Least expensive/ Least stressful places to live in the USA

Florida is pretty cheap. In many places, a nice house can be had for under $100,000.

I'll look that over Brandon. I may be looking myself in a year or so.

I think that anyone who wants a house in Florida for under 100 thousand, had better hurry up. The market has gone absolutely nuts in the last couple of years!

I have a friend looking for a house and she told me the cheapest housing she has found was in Mississippi. She has a job where she can work out of her house, so she is seriously considering buying there.

Cheap yes, but how is the quality of living there?

Under $100,000 in Florida? Tell me where, please. A couple of years ago, we started toying with the idea of a second home in Florida that we could use to escape our Canadian winters once we retire, so we took a look around parts of the state when we were down there in January 2004. Some property was still semi-affordable, but the prices have skyrocketed and those same properties aren't within our reach anymore.

My business partner was looking at horse properties in Missouri a few months ago, and found some nifty looking places online for 125,000....

What more do you want in choosing a place to live?
What more do you want in choosing a place to live?

There are many small towns USA. Some with "amenities," some without. Aren't there many other considerations besides price and lack of stress? Or, here's one you might look at: La Junta, Colorado - my birthplace and where I lived through graduating from high school. It has a web site. However, for all of it's "plus features," I won't promote it. That's a personal choice.

I love the East Coast where there is a greater diversity in every facet of life (especially people and cultures) . . . and lots of stress! Lively and "life." "That's a personal choice." Good luck in your search. You can do much of it on the Internet and then go, spend some time before you move. Good luck! [/color]

Mississippi's still affordable (compared to Florida), even along the Gulf Coast. Though there are some million dollar homes and condos that have gone up, you can still find some bargains. Beautiful gulf-front townhouses, in Gulfport, that we've rented a number of times for family vacations, were priced at $75,000 back in 1990 are now priced at $175,000 as of Feb. 2005.

We considered purchasing a townhouse when we were down in February, in a golf resort community midway between Gulfport and New Orleans. We didn't because of a difficulty with obtaining home insurance as we don't live in the U.S., and those townhouses have increased in price by approximately 10% in the last few months.

Calamity Jane, from what I've seen, the quality of life in Mississippi depends who you are and where you live.

The current issue of MONEY magazine happens to have a list of the 100 best places to live in the US.
To evaluate places to live, they looked at places where they could raise kids, population, economy, culture, and safety. We were surprised to see Naperville, IL, as the #3 on the list, because we used to live there about five lifetimes ago when I worked for Florsheim Shoe Company in Chicago.

If you're looking for 'cheap,' the following are included in the "best places to live."
Louisville, Colo. - population 19,600, single family home $350,000, property taxes $3,000. It offers great skiing in winter.
Middletown, Wis. - population 17,000, single family home $250,000, property taxes $4,500. It offers good schools.
Peachtree City, Ga. - population 35,000, single family home $300,000, property taxes $3,000. It's a village with two man-made lakes, and 29 miles from Atlanta.

Maybe so mckenzie, I've never been to Mississippi, and
probably never will.

Well, I bought my condo in 1997. Maybe my info is out of date. Hey, maybe my propety has appeciated and I'm rich now!

Least expensive and least stressful place to live
Check out the Lake of the Ozarks in southern Missouri. Houses are cheap, buy yourself a boat and live retirement to the fullest. One can buy a nice home on the Lake (the largest man made lake in America) for under $200,000. You can live a very stress free life. If you are not in to water sports or boating or sailing, there is not much to offer. There are many resorts and restraints all over that one can enjoy. I live in Scottsdale but am from Missouri. It is the best kept secret in America.

dbackroyal, WELCOME to A2K. It's no longer a secret.... LOL

For low cost I would recomment Wolf Hole arizona unless you feel you have a need for such ammenities as water. There is a zero crime rate, zero neighbors and it's only an hours drive to get milk.

we just moved from mississippi is a boring place to lived and lots of trucks people always so slow driving and every corner there are always advertise about thier god.only a few department store grocery,restaurant..atleast if you are hunter or fisher thats the only thing you can do in mississippi during weekends. plus during summer mississippi its a lot more hotter compare to florida..

thanks god we are now living here in north miami its so lively place to live you won't getting old faster,there are a many beautiful places to go during weekends...

talk about crime? there is no place safe in this world you could die anytime even by drunk driver anywhere in america. one thing you need is carefull what ever you do, where you are going to...

Florida Living
I have grown up in Florida, on the East Coast of Central Florida... I am now leaving the state because it's too expensive... Even homes here that were built in the 1950's are selling around $170,000. Newer homes into the 200,000's. Apartments are outrageous. And what is bizarre is that to get into most complexes, you must prove salary and it has to be at least three (3) times what they charge for rent...so if your rent is $900 a month, you need to make $2700 a month..

The real estate market of '06 drove our prices way up and though now the market is all but dead, the prices are not coming down...We have a condo here on a golf course that's been for sale for 9 months now...no one is even looking at it... In '06, our condos were selling within one week..they never even made the MLS..!

Raleigh. But please, everyone stay away. The growth is too tremendous and quite frankly we don't care how you did it up North. :wink: