$500,000 for a house

Wow, this got a lot of feedback very fast! :shock:

I've only skimmed some of the responses, but much of the advice is spot on. The prices are all relative to where you want to/can live and what you want to get out of the neighborhood/region.

Not too long ago, an entire town (Bridgeville, CA) sold on eBay for $125k. Small houses, small lots, northern part of the state in the deep woods.

A friend of mine bought a 'fixer upper' (Read 'dump with a LOT of work to be done') for almost $700k near San Francisco. A similarly distressed home, a baby Victorian, was bought by another friend of mine in Syracuse, NY from the HUD list (Federal loan guarantees) for only $6k. Sure, the latter had to camp in the backyard and use a porta-potty for a couple of months, but the place is a true gem now (But the depressed economy of the area makes it worth not much more than $50k).

When I first moved into my current house I had the honest intent of buying the entire town, piece by piece. Unfortunately, market forces worked against me and property values tripled in a couple of years. Good for my house, bad for my plans. Still, $500k buys a pretty nice palace here: 8-10 rooms, three car garage, inground pool, half acre, etc. The spike in prices is linked to the fact that it is the fastest growing area in the region and the upwardly mobile are camping here for price and convenience (One hour to Philly or Baltimore, two hours to NYC or DC).

Buy now and save.

If you can stand bone-chilling winds and snowdrifts taller than your house, try the Niagara Frontier (Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Erie). Incredibly well-built and aesthetically pleasing old homes in the $20-40k range (Niagara Falls). Unfortunately, the only work available in the area is at 7-11, the local gas station, and the Seneca Casino (In the old Niagara Falls Convention Center, which went bust because they couldn't attract business).

I'll be there this weekend, walking the empty streets and wagering with my friends on which car is most likely to get directed off to Customs at the bridge. :)

I have to say that reading through these posts is quite amazing. It's painting a picture in my mind of what the USA is like all over. Your replies are really descriptive enough to paint that picture.

There's something right inbetween Huckleberry Finn and North and South at the moment. :)

Given a choice I'd love to live somewhere like Miami Beach. I used to roller skate on maplewood for a hockey team as a child, which is a picture I've always had in my mind of that area. Is that the place where they roller skate, Miami Beach?

If only, oh I'd love to live out there for a bit and skate every day again. :)

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Originally Posted by Alison Faraday

Hey there,

This is directed mostly to those in the States.

What sort of a house would $500k buy in the States? Where? What sort of area? Really I'm just throwing up a question up in the air to see what's over there?

I have a house here which is effectively a little £250k town house with noisy neighbours amongst other things. You may have seen it on CNN over Christmas, we had 5 street girls murdered literally in the next street. Really, Sky TV had a thing for sticking a microphone in my face everytime I went down to the postbox!!

Anyway.

I'm just thinking of selling up and leaving the UK, and weighing up what my money would buy elsewhere. I'm fed up with this country. The population has increased by 3-million is 5-years, we're crammed in at about 60-houses per acre, and my other non-TG sideline business hasn't sold in the States for what must be about 6-months now.

What could my money buy over there? What would $1-million buy over there even? Could I afford a house in a calm area of Beverly Hills or something?

Thanks,

Alison

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In New York City.........A nice one bedroom condo.

In Long Island a nice 3 bedroom house with 12,000 dollars tax per year.

In North Carolina............A MANSION with enough left over to customize it your way and buy a NICE CAR

here in NYC, you be able to buy a Bronestone in the Bronx and parts of harlem. My family owned two for over 40 year b4 they sold one for almost 400k b4 me and my brother went to college. A well kept one can get you up to $1 mil in some neighborhoods around broadway or central park. The downside to these are they have fairly high upkeep because theyre old, and size, but theyre extemely sturdy they have high resale values.

Unfortunately, thats about the average home price on Long Island.........

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Someone correct me if i'm wrong, but i think that many nice properties are not that expensive in Florida.

