Same around here. $150k would get a nice starter home.
Home purchase
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Same around here. $150k would get a nice starter home.
Gulf of America
Well-known member
All the midwesterners encouraging young people to move there for affordable houses are going to wake up to a cruel reality if the young people actually start listening.
SAJ-99
Well-known member
2012 was also the low in housing prices, Nationwide at least, and new construction had just started to tick up. You may have benefitted from the timing.
A quick Zillow search shows 500 rental listings in Bozeman under $2000/mo, many new and very nice, and none under $1000. (95 in Helena.) Point being that is the market price transactions are being done at. If a young college grad wants to enjoy the outdoors and loves Bozeman, he needs a job that pays at least $80k or more and he better be willing to work. Saving for a house, the issue is what kind of gear he "needs" to enjoy Big Sky country. A person can still make it with hustle and good financial decisions.
Dunno now being 70. Single , no kids. If I sold this place and started again? Tough. DOWNsize.
4th property I have owned. Outright.
1st was 10 ac w/barn & well,$12k 7%,1978. Paid off by 1981. Built a 2/1 home and sold in 1983 for $180k. (Place sold a few years ago for $19mil.)
Life......life.......job shift.......Life....
Took early retirement in 2009 during the crash. Gambled and moved ,again. Sold my half of Sierra cabin and bought this 140 ac that was fenced w/windmill on a good well. Access. Remote NM. $120k.
Jobs all died with economy and I worked and paid it off. Power in,homesite/septic in and road in, well drilled.....no one would loan. Tough. Paid off in 9 years.
16 year later I live in a old mobile w/barn over and have a shop and toolroom. Not my dream home ,but it works.
In a life estate now and I get income to supplement SS and small Park Ranger pension....just got another 3% cola this year. Poor by most standards.
Living good here, with Dotti the dobie.
If I was starting out again I would do the same. Learn a trade, serve my country and live within my means.
4th property I have owned. Outright.
1st was 10 ac w/barn & well,$12k 7%,1978. Paid off by 1981. Built a 2/1 home and sold in 1983 for $180k. (Place sold a few years ago for $19mil.)
Life......life.......job shift.......Life....
Took early retirement in 2009 during the crash. Gambled and moved ,again. Sold my half of Sierra cabin and bought this 140 ac that was fenced w/windmill on a good well. Access. Remote NM. $120k.
Jobs all died with economy and I worked and paid it off. Power in,homesite/septic in and road in, well drilled.....no one would loan. Tough. Paid off in 9 years.
16 year later I live in a old mobile w/barn over and have a shop and toolroom. Not my dream home ,but it works.
In a life estate now and I get income to supplement SS and small Park Ranger pension....just got another 3% cola this year. Poor by most standards.
Living good here, with Dotti the dobie.
If I was starting out again I would do the same. Learn a trade, serve my country and live within my means.
Houses don't SEEM too unreasonable around here, lots of starters under $100K, but I have no idea about local wages. I know of some $25hr but there is a commute, like I did for about 30 years. Daughter and boyfriend recently bought a 3 bed 2 bath 1500 sq ft place with a good sized lot for $119K. Not a bad place, pretty good for a young family. They both make $25hr at the same place. I bought my place from my grandfather many moons ago for $38K and we made improvements and put up a steel building designed for a dog boarding business/garage. Zillow put me somewhere around $226K currently. It will go to my youngest daughter and they can decide to move here and sell or rent their place or the other way around. Figured I'd help them out in the future with their family. If I sold I could probably find a smaller place and have some extra cash but I don't need to do that. I'm fine where I'm at.
El Jason
Well-known member
You still haven’t answered the question of where. Your info is kind of meaningless without that context.
We are in this mess now! We have owned our home outright since about 2016. Moved NH to WY sold in NH paid cash in WY. Now moving back to NH. Found a house there, cant sell here due to SLOW market. We are co templating finance options to bridge the time period between buy there and sell here. May just ditch the whole deal. 6% on a 600k mortgage , ouch
Complicated by being retired and due to 20 years of planning, we essentially are living on close to 0 income which makes finance process much harder without leveraging the assets we need to live the next 30 years or so
Complicated by being retired and due to 20 years of planning, we essentially are living on close to 0 income which makes finance process much harder without leveraging the assets we need to live the next 30 years or so
westbranch
Well-known member
We bought our house in May of 2019 in CDA ID for 340k. We were 31 yrs old. Would probably sell for around 550k today, which is right around the median home price according to a quick google.
We could afford it but wouldn't enjoy the higher interest rate. Income has shifted quite a bit since 2017, my wife has been in a career change for the last 3+ yrs with minimal income. But I make more now than we did with dual incomes back in 2019. She'll start working full time next spring.
We don't have a "need" for a different house but we'll probably be looking in about 4 years. And anything we are interested in is currently listed from around 800-950k. Yikes.
