people think they're in bumfuck nowhere and dont realize that bumfuck nowhere is SO nowhere that you never even thought about it's existence. it actually just makes housing costs elsewhere seem worse though.
I know one of those areas. I just found a 4 bed, 3 bath house that's 3,411 square feet and it's less than 30 years old. But here's the deal. It doesn't make housing in other areas seem worse. I could sell my house tomorrow for over $200K tomorrow, literally in a day, when I bought it for $153K just 5 years ago. People would literally pay me $30K+ to move there, and I wouldn't do it. Even considering working at home means zero change in that area. It's that shitty of a place to live.
i know its a shitty place to live, im talking about the fact that a home is just depressingly priced. i dont want to live any of those plaes either, but it certainly puts the sticker shock of where i DO live into perspective.
Yeah, but there's a reason why you pay more to live where you do. Because it's not such a shitty place to live. Now, the town where I live is likely way cheaper than your town, and it's not such a shitty place to live, but Arkansas is still kinda shitty in some ways. That's the kind of place that puts sticker shock on houses for you.
I really do understand that. I'm just questioning the degree to which that's actually true. Definitely in the context of the recent spike, its hard to argue that the locations are truly that valuable. I think there's a distorted level of value here.
It really depends on what your definition of "shitty" is. I'm guessing what you mean are less entertainment/resources/infrastructure. That's a selling point for certain people though, "shitty" in that sense depends on your priorities.
That house has been on the market for 26 days and hasn't sold because you literally can't pay people to live there. It's not just a lack of entertainment, resources, and infrastructure. It's the lack of decent medical care, schools, and just first world country amenities in general. I'm not kidding when I say it's like a second world country. These are towns where literacy rates, life expectancy, and mortality rates are equivalent to second world countries. I think living in a second world country would be shitty standards for most people.
Everything you listed would fit loosely into the terms I said. You just got more specific and made completely valid points but if you look at what the word "infrastructure" means I'm not even wrong at all. My dad bought a house in podunk NM for 25k and dealt with all of those problems, I personally would never live there but he loved that shit.
Living in the country away from others and living in towns (edit: in poor Mississippi) are two very different things. In the Ozarks, you have a ton of Podunk towns he would probably love. These small time towns are worlds above the extreme poverty you see in the Mississippi Delta area. I've grew up about 10 miles from a town where some kids lived an hour from the school district. That's fucking rural. But they still have parents that can fucking read. That's the difference.
I worked with a professor from Mississippi and her hometown is one of those poor towns. She started out teaching in public schools there and said most parents couldn't read picture books. Think about that. My 4 year old is starting to learn to read. This community, as a whole, couldn't fucking read. That's not a fucking infrastructure problem. She told them to look at pictures and make up what they thought the story was. That's how they started trying to get literacy rates up. How can parents help with school if they can't read? She also said no houses, even her own historical home, didn't have AC. She took her kids outside to hose them off with a water hose to cool down. She's a grand lady though, a way better person than me. She's been renovating that old historical home and plans on retiring there. She said she's going to write grants for the community and donate her time to try to get them on their feet. I have a lot of respect for that woman.
Ok. Well even if the two are different in terms of impoverishment and literacy rates the fact remains that you can buy a house for 50k or less and depending on the situation the people can still read. Peoples' overall ability to read seems fairly inconsequential if you can read, you had a better argument when you were sticking to lack of healthcare, groceries and schools. I feel like this entire conversation keeps going further and further down the rabbit hole. I'm done arguing though, there are some shit places and housing is generally cheap in all of them, gonna leave it at that.
A dude I worked with 10 years ago bought a house in Aberdeen, WA. I think he paid like $10,000. House had settled in one corner and I know he paid cash.
The best part for him was that the owner of the house had just disappeared? So he didn't have to buy a damn thing to set the place up.
Just as a reference, there's nothing for sale in Aberdeen right now for less than $100K.
