MilSpecs wrote: ↑Thu Oct 18, 2018 10:45 am
Never worked for any state and I’m still working.
I keep a close eye on housing prices in the shore area, since I’d like to retire there. It’s very possible to get a house for around $500K. Yes, the taxes are high. A townhouse can deal with part of that problem and is less expensive. It’s not necessary to have a big or new house.
That said, I’ve heard young family members say the same thing. They are unwilling to live like we did at their age, and so the houses they want are in the $700K range. I feel particularly bad for the ones who can’t live here without living in poverty because they don’t have the income.
If you really want to move out of the region, I suggest you rent before you move. I’ve seen too many people come back.
Lol. You are *obviously* not looking at houses on the shore in Fairfield. A friend from college's father bought a house in Fairfield Beach 20 years ago, literally a shell of a house (totally gutted interior, no insulation, just 2x4 studs inside), on a postage stamp lot (10' to either neighboring house), IIRC it was $800k just for that. Actually finished, the neighbors were easily $1.2+mil. 20 years ago.
Fairfield isn't really affordable on <$250k income.
That being said, I'm 40mins North of there, bought my raised ranch on ~1ac for $172k in 1991 while making $43k/yr, it's what I could afford. (Shows 1056sqft on zillow) Post late 80s boom, in 1985 it would have been $145k, in 1988/9 it was probably $225k, timing does matter. Now "worth" $320k on zillow(I'd say that's high, probably more like the median), it's a good area, the zillow median for my zip is $280k.
Zillow shows rent on my house at $2100/mo. I couldn't have afforded that on $40k/yr. I put $50k down too - few people can do that even these days - so my mortgage was $1200/mo. I've never made over $100k salary (though I've broken that if you add investment income at times), and I did manage to pay my house off in 13 years - of no vacations, no toys, sinking everything I could into it. Few are willing to do that either.
My house taxes, fyi, have gone from $2400 in 1991 to $4800+ this past year. And that's cheap, move my house one lot over (my back yard is the city line) and that'd be $6500+ I'm sure, mainly for the "better schools" they won't let me send my cats to.