I live in a city where $500k will not buy you an average sized home. (Where?)

[Locut0s]

I'm talking a small to medium sized average detached family home. NOTHING fancy, in fact in many places in this city it won't buy you even a run down home. I'm talking within 30 mins drive of down town on average. Go out an hours drive or so and prices start to fall bellow that. In the down town core it's hard to buy a new apartment for that price. Even 700,000 won't buy you much of an apartment down town. A million is the average house price in lot of areas and you won't necessarily get much for it. Where I live the average price is 900,000 and you are NOT talking about anything special at all!! The up scale areas of the city are priced in the 2-3 million range and above. We live in a nice town house, not a detached home. I do NOT live a rich life style and neither do my parents with whom I live. Though we do live an average upper middle class lifestyle. For those who remember previous posts of mine I work in a 7-11 down town and my father teaches at a local collage.

What city do I live in? Don't cheat, if you already know the answer don't post until someone gets it.

[Bluzmann57]

1. San Francisco?

Just wondering.

[stevenleser]

2. Plenty of places

Any of the five towns in Long Island, anywhere in the west side of Los Angeles, some suburbs of Boston and Chicago, etc.

[JanMichael]

3. San Francisco?

?

[Jack Rabbit]

4. San Francisco sounds like a good guess

It's always been one of the most expensive in which to live.

[Nitrogenica]

5. Italy?

[seriousstan]

6. Do they have cars, buses, trains and planes so you could move or are you a prisoner?

[Locut0s]

11. Yup got all those fancy locamotive contraptions around here :-)....

not sure to what the pic refers to specifically though. Most of the new people moving into the down town area are people who have money to spend. The rest of us simply have held onto land while the prices inflated. We could never have hoped to move into this town house if we had not been here before the real estate boom.

[liberalmuse]

7. 1st guess, San Francisco. 2nd, Seattle.

I live in a small town about 20 miles north of Seattle. Little cottages here are selling for half a mil.

[DesertFlower]

8. san diego? nt

[TlalocW]

9. Toad Suck, Arkansas?

TlalocW

[Oceansaway]

10. Shy-Town...n/t

[postulater]

12. I'm guessing a Borg cube.

[Locut0s]

15. Wouldn't the highly repetative utilitarian nature of such a structure make it cheaper??

[postulater]

68. Certainly a cube would be much less efficient than a sphere

and it is a very exclusive neighborhood, everyone knows everyone else.

[mondo joe]

13. LA? My neighbor's mom has a dinky shack of a thing there valued at 1 mill.

[alittlelark]

14. The Bay Area..? there are many places where 500K won't get you anything.

:shrug:

[OffWithTheirHeads]

26. Yeah, like everywhere. i think you would have to go to

the Stockton or Fresno part of the Bay area before you could find a house for less than 5.

[alittlelark]

69. I actually meant other places in the US.

Here in the Bay area even Stockton & Los Banos are hovering at 500K - but then you know that!

[OffWithTheirHeads]

72. Oh, you mean like Peurto Rico?

I get it.

[Locut0s]

16. All good guesses but nothing yet. The closest so far...

In terms of price from what I can see if the SF bay area. But geographically not close at all!

[Tektonik]

17. Santa Barbara?

[Gogi]

18. Sounds like Manhattan.

Perhaps Ladue?

[Locut0s]

22. Isn't Manhattan real estate in another ballpark altogether?

[Emit]

19. SF or S. CA, would be my guess

my grandpa sold his house in San Jose -- a very small house, corner lot, built in the 50s, modest -- for over $300K about 7 or 10 years ago. Crazy.

on edit, I didn't see your most recent post, so I guessed again.

[Emit]

20. Atlanta, GA? or Dallas? n/t

[montanacowboy]

21. Seattle?

nt

[dkf]

23. Honolulu?

[Locut0s]

24. Damn I wish! .... Hmm goes off to look at Hawaii real estate.

[blitzen]

25. Calgary?

[MadHound]

27. Have you thought about relocating then?

Seriously, if I were faced with those sorts of housing prices I would consider moving.

[stray cat]

28. specialty jobs can be hard to come by

[Orangepeel]

38. never mind

I thought I was replying to the original poster.

[Locut0s]

32. Thought about it sure but there's a reason prices are high here and it's not ALL hype...

It's a nice city in many many ways and while we could definitely afford more by moving somewhere else you have to sacrifice other things to do so.

