Tomorrow is Saturday...So I look at Zillow to get ideas for kitchen ideas, basement improvement suggestions and paint scheme ideas. I search in places I'd like to live and dream about. But seriously, how do some of you folks afford to live in these places? A four bedroom house in Newport Beach, CA is well over 2 million. Park City, UT, well over 3 million, Flagstaff yup, Denver yup, Portland yup, Riverside yup, Vancouver yup...Austin yup-YUP...
So what the h@ll do you guys get paid in these fine towns? I know it's usually relative, but come on, what surveyor takes on a 1.5 million note for a family house? Are salaries really that high in these places?
I guess I'll just plan to stay here in the midwest and paint the rooms, grey, white and a light green...and look for bamboo floors. I hear Central Missouri is nice in the winter. Oh and the spring here is just fabulous; rain, snow, tornadoes...
Sure, I can find a 4 bedroom house in my area for a couple mil... But there are many more options between $250k and $500k. I'm in Salem, about 45 miles south of Portland and honestly I would never live in Portland anyway. Been there, done that, glad I'm not still doing that.
Some of us just bought our first house out in the boonies for $20,500 back in 1968 and worked our way up from there.
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For the record, when I was in Oklahoma I got paid a bit better than I had been in Portland. Only in the last month have I exceeded what I was getting in Tulsa in 2014.
I really don't know how people manage to pay the prices they do around here. In most cases I know of both husband and wife have good paying jobs.?ÿ
I think Dave's situation describes the majority of the homeowning middle class in the high-rent areas.?ÿ I'm not sure I could qualify for an 80% loan if I wanted to buy my house today.?ÿ I thought it was outrageously priced when we bought it in 1996.
Homes that require both spouses to have very well-paying occupations necessitate they remain spouses until that sucker is paid off...........or else.
Read a snippet of news about a youngish farmer who has been convicted of killing his wife with a corn rake.?ÿ Seems she had an affair and might be talking about getting divorced.?ÿ If they divorced, the farm they had worked so hard to acquire would end up being foreclosed on.?ÿ Guess he doesn't have to worry about that any more.?ÿ BTW, he apparently nailed her in the back at least three times with the corn rake.
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Land/build/home prices are zooming here. Seems people are fleeing where they live now, if you're selling and leaving it's a great time to move to the mid-west or somewhere cheaper, if you are selling and moving nearby you better try to get every penny out of the sale.?ÿ
Some of us just bought our first house out in the boonies for $20,500 back in 1968 and worked our way up from there.
$156K in 2020 dollars.?ÿ
The average salary in NZ is $77,714 (before tax) $58,334 (after)
A cheap house in a new subdivision starts around $450k, and most are nearer $550k
That's 7.7 years
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That was a pretty nice place in 1968.?ÿ I was a poor college student but gave serious thought to buying a house in 1971 for $13,000 instead of paying $200 per month for a basement apartment.?ÿ Had no money for a down payment so that idea blew up in a hurry.
My first home was near St. Louis. It was a struggle to get and keep it, but we managed. My current home in the PNW is worth six times the starter and I'm considering buying a second for our retirement.?ÿ
Surveying should provide an income that gets you in a comfortable spot. I found the midwest pay lacking and moved West. There were too many good opportunities elsewhere to stay at the time. Six figure positions are becoming commonplace. You simply have to decide what's important to you and make it happen.
I hear Central Missouri is nice in the winter. Oh and the spring here is just fabulous; rain, snow, tornadoes...
My only time in central Missouri was the summer of 1977. Hot, humid and sticky, just like the Mid-Hudson Valley where I grew up. At least it got us out of some training, particularly the live fire crawl through.?ÿ
I've been on my property going on 25 years. Was going to school to get on that survey gravy train and living off student loans when an acquaintance told me about a friend of his going through a divorce trying to unload a piece of land he had a contract on with the developer and he just wanted what he had into it. I had just enough of my student loan money left over after paying tuition and books to give him what he wanted to get it transferred over into my name. Couldn't afford a house, so I just built one out of pocket over several years. It now totals seven acres of heaven and they'll carry me out there feet first. Later the developer who was owner financing the lots for his retirement told me he was counting on me not paying them off. Turns out he only sold to people with poor or zero credit. Told him that was too f'n bad. He made a bad bet betting against me.
I'm in one of those cities - I live in the house I grew up in from well into the last century. There are many new multi-million dollar homes here - almost all inhabited by folks who bailed out of CA with tons of cash in the 90's. They came here and housing prices went through the roof, destroying my ability to ever "move up". Most "ordinary" folks moved into the outlying areas out of town - most of my high school classmates left to go to the big city where they could make a decent living. We surveyed a parcel here a number of years ago for the new home of the intellectual property attorney for Boeing. He was relocating away from the rain - they were installing a private microwave communication system for him for video conferencing. It astounded me. I had an employee in the 1990's who wanted to refinance his ?ñ2-3 yr-old house and lower his payment. He didn't qualify...
To answer your question, salaries are not high here at all. We joke that we have "poverty with a view." I know of no families whatsoever that are single earner. I find that we have a fairly large number of what I consider to be trust fund babies, living primarily on inherited money. We had a rock and roll star here for a while, but he too left for the big city...
