(Closed) Spinoff – what home will $200,000 buy you where you live?

• AlmostMrsShield
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: April 2014

@alsgirl:  I’m in Wollongong, $200,000 gets nothing. There are a few houses around for $300,000, but that’s a small 3bedroom in a wayyyyyyyy dodgy suburb! The suburbs I like, you’re looking at around $500.000 for something decent! And that’s not even the nicest suburb in the area! 

• alsgirl
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: October 2014

@AlmostMrsShield:  Canberra sounds the same. It’s so disheartening when I see people I went to primary school with who didn’t even finish year 12 buying houses on a single income, when Fiance and I, with our 4 degrees and double income can’t even afford a shoebox because of where we live. It makes going to uni seem pointless because we’re so far behind 🙁

• AlmostMrsShield
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: April 2014

@alsgirl:  SAMMMEEEEE!!!!! So glad someone is in the same place as me! Except, if we were happy to settle in a dodgy suburb we probably could buy now/soon. But I want to raise my kids somewhere nice, by the beach with pretty schools and an active lifestyle. This probably means we’ll be renting for a few years – I graduate Uni this year to be a teacher and so contracted positions practically don’t exist! But casual teaching still brings in great money, so we can afford to rent in a nice place, and still save. We already have our “lifetime cars” so that’s one less thing to worry about 

• alsgirl
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: October 2014

@AlmostMrsShield:  I know! I grew up in a dodgy suburb, wouldn’t want my kids to do that. I escaped for a reason!

• Mangomosa
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: July 2014

This thread is fascinating! There are some beeeeeautiful houses here, I really wish it were simple to move to the US, like really realllllllly!!

 

I don’t know what’s happened to the exchange rate, but xe.com is showing $200,000 as around £120,000 GBP.  It won’t get you anything near as fancy where we live, and we don’t live in a particularly expensive area.

 

This is probably in the nicest area of tha price range, a small market town close to the beach and with a good nightlife and schools.  It’s a one bedroom flat, kind of right next to the job centre :/

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-27704760.html

 

Or you could get this 3 bedroomed.. thing? that is on top of a Subway store!!!

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-43921916.html

 

Not so good!!!

• PoppyRose
• 7 years ago

Where I am in the UK, £120,000 would get you a one bedroom bungalow, or a top-end mobile home, both over a mile out of town. 

I do live a particularly affluent area (sadly, I’m not particularly affluent myself!), but the house prices in my town are crazy. Even £200,000 wil only get you a one bed flat or a two bed ‘park home’ (like a mobile home, just… sturdier). 

• MissyR
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: July 2015

$200,000 would get you nothing in Toronto! If you’re looking in the suburbs/outside of the city, $200k would probably get you a small 1-bedroom condo…

• orchidaloha
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: July 2018

200k in tjis city would result in a shitty apartment in the ghetto

• auggiefrog
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: August 2012

In the suburb I live in I can’t find anything over $180.  It’s a very working class, blue color suburb.  The houses are small and old, and I have no problem with that.  In the surrounding subarbs (further from Milwaukee) you can find much more exciting properties, that would get you closer, and well above $200,000.  

This one has a nice yard and is in a very wooded area.  for $199.

 

If I had $225,000 to spend I would buy this.  It’s been on the market forever.  I used to walk by it all the time and swoon.  3 beds, I full bath, less than a quarter of an acre.

• babeba
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: September 2016

Our area is a mix of historic miner’s cabins, a few big old houses and some newer developments. $200k is somewhere in the crazy middle of all that. You could buy 3-5 acres of mountain view property/farmland and develop it yourself, you could buy one of the old miner’s cabins for $110k and sink the other $90k into gutting it and starting fresh with the foundations and frame, you could be most of the way to a townhouse in the latest subdivision, you could buy an old closed-down candy store on the edge of the shopping district… Quite a number of options, really!

• StoriaCrissosa
• 7 years ago

A crappy one bedroom flat lol

• 1Yan4Sarah
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: Dreams Resort and Spa, Puerto Aventuras, Mexico

In Oakland County, Michigan it will get you a ~1000 sq. ft. 3 BR/1 or 2 BA house (possibly with a basement) in a decent area, but not the best areas. It’s frustrating to us because a friend just bought a house in Greenville, SC that is nearly twice that size, with a pool, for less than $100k.

• MRS-K
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: August 2008 - Toronto, ON

I live in a suburb just outside of Toronto and there is nothing you can buy here for $200,000!

• Tanleggedjuliet
• 7 years ago

• Wedding: December 2014 - Columbia, SC

priyawouldntwannabeya:  

1982 sq ft, 3 bdrms, 2 baths ~ $182K

• Polyphemus
• 7 years ago

It depends on how savvy you are.  I could buy a lot more with $200K than a lot of people I know/work with, assuming it was cash/liquid assets, and not a bank loan or mortage, but I also grew up plying tax sales with my father. 

My partner and I are looking to add a second house to our lot right now – our neighbors haven’t paid their taxes in years, and their lot is going on auction this year.  We’re hoping to find a way to swing enough liquid funds to purchase it, since tax auctions won’t take anything but cash/cashier’s checks, and it’s hard to predict ahead of time how much they go for.  If we can get it, our acreage will double.