Quote:
Originally Posted by sara1998
As far as housing is concerned... I remember going to San Fran and a 3 bed, 2 bath ranch, I'm guessing around 1500 square foot, would go for hunderds of thousands, if not over a million. You can buy that here for less than $100,000. Or, if you get a real nice one, it can be around $150,000. I could only imagine what my 4 bed, 2 1/2 bath with 2200 square foot would run there. It's stunning the difference depending on where you live.
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Exactly! I don't know how people can afford to live in Cali if you're a middle class worker. Seriously. My jaw always drops when I watch Flip That House & shows like that, when people are paying literally a million dollars for a small ranch house. I mean, WTF?
My house is a Cape style built in 1948, around 1200 square feet. 3 bedrooms, 1&1/2 bath, rec room in basement. 2 car detached garage, covered patio right off the kitchen. Small yard, nice garden. Very close to neighbors (like, 15 feet away, lol.) Good solid neighborhood. It needed a lot of cosmetic work & updating - we bought it for $55,000 6&1/2 years ago. Yes, you read correctly. Anywhere else in the U.S., it would have been somwhere between $150,000 & $500,000.
We've put about $25,000 into it & the way housing is going around my neighborhood lately, I'm very confident we could get around $100,000. Anywhere else, at least $200,000. Buffalo-Niagara region has some of the best & inexpensive housing in the nation. Of course, our property taxes suck - $3200 extra per year for my tiny 40x120 foot lot.
I thought it was odd to own an apartment too, until I went to Bulgaria. Most of my family members live in apartment buildings. They own their flat, they don't rent. It's very different than here.