[fabsroman]

gsp,

I could sell my townhouse here, take our savings money, and buy a house out there cash if they are really $200,000 for a house. Here, you cannot touch a single family house for less than $450,000, and those were built in WWII and have about as much room in them as my townhouse, with a little more yard than my townhouse. My townhouse is going for close to $400,000, which is utterly insane since it went for $157,000 9 years ago. The homes we are looking at are in the $700,000 range and they aren't even that nice for that kind of money. 6 or 7 years ago, you could buy a mansion for $500,000. Not so anymore. When my brothers bought their house 8 years ago, they paid $195,000 for it, now it sells for close to $500,000. Utterly insane. I am predicting that things are going to change as far as house prices are concerned because people just cannot afford them, period. If my wife and I cannot afford a house and we are well above the median household income for this area and our spending habits are really good, I don't think the majority of people can afford a house if they didn't already buy one years ago.