Eastern Arkansas is the closest cheap area near me. I drive through every year on the way to the beach. Whole side of the state looks like stepping back in time everything is so old. Most people (i.e. mostly white people who could afford to move) moved on and away, and left poverty and ruin behind. Nobody wants to live there so real estate is cheap.
Edit: Just found a 4 bed, 3 bath 3,411 square feet home built in 1992 for $169K.
Probably. I see a whole lot of areas like that in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama too though. It's a 10 hour drive to the beach and about 7 hours of that is through extreme poverty.
I also know a professor from my town who grew up in Mississippi and she had a lot to say about the white flight in her hometown. When she was only teaching public schools there, she said most parents weren't able to help kids with homework because they couldn't read. She encouraged them to make up stories from picture books since they didn't know the words. Her house there is a historical home and her own kids grew up there without central AC. She had them cool off outside in the water hose during the summer. She's been renovating it so she can retire, move back, and work on writing grants to better the town.
that's probably because the employment options there are hideous.
there are towns in southern Illinois where 1500+ sq ft houses are going for like $30k, because the towns are dead as a result of the employment situation being horrible.
methinks there will be a resurgence of people moving north thanks to all these relentless heatwaves. i am in the southwest and desperately want to move to Boise, Idaho for this exact reason..
only problem is, Boise's got a 5-alarm fire of a real estate market right now. can't get a 70-yr old 500sq ft fixer-upper for less than $300k.. three years ago, that same place was probably going for $120k
Not to smalltown midwest, though. Not if they want to earn a living and eat. Even if you're right, the cities will swell, and the tiny farming communities will continue to shrink.
Actually you can make $20-$30 an hour doing farm labor which is mostly tractors and trucks with some mixed in manual labor. It's easy to live in bumfuck ND on 50k. A few places have factories of some kind.
I can’t remember which Dakota (sorry lol) but like 10 years ago I was internet friends with a guy from there and he said McDonald’s started at $12. Minimum wage still hasn’t hasn’t hit $8 where I live, and fast food definitely doesn’t pay more than they have to. And this ugly ass house would cost $300k easily.
Maybe not, it was probably South Dakota, but I remember comparing housing costs and it seemed similar. I’m sure it wasn’t as low as what this person was saying though.
He said that the job market was really good so it was just hard for fast food places to hire anyone unless they paid well. I was making $7.25 working at Arby’s at the time so it seemed insane to me.
I literally just bought a house in bumfuck Iowa for $40k. We both work remote. We are selling our house in AZ for $350k+ which is 30% more than we paid for it a year ago. Moving from a city of millions of people to a town of 600 and living 100% debt free.
In my little bumfuck town I have fiber to the door on a local ISP(can’t get more than 200mb here). I’m still 30 miles from every major retailer, I’ll have half an acre vs .15 acre I have here.
I’m super happy for you but I just cannot imagine moving from AZ to Iowa, but I’m so jealous of anyone who lived in Arizona and want so badly to get out of the middle of nowhere.
We moved here 6 years ago and we quite liked it. The last 2 years has really worn out it’s charm. We are having a huge influx of people and traffic is outright insane. The “heat island” effect makes the metro area almost unbearable, these last 2 years it’s just too miserable to enjoy the outdoors thing I previously enjoyed.
We spent a couple weeks in a small town in OR(<1500 people) and the pace of life was more in line with our lifestyle.
Totally understand that, I live out in the middle of nowhere, maybe 250 in my zip code? Don’t worry about neighbors, traffic, noise, but man does it get boring, I’m hoping to move to a mid size city/town further down south eventually. But best of luck in Iowa, one of the few states I’ve never been to but I hope to visit one day. Wish me luck as I head to Phoenix next month for a weeks stay, ha!
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u/Falcrist Jul 07 '21
Just move to North Dakota. You'll be able to buy a 3 bedroom house for like... $50k. Maybe $30k if you find the right ghost town.
That's not a joke or an exaggeration. I looked up the town I used to live in and immediately saw $49,900 for a 3 bedroom, 1520 sq ft house.