[dysfunctional press]

29. well- it can't be chicago, that's for sure.

you can still buy some decent houses for 500K in the city.

[rox63]

30. El-Lay? n/t

[robbedvoter]

31. NYC- Manhattan

[canoeist52]

33. Boston and metropolitan area?

[-..__...]

36. I'd guess the same thing

[Locut0s]

34. Okay a hint. All good guesses people but you are failing to look OUTSIDE the 'box'.

[canoeist52]

35. Juneau?

[Locut0s]

37. Ok you're now on the lid of the box. I'm talking outside the box.

[buzzard]

40. Anchorage?n/t

[dysfunctional press]

39. vancouver?

:shrug:

[Locut0s]

50. -------- BINGO We have a WINNAAARRR!! -----------

[karlrschneider]

51. Which Vancouver?

:D

[Locut0s]

52. Canada

[Quantess]

65. LOL, it definitely ain't Vancouver, WA

[Iktomiwicasa]

41. That's not so bad.

I live in a community where 100 average people collectively make less than 500k/year.

[canoeist52]

44. Are ye livin' in Puerto Rico?

[dysfunctional press]

45. i think he may be on the res.

judging by the avatar, and the poverty. (and south dakota)

[Iktomiwicasa]

62. Pine Ridge

reservation in S. Dakota.

[Locut0s]

64. Pine Ridge Wiki....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Ridge_Indian_Reservation

Wow that is poor!

[dysfunctional press]

73. we drove through the reservation during a family vacation in the mid-70's...

it was on of the few times in my life that i actually saw my father appear scared for his family. it was not all that long after wounded knee, and there were a bunch of burned up buildings, iirc.

[colinmom71]

42. Metro Washington D.C area is what came to my mind...

[warren pease]

43. Paris... and not the one in Texas?

[Orangepeel]

46. I'm guessing it's outside of the US

although I don't have a clue where a college teacher and somebody who works in a 7-11 can live an upper middle class lifestyle.

[Locut0s]

54. Well I'm not the secondary bread winner. That's just my own job, My mother though is and she also...

works for 7-11 but she makes about twice what I do. And as for my father he earns around 70k/yr plus he has some smaller secondary income as well. Together they make a little under 100k/yr.

[Orangepeel]

57. Someone downthread guessed Tokyo. I'll second that.

Because housing is expensive and because 7-11 makes me think of either Vegas or Japan! :-)

[Locut0s]

59. And someone above guessed right and I posted a big BINGO

[Stinky The Clown]

47. Honni Lu Lu

[Xenotime]

48. Dallas or Fort Worth

[dysfunctional press]

49. toronto?

:shrug:

[Oldtimeralso]

53. Tokyo n/t

[no_hypocrisy]

55. That's easy: Bergen County, New Jersey.

Any one of these towns: Franklin Lakes, Allendale, Ramsey, Saddle River, Upper Saddle River, Wyckoff, Waldwick, Ridgewood, Glen Rock, . . . .

[begin_within]

56. Sounds like where I live.

San Diego.

[roody]

58. I was going to guess Austin, TX.

[Stinky The Clown]

66. My partner lives in Austin

She and her husband own what would be a mansion here. They sold their house here for just over $750K four years ago. In Austin, they could not reinvest it all unless they bought a HUGE house which they simply didn't want. Rather than pay capital gains on the excess, they bought a house at a lake.

The point .... Austin is very cheap.

[El Pinko]

71. By Texas standards, Austin is very expensive.

A brand-new 3 bedroom house in El Paso in a nice neighborhood barely costs over $100K.

And we have 340 days of sunshine a year, lower violent crime, reasonable traffic (unlike Austin's nightmare traffic & sprawl), mountain views and New Mexico skiing only 3 hours away by car. Life is good.

[Locut0s]

60. It's already been guessed look UP! It's VANCOUVER CANADA

[stimbox]

61. Must be SF. n/t

[Mz Pip]

63. Pretty much

any metropolitan area in CA.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[salin]

67. One of the major reasons I left the SF Bay Area was that

working for nonprofits I could barely afford to rent, let alone consider buying.

I would guess that you are not posting about SF or the penninsula - even small homes were going for far more than that back at the "turn of the century".

[CK_John]

70. I think BC may become the 51 state of New Columbia with Vancouver as its capital. n/t