 2021 3:33:29 GMT
I don't think you would find anything in Toronto for that little. This one sold for $1.8 million in Toronto this past August. linkA friend is looking for a starter home in Toronto. He and his wife, both 31 year old lawyers, are preapproved for $1.4 million have been outbid on everything. The most recent was listed at 1.3 and went for 1.8.
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pinklady
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,505
Nov 14, 2016 23:47:03 GMT
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Post by pinklady on Feb 26, 2021 3:35:23 GMT
These threads always mess me up. I picture all of you living in McMansions that cost a million dollars. It makes me wonder just what kind of wages everyone must make to be able to afford such homes. Either that or I wonder if people are just mortgaged up to the eyeballs. I was only able to afford my house in Southern California because of the market crash in 2008. It would sell today for $700K which I’d NEVER be able to afford.
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Post by Merge on Feb 26, 2021 3:58:46 GMT
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Post by **GypsyGirl** on Feb 26, 2021 4:25:44 GMT
These threads always mess me up. I picture all of you living in McMansions that cost a million dollars. It makes me wonder just what kind of wages everyone must make to be able to afford such homes. Either that or I wonder if people are just mortgaged up to the eyeballs. Sometimes it's just a matter of having chosen a home/location wisely and staying put a long time. We went against the grain when we moved here 30 years ago and purchased in the city vs the suburbs like most friends did. We also underbought from what we were qualified for. That was because we wrote a check at the table when we sold our first house to come here. Those friends are lucky if their houses have doubled in value. Ours is worth 5-6 times what we paid for it, but it was 20 years before the big increases happened. We would not pay today what it would cost to move into our neighborhood.
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Post by busy on Feb 26, 2021 5:21:02 GMT
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Post by jennoconnell on Feb 26, 2021 7:40:36 GMT
Is anyone sad about the Frozen wall stickers? Someone lived there. It may not be my cup of tea, but that was someone's home for better or worse. Yes! Babies lived there. There is so much mold all over the place. It just feels like the renters were kicked out because the landlord decided to sell to take advantage the inflated Pandemic prices. I'm probably projecting, but that's happening all over my city, and it breaks my heart.
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Post by jennoconnell on Feb 26, 2021 7:54:29 GMT
These threads always mess me up. I picture all of you living in McMansions that cost a million dollars. It makes me wonder just what kind of wages everyone must make to be able to afford such homes. Either that or I wonder if people are just mortgaged up to the eyeballs. I just retired recently from consumer lending, and I can confirm that many people are in very poor financial positions, some don't even realize it. They are heavily mortgaged, lease their cars, and they have truly frightening amounts of credit card and student loan debt. I could discuss this topic for hours, but suffice to say, looking at people's credit reports for 20 years made me very, very careful with my money.
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Post by jeremysgirl on Feb 26, 2021 11:54:57 GMT
These threads always mess me up. I picture all of you living in McMansions that cost a million dollars. It makes me wonder just what kind of wages everyone must make to be able to afford such homes. Either that or I wonder if people are just mortgaged up to the eyeballs. I just retired recently from consumer lending, and I can confirm that many people are in very poor financial positions, some don't even realize it. They are heavily mortgaged, lease their cars, and they have truly frightening amounts of credit card and student loan debt. I could discuss this topic for hours, but suffice to say, looking at people's credit reports for 20 years made me very, very careful with my money. Truly too, it was not my intention to pry into the financial business of any of the peas. Or pass judgement on them. But surely there must be teachers and policemen and people with just average middle class incomes and I often wonder how they afford to live in these places. Could I afford a $350,000 house? Maybe yes. But it would take a whole lot of trimming elsewhere to be able to do it. I'm not sure I'm willing to do that. My post was silly but truly I have sympathy for average people trying to afford to live in these areas.
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Post by peasapie on Feb 26, 2021 12:00:59 GMT
I don't think you would find anything in Toronto for that little. This one sold for $1.8 million in Toronto this past August. linkA friend is looking for a starter home in Toronto. He and his wife, both 31 year old lawyers, are preapproved for $1.4 million have been outbid on everything. The most recent was listed at 1.3 and went for 1.8. Whattttt. How do people afford to buy a first home?
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Post by peasapie on Feb 26, 2021 12:16:42 GMT
In my state there are expensive areas and much more reasonable areas, so 350k buys very different things depending on where you look.