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Depending on the area, this can be true. I know of one single bedroom condo that went for as little as $5k not more than four years ago. Hell, a Lowes tool shed would cost that much here. The caveat is that a lot of modern Florida real estate is slap-dash cinder block construction. Not bad, but certainly not quality. Add the hurricane factor in and I'm surprised some of that stuff goes for =more= than $5k.

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Originally Posted by Unisex

I've rarely seen $565k for a single fam in boston. Most in Boston are not singles. So, they tend to be alot more than $500k easy because of supply and demand. I merely meant this type of house here. Which is down the street from me.

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Ah, the classic triple decker, made popular in the so-called "streetcar suburbs" of Boston 100 years ago. There is a higher percentage of triple deckers in Somerville, MA, than in any other city, with Dorchester, Worcester, Woonsocket RI, and other NE cities not far behind. It was a uniquely New England style, extremely popular for both the size of the units and the fact that 3 or 4 families could live in the same footprint of land as 1 in a single family home. Some of these communities have seen precipitous changes in fortune over the decades, falling into disfavor and even poverty in many cases, yet in some recovering to be highly desirable among the affluent young (as is Somerville today, as a case in point). A July 9. 2006 report in the Boston Globe offers:

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Originally Posted by Boston Globe

When Boston's growing middle class followed the gentry from the heart of the city to ``streetcar suburbs" such as Dorchester and Jamaica Plain a hundred years ago, the triple-decker emerged as the housing option of choice.
These uniquely New England architectural icons offered affordable homeownership to live-in landlords who covered their costs with rent from two apartments. Renters found the front and back porches and windows all around a vast improvement over cramped, dark tenements. Builders liked them for the economies of stacking identical units under one roof and on one foundation.

Today, a handful of developers and home buyers are discovering that what worked a century ago can be relevant today. The new triples, however, typically are built with modern flourishes inside and out.

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Triple deckers supplanted the earlier row houses in Boston's streetcar suburbs, yet the style is rare in the rest of America, which favored the two family duplex house.

Anyway, as Sam Clemens famously remarked, "there's lies, damn lies, and statistics." Every report I see cites different figures, but the recurring theme of the most expensive metro areas in the country continues to resound with NYC, Boston, DC, SF, Orange County, Honolulu, and similar cities always showing the highest prices. Here's some recent figures for single family houses in Massachusetts:

MEDIAN SELLING PRICES
Region - 2005 - 2006 - Percentage Change
Cape Cod - $400,000 - $410,000 + 2.5 %
Central - $299,800 - $290,000 - 3.3 %
Greater Boston - $496,925 - $499,900 + 0.6 %
Northeast - $392,000 - $394,250 + 0.6 %
Southeast - $279,900 - $288,400 + 3.0 %
South Shore - $365,000 - $360,000 - 1.4 %
West - $199,900 - $209,900 + 5.0 %
STATEWIDE - $364,900 - $360,000 - 1.3 %

I think the $565,000 figure I cited earlier derives from the more affluent suburbs of Newton, Wellesley, Weston, Wayland, Dover (the highest in the state), and the like. But still, a Greater Boston median of $499,000 is absurdly high.

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Originally Posted by Alison Faraday

Hey there,

What sort of a house would $500k buy in the States? Where? What sort of area? Really I'm just throwing up a question up in the air to see what's over there? Alison

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Ali, for 500K you could find some nice homes in northern New Jersey. Close to NYC, very diverse culture, very accepting. Good for the tech fields. Living in the city sucks the life out of you. Living just outside the city is sweet. Look around in Bergen County.

Do I need to mention the three rules of real estate? LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. It's a cliche for a reason. Mostly becuase its 150% true.

A 3 bedroom condo on the Upper East Side of Manhattan could run you $1.75 Million, while a 3 bedroom condo in the middle of bumble fuck Tennessee runs you about $75,000.

How easy would it be for a British citizen to be allowed to work in the US? Anyone know the immigration law? I'm sure it will probably be a lengthy process to get the required work visa/permits. Do you need to be sponsored by an employer?

In my neck of the woods in MD, right close to PA, 500k can get you a 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath monstrosity on 5.65 acres.