$500,000 for a house

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

In Texas, it would be a VERY nice house. In California it would be average.

In New York, outside of NYC, it would get you a nice 2-3 family home, but not alot of land. Upstate NY would get you something very nice.
In areas like North or COuth Carolina it might get somethign very very nice with land and sometimes near a lake, a boat slip.
But, then again, I would put you up for free here in NY

fyjuf

it totally depends on the area u want to live it can be anything from a large nice home w/everything to a studio apt in sanfran or nyc

realtor.com can give u some idea if you have a state and city in mind

Hey there houstonshemalefan, Unisex, RawNY and karizma :)

All good replies, thank you :-)

I'm just throwing ideas about really.

It's interesting what you say Unisex about people not being able to afford to live, it's getting a bit like that here. We're taxed astronomically. And other things aren't cheap

We pay (in equiv. $)

Double Whopper = $10
Takeaway Pizza = $30
Loaf of bread = $2
Pint of milk = $1
Box of cornflakes = $4
Council tax = $3000 yearly
Internet = $40 monthly
Electricity = $300 monthly
Gallon of Petrol = $8+
Small 3-year old car = $12,000

I'm at the end of the line in my family, I have no brothers or sisters or cousins, with a financial future that's almost assured. My Grandfather was actually American.

So really just ideas being thrown about here.

It would also aid my transition too, since surgery here is another thing which is expensive and in some ways way behind the States. My breast augmentation was over $10k here, wham bam thanks very much SIR, 12-hours later you're on your way home in a Ford. $10k for that? No aftercare, no paperwork. What I'm saying is that the UK is just a rip-off and seedy, hence why it's called Rip Off Britain (ROB).

Hey RawNY, thanks!! :-) Now if I was younger ...I'd be there next week. :)

Also....

What's the availability of jobs like over there? Say for a 24x7 UNIX SysAdmin or Tech Pre Sales? Not what the agencies say, but what's the word on the street of jobs availability?

Allison - as you can imagine, home values vary widely across the U.S.

Here's a link to site that can compare values for different cities in the U.S. and Canada based on dollar amount.

http://hpci.coldwellbanker.com/?customerType=Learn

Hey thanks for that!!

OMG, I can get a house with a swimming pool in Dallas for £150k!!!!!!!

£150k would buy a garage here, really, a single garage to park your car in.

There are locations in the states where you can get a really nice house for $500,000. It's all about where you want to live.

Checkout http://www.realtor.com/ . Just add what state you would like to live in after the slash, and browse away.

Ex: http://www.realtor.com/california ... http://www.realtor.com/florida