I personally think many of the U.S. overpriced areas are going to drop soon, and quickly, as so many more people are working from home and can live anywhere. (West coast has already seen the exodus begin.). I’m concerned for kids who are already over leveraged buying a first home.
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Post by Rainy_Day_Woman on Feb 26, 2021 14:01:11 GMT
A friend is looking for a starter home in Toronto. He and his wife, both 31 year old lawyers, are preapproved for $1.4 million have been outbid on everything. The most recent was listed at 1.3 and went for 1.8. Whattttt. How do people afford to buy a first home? You don't. I am 38 and the majority of my friends- who all have decent jobs, are not able to buy anything, and probably never will. I have maybe 2 friends that own a house, and they have *very* well paying jobs (but the size of their mortgage makes *ME* hyperventilate!) It seems that people I know who are maybe 5-10 years older than us were able to get into the market when it was bit more reasonable and work their way up. There just aren't "starter homes", everything costs over a million. About 7-8 years ago one of the new stations did a report on living here and concluded that you needed to make at least $200K to buy a house in the city and have a decent but still frugal lifestyle. I suspect that is probably closer to $300K now. We were able to buy an affordable and fair size condo about 10 years ago. We underbought, because we didn't want to over burden ourselves, but I kinda regret not buying a house then when they were only 2-300K more. We are just priced out of houses now as they are 5-700K more now, unless we want to be seriously house poor, and I don't care that much. I laugh because there is a Toronto Life blog that now only features profiles about how people are buying 2-3 hours from the city and what their houses / finance situations are. They don't even pretend anymore that people are living reasonably in the city
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Post by whipea on Feb 26, 2021 15:13:57 GMT
Yeah, I'm often asked how I afford a decent house in Seattle on a professor's salary, and my answer is -- I had the good luck to be born in the 1970s and to have first bought a house decades ago. If I had to try to buy a house now without the equity from another house on the current prices of houses . . . well, I could buy a house in Seattle, but it would not be the house I'm living in, that's for sure. I get REALLY MAD when I hear people who are my age and older criticizing people in their 20s for living in little apartments or even with their parents. What do they think you can buy on a starter salary? (Also the reports I get from my recent grads who make enough to buy a house but not $$$$ is that the starter-house market is if anything much worse than the middle-aged market -- maybe COVID has changed this, but they have often reported a half-dozen or more bids on a house they are trying to buy that is fine but nothing special. Same here but I am a bit older and now on my fifth house which is a "how can you afford that place working as a professor" house.
As a young single female people poo-pooed my dream to own a house, I did not listen. I bought my first house when I was 19 years old. Little down payment for a very affordable little disaster of a starter house in a decent area. I was in college and needed more income and less work so with the help of friends converted the garage section of the house to a rental apartment. This opportunity was somewhat related to the market at the time but also involved huge sacrifices. I was always stone broke.
When I graduated and got a real job, I sold the first house and used the profit to buy the next house and on and on. I have always always bought the worst house in the best area.
Now housing here is ridiculous. No matter what sacrifices people starting out make or with lower incomes, it is just not affordable. Though not like the the west coast of the country, in my area owning a home for many people is not reality. To find reasonable housing, people are moving to a northern more affordable county but there are few employment opportunities. So they work here and commute which eats up four hours a day, that is if there are no traffic issues.
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Post by Skellinton on Feb 26, 2021 15:36:30 GMT
I just retired recently from consumer lending, and I can confirm that many people are in very poor financial positions, some don't even realize it. They are heavily mortgaged, lease their cars, and they have truly frightening amounts of credit card and student loan debt. I could discuss this topic for hours, but suffice to say, looking at people's credit reports for 20 years made me very, very careful with my money. Truly too, it was not my intention to pry into the financial business of any of the peas. Or pass judgement on them. But surely there must be teachers and policemen and people with just average middle class incomes and I often wonder how they afford to live in these places. Could I afford a $350,000 house? Maybe yes. But it would take a whole lot of trimming elsewhere to be able to do it. I'm not sure I'm willing to do that. My post was silly but truly I have sympathy for average people trying to afford to live in these areas. Our house would sell for that now, but we didn’t pay even half that for it when we bought. It would be impossible for us to move where we are now, and we are just in a suburb of Portland. We would have to move much further north to a less populated area, and even those areas are getting more expensive as people are price forced out of our area. I imagine there are a lot of peas like us that bought when the buyer’s market was good or when our areas weren’t so exorbitantly priced.
