In Silicon Valley, it’s very crazy and $325K wouldn’t be a competitive down payment for an average house. The house across the street from us went for $425,000 over asking, and ended up selling for $1.48M dollars and it’s nearly a tear down. It really gets your sense of price out of whack, because you literally can’t buy anything at all (not even a condo) for less than $1M. That said, our house has increased in value by over $600,000 in less than three years, so I can’t really complain.
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Don’t let the numbers fool you. 325k outside of the top real estate markets gets you quite a lot.
Also, if I read it right, this is a vacation house that has been paid for for 2 generations, so its basically money in the bank.
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Almost moved there in the late '70’s. My dad was getting job offers from some new tech companies back then.
Never can tell if that was a mistake or not. Housing costs weren’t AS crazy at the time, but there was still a pretty intimidating difference. It became like a bird in hand type decision. I sometimes wonder what a 120k house in 1978 would be worth now. A friend of his that did make the move at that time retired about 20 years later, moved back here and was basically as wealthy as one needs to be just from the sale of his house, including the purchase of a pretty nice one here in western Pa.
My newlywed parents, around that time, stretched their budget and bought fixer upper there at a foreclosure auction for a little less than that. 40 years and a $100k remodel later they are still not liquid rich, but they have millions in that house. And the level of intellect, education and social awareness I grew up around is invaluable to me now.
Why do you think the prices are so high, and people willing to pay them? Salaries aren’t proportionally higher compared to real estate prices.
$500k for a two bedroom everywhere you want to live? Really? That just means you are very selective in where you want to live.
I just sold a 3 bedroom house for $329k about half way between Boston and Providence (reasonable commute to either city). I bought a 4 bedroom for a little bit more in Phoenix.
$500k for a two bedroom means you are sitting in the middle of a few of the top real estate markets in the US (Manhattan, Silicon Valley, etc.). If those are the only places you want to live, that’s your right. But it doesn’t accurately represent what $325k will get you in basically the entire US.
Near a population center, top notch education, nearby (<1hr) great mountains for skiing and MTB. That’s my criteria…
Ah. You wouldn’t like our bunny slopes then. Like a downhill ice rink. Short and painful.
One of the best BMX tracks in the US though!
Status and prestige. Same reason people will pay double for a car that had marginally better performance
And fewer undesirables.
In the Silicon Valley, it would probably be worth ~$2M if it was $120K in 1978. I have a friend who just moved, and made double in only 7 years (bought for $750K in 2011, and just sold for $1.5M). It’s a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath that’s 1500 sq ft.
Although it’s great to be have so much equity in real estate if you own around here, I hope prices slow down some. It’s really impossible for hiring, and becoming so hard for anyone to get into the housing market with so many offers for each house. There are tons of new condos and sky rises going up, which at least will mean there should be some sub $1M options for people.
So what areas do you think meet that criteria?
Seattle, SLC(to an extent), Western burbs of Denver, Bellingham, areas around PDX, Reno (but I don’t really like the area for a variety of reasons), Vancouver BC, possibly Santa Fe… And then a number of other areas with some kind of compromises.
Right now, the Seattle area ticks all the boxes for me. Have any suggestions I should look into?
Amazon has made Seattle uncomfortably expensive. But in any of the other cities you list, $500k would get you a lot more than 2 bedrooms.
According to Zillow, single family homes for sale in each of these cities for less than $300k and more than 2 bedrooms:
SLC 65
Denver 60
Bellingham 12
Portland 121
Santa Fe 62
I grew up in the Seattle area and had an opportunity to move back. Looked at housing prices and realized that it wasn’t worth it.
Not saying you should move, but I think that your perception of what a house should cost in most of the US is a bit off.
Oh I understand why the real estate here is inflated, no argument there. And I also have a feel for the real estate in those other areas (I looked into all of them prior to moving here a few years back, and I check in every so often).
But 350k for a shorefront house on a popular, pretty lake is as deflated of a price as the bay areas real estate is inflated. Nearly all of the reasons for the high prices in those 2 areas are positives (crowding is the big negative), so I imagine there are a whole bunch of negatives in the Ozark area that deflate the prices, right?
Marine77 would be one of them.
…or it’s has to do with Marine77 being one of the best people out there? Haha
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Mainly California of which I have no interest short of force, to live there. Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, Idaho and the 4 corners are more my speed.
I’d love to have a ton of land where the only neighbors I had were the native animals.
I have met guys like @marine77. Loud, brash, unyielding and down right mean. And then turn out to be the nicest person, most humble you could know.
The one thing they had in common between the individuals who met that description have all been in live battle and have killed someone in battle.
I won’t dare ask because I have made that mistake before. It’s just my observation.
I suspect, analytically, that once you’ve been some where near hell like that, your patience for minutia is very small. And your list of what minutia is, grows.
Now this is an non-scientific observation on my part.
Like I said before, people I don’t necessarily know that well, devulge very personal experiences. I don’t pretend to know why, but it’s happened too many times to be coincidence. Not just with war vets… I don’t know people just tell me shit, I guess I have a trusting look. I don’t betray confidences, though. Maybe I look trust worthy. Just don’t torture me, I’ll sing like a canary. 
Pat
I truly appreciate that. You’re pretty spot on. I loved my time as a Marine (served twice in Iraq) and as a Stl city policeman…I made life long friends, got some nasty people off the streets and left the city better than how I found it. People like zecarlo and his type simply lash out at out of fear, ignorance, hatred (weakness) and apparently they buy into the idiotic and unsubstantiated nonsense peddled by an unscrupulous media. Fact is you’re more likely to die of a bee sting or lightning than by a cop. That’s a statistical fact.
Police have millions of interactions a day with the vast majority ending peacefully. I’d never deny there are legit rotten cops, but it’s generally grossly overstated by cretins that hate police and don’t afford them the right to self protection, dullards that are completely clueless regarding self defense protocols, case law; i.e. Tenn vs Garner, u.o.f escalation, etc… They’re tedious and have never been in any kind of real life or death situation as evidenced by their laughable naivety. They deny forensics, CREDIBLE witness statements (ala Mike Brown case) and body cam footage. Though I do realize it can be subjective to a reasonable they’d be wise to educate themselves as to why the courts grant law enforcement a degree of latitude in the performance of their duties given the nature of the job. They ignore sobering statistics, especially regarding minority crime rates, which I find odd since the vast majority of black victims are victims of other blacks. Guess they don’t matter?
Be that as it may, I appreciate the kind words.
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