Real $$ Estate $$

I was thinking about this, prices in Cali are ridiculous. For the price of a shack here I could get a mansion on the beach in some places.

I'm leaning toward retiring outside of America.

Florida might be a good option, because many more aspects of the cost of living are lower. A friend was getting chemo many years ago, and i stayed with him in Winter Springs (suburb of Winter Park, a suburb of Orlando, which is a suburb of Walt Disney World). We lived in a five-bedroom house which was palatial, and ridiculously low priced. Pool, wall (to obviate the "attractive nuisance" claim if some drunk drowned in the pool), large lawn, three vehicle garage (yes, "vehicle"--you could park a city bus in there).

The only problem i had was the weather. It's awfully drunk out, every day.

Craven- San Diego is one of the most expensive places in the country.

Florida IS cheaper, but the prices ARE going up for the last few years.

Take a look at this:

http://www.datamasters.com/

Seems like almost everywhere in the US is expensive, and ridiculously so.

For 20,000 dollars you can have the biggest house on the beach in so many places.


This is frustrating, America is a rich nation but it makes its citizens poor through pricing.

Hey Slap, you will probably never be able to afford a house in Boston. A friend of mine just built a house 60 miles outside Boston. He paid $130,000 for the land alone. The he spent $200,000 building a house. Total cost for the project was $330,000 but that was still cheaper than buying one pre-made.

Un huh! I could never handle the payments on some of the stuff the bank thinks I could qualify for.

Yeah, for some unknown reasons, housing prices are still going up! Can't understand the economics of all this; while more people lose their jobs, more people are buying homes. When I learned math in the good ole days, 2 plus 2 used to equal 4. It seems that no longer holds true. Confused, I am.

Slappy, hon, I think you need a time machine. Back in '95, when we bought, houses were still more or less reasonable. But now, ai yi yi!

Texas is inexpensive.

No state income tax, either.

Gotta put up with all of these extreme right-wing religious fanatic gun-toting Republican assholes, but other than that...

(Hey I grew up here, so I'm used to it. :wink: )

New Mexico is inexpensive, except for Santa Fe (nearly the entire state of California has taken up refuge there).

And if you really want cheap, check out Louisiana.

I lived in Florida for a year and really didn't like it at all for a lot of reasons.

Now the thing you have to understand about the South, Slap, is...

...it's hot. All the time. Year-round.

You might as well sell your sweaters in a garage sale before you come down, because there's only about five days a year that the weather is suitable for them.

And unless you think rednecks as a subculture are endearing and cute, you might feel a bit uncomfortable.

For example, Confederate flags as pickup truck back-window draperies are haute couture.

Naked-lady mudflaps are a necessary accessory. Even on that Beemer you drive.

I could go on, but we've explored this phenomenon before.

What the South and Southwest give up in real estate speculation, they make up for in class and pizzazz.

New Mexico...I'm all set. I have a friend that just moved back, it sounded like it sucked.
IF I went to FL, and I've thought about it for...the last 4 years, I'd have to go to a city, where it's not too much of hickville. Only reason I'm not there is because I'm too lazy to pick up and go...I'm young, single, don't feel tied down to anything, except maybe family/friends.
I dig the hot weather, so that's not a problem. And like I said, hot weather=skimpy clothed women.
Jespah, you live in Brighton, right? Goldmine.

I'm moving to the hood in Mattapan.

Good luck Slappy. Even the real estate up this way is moving fast.

The problem is us folks who are just now getting into the game. My friends across the street have owned their house for something like 8 years and it has doubled in value. DOUBLED.

So they are thinking about moving, all they have to do is sell their house, get $500,000 or whatever, then use that to buy the next one. Just moving the chits around.

But we rent, and while we are lucky enough to have a landlord who wants to keep us around and for some reason is charging far less than he could get away with, all that money has been vanishing into the ether. When we leave, we don't get a hefty chunk of change. We have to just jump into buying a house at the ridiculous current prices.

This CAN'T continue, and from what I've seen (been keeping a close eye on this for the past three years) it looks like the housing market is cooling off. Prices are still high, but they're not selling nearly as quickly. I'm really hoping this means they will go down before we have to buy a house next fall (probably.)

I have a sister and brother in law who lived in Beverly for ten years, until this summer. The sold their house (view of the sea) paid off the mortgage and still had enough left over to buy a house of equivalent size in Wisconsin. It is insane.

Acquiunk, I think that scenario is true of many high-priced areas. Many are moving from Silicon Valley to the Sacramento Valley to buy homes in retirement communities by selling their homes here for upwards of $700,000, and buying a new home in the Sacramento area for half that amount.

Yeah. I tried to talk my sister into selling her home in Manhattan Beach and moving to New Mexico. I'm told it would fetch $700,000.00 in a heart beat - $750.000.00 if the house were already gone.

New Mexico land is only inexpensive when comparing prices alone. Relative to incomes, it is screaming rediculous. Okay for retirement then, not so good otherwise. Lots of land for 260 people and two senators till you take away the BLM land, the National Forests,and the military and reservation land. When you get all done, it looks like Rhode Island - and don't count on water rights.

Over here, it has become very difficult for people trying to get into the market.

Because interest rates are low, many have mortgaged to the hilt to get in - first interest rate rises - they will be stuffed.

The house I sold to move where I am rose by $100,000 in the two years from when I sold it, to when it was sold again.

Banks lend on your perceived ability to make the payments, and the payment is heavily influenced by the interest rate. What I think I am seeing is that declining interest rates are part of the cause of rising prices.

Oh, for sure, roger.

It still leaves the people just breaking in up sh!t creek, though, since we still have to commit to paying this astronomical sum, even if the monthly payments are the same as what they would be for a house that cost half as much when interest rates were higher.

Here's an example of how much somebody would pay on a $300,000 mortgage loan for thirty years.
At 5 percent interest, the total payment would be $580,464, and at 6 percent interest, the total payment would amount to $646,349. That one percent difference would cost an extra $65,885 in interest.