Quote:
Originally Posted by exitspeed
Yeah, it's crazy how different parts of the country or even different cities in the same area vary so much.
I was watching that House Hunters where they were in Chicago and the prices area crazy just compared to Milwaukee (where I live). And I love and HATE Chicago. I love Milwaukee. But on that show there was a POS bungalow going for $350k and a decent one for $400. Heck I can build a brand new amazing house here for $400 just 15 miles out of downtown (in Milwaukee traffic that would be about a 15 minute drive). But then we have areas right near downtown like Fox Point, and Whitefish Bay (or White Folks Bay as it's called) where a house like the one in Chicago would be $500k.
As far as remodeling, I don't quite get their costs. I think for the shows they have a budget and not all factors are built into the cost as they would a normal consumer. THAT or labor is extremely cheap in CA where most of these houses are renovated. One of my clients locally is a top remodeling company and they do bathrooms alone for $60k. And I'm not talking gigantic bathrooms, just nice ones. So again, I don't think the renovation costs quoted on the shows are accurate or if they are they are accurate to CA only.
My wife and I are finally at a point where we want to buy another house and we're looking in the $300k range. Another thing that comes into play that I don't know if anyone mentioned yet is Taxes. We have really high taxes here. We wrote and offer on a house in a very sought after neighborhood (in Milwaukee Co where the taxes are crazy) just a few weeks ago and the taxes were $6700/ year. That made up almost $600 of the mortgage we would have had. Now if we bought a house for the same price in Waukesha Co (next to Milwaukee where we used to live), City of New Berlin where we used to live, the taxes are like $4500. That only adds $375 to our mortgage. Obviously that makes the home more affordable. The only reason we even considered the higher tax home was because of the house being on the most beautiful park in the state of WI (a State that receives multiple awards every year for our parks) and the house being built buy a specific architect, etc etc.
But yeah, buying and affording a house is a big decision. But owning a home has so many advantages to renting. God I can't wait to get out of the place (renting) I'm in now.  |
That is crazy high taxes compared to here. Last year were paid $775/year. The prior year it was 875. My dad built a complete log home on an acre of land and 2500sq ft, and his taxes aren't much more than 1600. It was appraised at over a million, but because he literally assembled it with his bare hands and a friend who is a contractor, it only cost about 350k to build.