We could afford it but wouldn't enjoy the higher interest rate. Income has shifted quite a bit since 2017, my wife has been in a career change for the last 3+ yrs with minimal income. But I make more now than we did with dual incomes back in 2019. She'll start working full time next spring.
We don't have a "need" for a different house but we'll probably be looking in about 4 years. And anything we are interested in is currently listed from around 800-950k. Yikes.
I'm in central IN, but same deals are available in pretty much any of what are termed as the "fly over states", so long as you stay away from some of the metro areas, college towns or tourist areas.
It's not only the cost of housing, but also the taxes in some of these HCOL areas are horrendous.
BigHornRam
Well-known member
BigHornRam
Well-known member
morley.tyler
Well-known member
We bought our 1st house in PDX for $150K in '05, sold it for $289K in '08. We moved across town and bought our current house in PDX that same year, a 2x bigger house, but a real sh*thole, in a grossly better (better asset appreciation) neighborhood. In 18 years, that house has 4x'd in value (It will be paid off before Xmas this year!)- we've worked our asses off to make it a nice house. Would a bank give me the money to buy my house today? Sure. Would I be comfortable with/ my mortgage payment? Hell no.
We have two boys in High school and Middle School. I worry about them buying a house and starting a family.
The Midwest thing is real. Our cousin and her husband moved from Seattle (Struggling with rent) to Wisconsin (Mad Town) and went from dual income to single income, and bought a house right away. When the wife found a new gig, they are now living pretty well.
My Family place in North Idaho is crazy. 1200sqft ranch house on 20 acres, bought by folks in the late 70s for $67K. The view from the living room is the North Bowl of Ski Mountain. Not a chance that a working-class, blue-collar guy, at 29 years old (dad's age when he bought it) would sign up for what looks like it's well north of That Magic Number.
We have two boys in High school and Middle School. I worry about them buying a house and starting a family.
The Midwest thing is real. Our cousin and her husband moved from Seattle (Struggling with rent) to Wisconsin (Mad Town) and went from dual income to single income, and bought a house right away. When the wife found a new gig, they are now living pretty well.
My Family place in North Idaho is crazy. 1200sqft ranch house on 20 acres, bought by folks in the late 70s for $67K. The view from the living room is the North Bowl of Ski Mountain. Not a chance that a working-class, blue-collar guy, at 29 years old (dad's age when he bought it) would sign up for what looks like it's well north of That Magic Number.
I believe it. Crazy part is that Madison is probably the highest cost of living in the entire state.
morley.tyler
Well-known member
Exactly!
SFC B
Well-known member
So that is ONE income AND not in anyway a starter home around there.....that is a 2500sf log home on 1.5 acres with a pond. Wages in the area are strong as well as it is the bio-medical device manufacturing leader in the world. My nephew was making 25 and hour in HS on a co-op PT gig. You can find a decent house in the 12-1500 sf range on a small lot for 150,000 or under....Fixer uppers even less
SFC B
Well-known member
The point was that to own a home (unless you are independently wealthy) you HAVE to make sacrifices....whether that is moving, or taking a second job, or doing alternative building methods, or delaying having kids. I think 20 somethings that live in the intermountain west(and other high cost areas), KNOW that it is ridiculously expensive (largely because of human refuse from the coasts moving in) thinking that they are going to keep up that is pretty stupid. Throughout my younger life and military career my family spent a LOT of time living in sub standard (by my standards today) housing, cutting corners on everything and having expectations based on our actual means all with the goal of owning what we wanted. BTW, I am not a boomer (Xer).
El Jason
Well-known member
Really?
SFC B
Well-known member
For reference as well, the house we just bought (almost as big as the one here in COS) on 1.5ish acres with a pond vs .18 acre uneven lot here in COS ........taxes are HALF (and will be halfed again when it becomes "primary" home), insurance is a QUARTER and everything else (except utilities) involved with COL is at least 25% (often quite a bit more) less. The comment about "surprise when the younger folks move there" would make some sense except that 95% will never consider it because of the sacrifices (no instant access to boogie coffee, no night life, etc) and will instead continue to whine and moan about it while using their $1000 phone, having a $6-800 car payment, etc.......
SFC B
Well-known member
Yeah, really. CO, where I have been for 16 years now is a prime example. Native Coloradans aren't pushing the crazy increase. It is east and west coast folks coming from even crazier cost areas, flush with cash, paying OVER asking price for anything decent and bringing the horrible tax/government/social policies that drove where they came from into the toilet and made them want to leave. Look at the Denver/Aurora metroplex vs what it was 15 years ago. There is absolutely NOTHING better than it was and THAT population base rules the state.
Gulf of America
Well-known member
You realize that's exactly what you're telling all the intermountain west people to do to the midwest, right? Blood and soil.
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