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Post by bc2ca on Feb 26, 2021 19:43:48 GMT
Whattttt. How do people afford to buy a first home? You don't, as Rainy_Day_Woman said. Twenty five years ago, DH and I bought a condo in Vancouver rather than a house in the burbs for the same price. It was a trade-off that paid off as our property appreciated at a much faster rate. Friends that bought condos 5 years before us were able to leverage into the house market and spent years house poor. Many of our friends pooled their money so 2 couples (four good incomes) would buy a 2 bedroom condo or townhouse with a contract to sell in 2-5 years. It was enough of an equity increase that each couple could afford their own place down the road, but they always had to move further out. Or your parents help you out. I laugh because there is a Toronto Life blog that now only features profiles about how people are buying 2-3 hours from the city and what their houses / finance situations are. They don't even pretend anymore that people are living reasonably in the city DH's cousin moved from Toronto to Victoria this last year. With the pandemic, she and her DH have been working at home and realized they could live anywhere. I know not everyone can do that, but it will be interesting to see if there is any impact on the housing markets.
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Post by peasapie on Feb 26, 2021 19:47:13 GMT
Whattttt. How do people afford to buy a first home? You don't. I am 38 and the majority of my friends- who all have decent jobs, are not able to buy anything, and probably never will. I have maybe 2 friends that own a house, and they have *very* well paying jobs (but the size of their mortgage makes *ME* hyperventilate!) It seems that people I know who are maybe 5-10 years older than us were able to get into the market when it was bit more reasonable and work their way up. There just aren't "starter homes", everything costs over a million. About 7-8 years ago one of the new stations did a report on living here and concluded that you needed to make at least $200K to buy a house in the city and have a decent but still frugal lifestyle. I suspect that is probably closer to $300K now. We were able to buy an affordable and fair size condo about 10 years ago. We underbought, because we didn't want to over burden ourselves, but I kinda regret not buying a house then when they were only 2-300K more. We are just priced out of houses now as they are 5-700K more now, unless we want to be seriously house poor, and I don't care that much. I laugh because there is a Toronto Life blog that now only features profiles about how people are buying 2-3 hours from the city and what their houses / finance situations are. They don't even pretend anymore that people are living reasonably in the city That sounds like such a difficult situation. It’s great you have the condo. Something’s gotta give with those prices!
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Post by Rainy_Day_Woman on Feb 26, 2021 19:53:18 GMT
bc2ca, it hasn't seemed to make a difference to Toronto prices yet. My brother is about an hour outside Toronto though, and his house has literally doubled in price in the last year. It was always just a tad too far from the city to see the inflated prices, but since commuting is no longer such an issue, their market there has skyrocketed.
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Post by tc on Feb 26, 2021 20:05:46 GMT
Whattttt. How do people afford to buy a first home? You don't. I am 38 and the majority of my friends- who all have decent jobs, are not able to buy anything, and probably never will. I have maybe 2 friends that own a house, and they have *very* well paying jobs (but the size of their mortgage makes *ME* hyperventilate!) It seems that people I know who are maybe 5-10 years older than us were able to get into the market when it was bit more reasonable and work their way up. There just aren't "starter homes", everything costs over a million. About 7-8 years ago one of the new stations did a report on living here and concluded that you needed to make at least $200K to buy a house in the city and have a decent but still frugal lifestyle. I suspect that is probably closer to $300K now. We were able to buy an affordable and fair size condo about 10 years ago. We underbought, because we didn't want to over burden ourselves, but I kinda regret not buying a house then when they were only 2-300K more. We are just priced out of houses now as they are 5-700K more now, unless we want to be seriously house poor, and I don't care that much. I laugh because there is a Toronto Life blog that now only features profiles about how people are buying 2-3 hours from the city and what their houses / finance situations are. They don't even pretend anymore that people are living reasonably in the city As I was about to graduate with my degree in education (I'm talking mere weeks away), we had some experienced teachers come in and talk to us during one of our classes about how to balance teaching and life after college. I vividly remember this teacher sitting on the panel saying, "My first two years of teaching, I was married to another teacher. We had a house that we bought and it was falling down. We didn't make enough to heat the whole house so we lived the first two years in the kitchen so that we had running water and could primarily heat only one room." They had pulled a mattress down onto the floor and they ate, slept, graded papers, and did their evening entertainment all in their kitchen because they couldn't afford to venture into the rest of their house. That was probably 40-45 years ago (that this teacher was living like that) now and I am still in awe at the state of what a working starter family wage will "buy" in this country. I also remember thinking, "Oh, now you tell me" as I was inviting people to my college graduation and searching for a teaching job.
