are insane. It's disheartening. $250k-$350k will get you a 800-1,500 square foot house that is forclosed and trashed/gutted throughout, in an eh neighborhood. $350k-$450k gets you a small, nice house in a good neighborhood. $500k-1 mill gets you a really nice, medium-large house in a great neighberhood. And 1 mill-2 mill gets you a nice house on horse property. 

We have outgrown our apartment again, but can't afford paying $2,000 a month for rent for a 3 bedroom. Plus our aparentment doesn't allow you to switch apartments very easily anyways. We're just ready for a house, and it seems like we will never get there as long as we are living here. But at the same time we love it here so much, the idea of having to move to a different city is heartbreaking. We'll find a way to make everything work. I was just discouraged as I was looking at houses on Zillow just now. :/   

This may be stupid of me, but what is "PNW"?

Reno - Pacific Northwest!

Prices up there are pretty ridiculous - a friend of mine is lucky enough to have employer assistance to live within reasonable distance of Seattle for work, but especially when you factor in horses, it's not a very easy market to navigate sadly. :(

Best of luck in your search Hera!!

Oh, thanks!

I am obviously not from that area! hahaha

That sounds awful though!

I mean, how can anyone afford those prices???

It's the same way/even worse in the more populated areas of California - there's just so much demand for it and not enough supply, I suppose.

It's like that for parts of Connecticut.  I had a hard time finding a place for myself, and I only wanted a tiny house with one bedroom or 2 bedrooms. Rent is about the same here too.

Move to texas!!! 449k gets you a 3bed 2 bath house on 5 acres with a barn and arena!

Unfortunately i cant afford that either, but found a 2 bd 1 bath on 5 acres for 149k(which we could probably get for cheaper)

Aw, that sucks! I really hope you can find something that works for you! I definitely understand the feeling of outgrowing an apartment and needing to upgrade to a house, it can be really frustrating.

This is a major reason why I'm not sure if we will ever actually leave Omaha - it's just so affordable.

I agree with everyone above, prices for housing have gotten insanely high now a days; it seems that your typical needs to survive are considered just a "luxury" anymore just to give the Real Estate business a reason to add a 5% higher fee because it's "in ideal locations", especially when you're in a state that's considered a tourist state, things can get even worse on the locals end because they price-gouge things to the extreme to try and make a quick buck off of out-of-state visitors.

Florida houses used to be pretty much dirt cheap unless you were in a big populated city like Miami or were around tourist traps/local attractions in Daytona Beach and Orlando; the smaller houses { i.e mobile homes and trailers} were the cheapest thing you could get and had land. Now cities have skyrocketed higher than they used to be {I saw one house in Orlando was being sold for $800k - $1mil because it was in an ideal location that suited many needs, but in the past those used to be $300k - $500k}. But again, there are also cheap houses throughout these parts too, it just depends where you want to live and how big the house is or if you want mass acreage/barns/near attractions, etc.  Buying land comes with a catch - such as having certain type of livestock, how many you can have and if they're deemed "okay" enough to lower the house bill. Typically, you see cows everywhere in Florida countryside because they drastically drop the house prices - especially if you're around HOA grounds. It's one of the reason I don't really want to stay in the state, because the beautiful properties here are the most expensive and the afforable ones are ugly/trashed. I hate it!

I have been doing a lot of house hunting in Georgia and depending where you are or how big of acreage you want, they can go from decently priced to heart-attack inducing. I plan on being in the country and having cattle, so pricings may swing in my favor a little bit. I definitely agree with Aza though, TX and even Omaha like Sam said have pretty afforable housing. Both of these places have recently become a living choice simply due to that, but we'll see where the market stands by the time I'm moving.

Hopefully things work out for you Hera!

It took us 6 months but we were finally able to find a home in our price range in Idaho. The housing market has been crazy here! Most homes have gone for 20k over the asking price and paid with cash... *Holds toung about checky remart about califonians moving here* There was actually a higer offer than the one we made on our house, but we started sending a family photo and letter with our offers and in the end that's what got us our house! So if you can, I suggest doing that, also working with a realtor made a huge difference! He was able to show us places that weren't even on the market yet. Good luck!

Alaska is terrible. Housing is so expensive. I can't wait to move out of here soon. It's depressing. Even my tiny two bedroom apartment is $1400 a month.