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Post by Merge on Feb 26, 2021 20:26:14 GMT
You don't. I am 38 and the majority of my friends- who all have decent jobs, are not able to buy anything, and probably never will. I have maybe 2 friends that own a house, and they have *very* well paying jobs (but the size of their mortgage makes *ME* hyperventilate!) It seems that people I know who are maybe 5-10 years older than us were able to get into the market when it was bit more reasonable and work their way up. There just aren't "starter homes", everything costs over a million. About 7-8 years ago one of the new stations did a report on living here and concluded that you needed to make at least $200K to buy a house in the city and have a decent but still frugal lifestyle. I suspect that is probably closer to $300K now. We were able to buy an affordable and fair size condo about 10 years ago. We underbought, because we didn't want to over burden ourselves, but I kinda regret not buying a house then when they were only 2-300K more. We are just priced out of houses now as they are 5-700K more now, unless we want to be seriously house poor, and I don't care that much. I laugh because there is a Toronto Life blog that now only features profiles about how people are buying 2-3 hours from the city and what their houses / finance situations are. They don't even pretend anymore that people are living reasonably in the city As I was about to graduate with my degree in education (I'm talking mere weeks away), we had some experienced teachers come in and talk to us during one of our classes about how to balance teaching and life after college. I vividly remember this teacher sitting on the panel saying, "My first two years of teaching, I was married to another teacher. We had a house that we bought and it was falling down. We didn't make enough to heat the whole house so we lived the first two years in the kitchen so that we had running water and could primarily heat only one room." They had pulled a mattress down onto the floor and they ate, slept, graded papers, and did their evening entertainment all in their kitchen because they couldn't afford to venture into the rest of their house. That was probably 40-45 years ago (that this teacher was living like that) now and I am still in awe at the state of what a working starter family wage will "buy" in this country. I also remember thinking, "Oh, now you tell me" as I was inviting people to my college graduation and searching for a teaching job. Every teacher I know who has stayed in the profession and lives something approaching a middle class lifestyle is either married to someone who makes a good deal more, or else they hustle in all their off hours (evenings, weekends, summers) at 2nd and 3rd jobs. I mentioned on another thread that we had a rental property damaged by a burst pipe in the recent freeze. That house was our first home, which we bought for $89,500 in 2000. That's what a teacher plus a spouse with a similar salary could afford at that time. It's in a middle/working class part of the city, and the area has gentrified a bit since we lived there. We've had a lovely tenant in it since 2008. It will be worth about $200K after it's repaired/refurbished - so probably still within the reach of a couple with two teacher's salaries. Apropos of nothing you said, but just thinking out loud ... We're actually toying with the idea of selling our current place and moving back into that first old house after it is repaired. The entire downstairs will have to be gutted and redone, so new kitchen, etc., but insurance will pay for most of that. We have no mortgage on it. It's a 1977 split level and I really actually like the layout. Would need some upstairs work as well before we move back in, but nothing outrageous. After that house, we've made some not so smart decisions with real estate - at least in the sense that hindsight is 20/20 - so we don't have as much equity in our current house as you'd expect for our age. The thought of dumping this place and cutting our losses, and moving into our mortgage-free but much less nice old house, is pretty appealing, I have to say. I find that I just don't give a crap about fancy counters and bathroom fixtures anymore. Downside is that the commute would suck, but honestly, I could probably quit and DH works from home a lot anyway ...
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Post by jeremysgirl on Feb 26, 2021 20:58:33 GMT
The thought of dumping this place and cutting our losses, and moving into our mortgage-free but much less nice old house, is pretty appealing, I have to say. I find that I just don't give a crap about fancy counters and bathroom fixtures anymore. There are plenty of ways to make a house a home on a small budget. We live modestly and I'm right at home in my house.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Apr 29, 2024 11:34:34 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2021 21:00:23 GMT
I couldn't find a single family home for sale on Zillow for $300-$350,000 in my city. Everything is cheaper. I bought my house 6 years ago almost for $105,000. Zillow says that my house is now worth $143,000. But they haven't updated the specs on my house either. We've added another bedroom. We've done a ton of work to our house since buying it. ETA: I was able to find 5 sold in the last year for over $250k. Here's one that sold for $335k www.zillow.com/homedetails/1805-Canyon-Trl-Lansing-MI-48917/74728275_zpid/If your builder got C/O's for all of the work that they did, they'd file it with the County. Your taxes would go up, but so would the value of your property.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Apr 29, 2024 11:34:34 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2021 21:07:03 GMT
WOW! I just checked where I used to live (LI) and houses right there are around $850,000. Damn! Wish we held onto it!
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Post by jeremysgirl on Feb 26, 2021 21:19:18 GMT
I couldn't find a single family home for sale on Zillow for $300-$350,000 in my city. Everything is cheaper. I bought my house 6 years ago almost for $105,000. Zillow says that my house is now worth $143,000. But they haven't updated the specs on my house either. We've added another bedroom. We've done a ton of work to our house since buying it. ETA: I was able to find 5 sold in the last year for over $250k. Here's one that sold for $335k www.zillow.com/homedetails/1805-Canyon-Trl-Lansing-MI-48917/74728275_zpid/If your builder got C/O's for all of the work that they did, they'd file it with the County. Your taxes would go up, but so would the value of your property. We didn't have any sort of new build. Almost all of the work we did ourselves. And the new bedroom was in my basement. We legally had an egress window put in. We did not expand anything.
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Post by AussieMeg on Feb 26, 2021 21:39:56 GMT
These threads always mess me up. I picture all of you living in McMansions that cost a million dollars. It makes me wonder just what kind of wages everyone must make to be able to afford such homes. Either that or I wonder if people are just mortgaged up to the eyeballs. My house is far from a McMansion. I bought it for $159k in 1996. It’s quite a plain house - 3 bedrooms plus study, two bathrooms. When I look at what other houses in my suburb have sold for recently, I estimate that my house would be worth $800-900k. My in-laws sold their house near us for just over a million two years ago. I was shocked they got that much. I think the housing market is ridiculously and obscenely overpriced. My salary sure as hell hasn’t gone up 5 times what it was when I bought my house! I would love to be able to buy a house for $350k or $110k. If houses were that cheap I’d have an investment property or two by now. It bugs me when people get all excited about how much the price of their house has gone up over the years. No, it’s not a good thing! Your kids are priced out of the market and won’t ever be able to afford a house! They’ll be living with you forever!
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twinsmomfla99
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,976
Jun 26, 2014 13:42:47 GMT
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Post by twinsmomfla99 on Feb 26, 2021 22:12:20 GMT
My town is expensive for WV, but quite the bargain compared to metro areas. Our taxes are low, too. We paid $327,000 for our house in 2012, and it is currently appraised at almost $500,000. Our real estate taxes are only $2100 per year. This house isn’t too far from me, and the views in this neighborhood are AMAZING! $340KHere are some others I found that are typical for the suburbs around Morgantown. $350K$340K$342K$330KIf you want to be more “in the city” and close to the University or the hospitals, you are going to pay more or get less square footage. $424K$420K$375K$389K$398KSometimes you find something really spectacular for the money, like this one for $525,000. It is “an entertainer’s dream,” and I am going to guess it was owned by a health professional or upper-level University administrator. $525KOur prices are high for WV, though, mostly due to the University effect. You can get a lot more house for the money by going 15 miles down the interstate to Fairmont, WV.
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Post by needmysanity on Feb 26, 2021 22:15:20 GMT
We are moving to Germantown TN in 2 weeks - this is a $350K house there...
Germantown TN
Meanwhile this is a $350K house here in Central CA... Lemoore CAAffordable housing is one of the many reasons we are leaving California.
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twinsmomfla99
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,976
Jun 26, 2014 13:42:47 GMT
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Post by twinsmomfla99 on Feb 26, 2021 22:26:09 GMT
This home is in Minneapolis. I figured it would be comparable to a home in Seattle. But this is a little gem. It's so cute! Mpls bungalowThose look like wicked steep stairs to the second floor. I think it's just the angle. The steps look more normal in photo #8.
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