Re: Real Estate markets - what would $XXX get you in your area?

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  March 2015 edited June 2015

   
  
  

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• Blergbot member

  

  March 2015

  pinkrevenge said:

  I live smack dab in the midst of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis side.
  
  $150K - a "garden level" condo, either quite old and with apartment-sized appliances or an 80's model with full-sized appliances but in noisier, uglier neighborhoods. You can also get a semi-dirty-not-horrid 2-3 bedroom 1 bath single family home in some of the slightly shadier / farther out neighborhoods.
  
  $300k - A "luxury" 2 bedroom 1-2 bath condo in a much prettier chunk of the city, with a small but high-end kitchen and underground parking for 1-2 cars or a small but fully renovated 2-3 bedroom 1-1.5 bath home with a detached 1 car garage in a pleasant, quaint neighborhood. Not crime-free, but in the area currently being gentrified. 
  
  $500K -  A $2,00 sqft luxury douchebag 2-3 bedroom condo in the downtown area  or the rich hipster area, or a fully renovated 3-4 bedroom 1.5-2 bathroom single family home in the upcoming cute neighborhood, or a fully renovated but smaller 2 bedroom 1.5 bathroom home in the really nice picturesque "raise your babies here" looking neighborhoods next to the small lakes, or a big-ass new (but maybe not high-end) home in the suburbs.
  
  $1mil - An absolutely stupid-large high-end new home in the suburbs, or an old brick house  that has been fully renovated in the nicest fucking parts of the city with 3 bathrooms and 4-5 bedrooms, generally a minimum of 3-4,000 sqft regardless where you go, or the douchiest condos and townhomes in the douchiest parts of the downtown / artsy douche districts with absolutely hideous interior design to better show off what a grand Trump-like tasteless rich douche you are.
  
  RENT:
  
  $500 a month - you might be able to rent an infested studio from a slumlord with drug dealer neighbors. I think I once heard of a studio going for $490 that was pretty much just begging to be condemned, but you could still rent it because the city was still in court with the landlord.
  
  $1,000 a month - a spacious one bedroom with a parking space and some utilities included with a teeny high-end kitchen and one of those AC units they cut a hole in the wall for. You might also be able to get an infested shithole two bedroom apartment with a parking space and no utilities included - likely garden level.
  
  $2,000  a month - you get a smallish one bedroom or studio apartment, but with high-end everything in the luxury part of town where everything is pretty and the people are young and smooth and there's a sauna by the workout room with a single underground parking space. Or you can rent a small not-perfect-but good enough house in some of the slightly shabby but really not too bad neighborhoods, potentially a duplex but you still get off street parking and maybe even a garage space.
  
  $4,000 a month - I don't even know. Why would you not just buy at that point? Trulia tells me you can rent an entire remodeled historical 4 bedroom 3 bath house or that douchey condo I was telling you about. It's still only a 2 bedroom 2 bath, but it's the penthouse in the heart of downtown, so go you, douchey batman wannabe. 
  
  

  
  
  
  Former Minny resident here. I used to live in Uptown (established young, hip neighborhood at the time) from 2004 to 2009. My first apartment was a charming old garden level studio for $650 (so ok, that was over ten years ago...), two years later I moved two blocks away to a charming old one bedroom for $720, where I lived without any rent hikes until 2009. Both had on street parking, but I could walk to work, so it wasn't too big a deal.
  
  My brother, who just bought a detached fixer-upper in a not-so-nice, but up and coming Seward neighborhood, paid around $800 for his Wedge neighborhood apartment back in 2009. He bought his house last year for around $100k.
  
  Minny can be pretty pricey, especially compared to ten years ago, but it's still pretty reasonable in some areas. Plus, I love all the buildings from the 1920s.

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  March 2015 edited June 2015

  
  

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• Blergbot member

  

  March 2015

  pinkrevenge said:

  Blergbot said:

  
  
  
  
  
  Former Minny resident here. I used to live in Uptown (established young, hip neighborhood at the time) from 2004 to 2009. My first apartment was a charming old garden level studio for $650 (so ok, that was over ten years ago...), two years later I moved two blocks away to a charming old one bedroom for $720, where I lived without any rent hikes until 2009. Both had on street parking, but I could walk to work, so it wasn't too big a deal.
  
  My brother, who just bought a detached fixer-upper in a not-so-nice, but up and coming Seward neighborhood, paid around $800 for his Wedge neighborhood apartment back in 2009. He bought his house last year for around $100k.
  
  Minny can be pretty pricey, especially compared to ten years ago, but it's still pretty reasonable in some areas. Plus, I love all the buildings from the 1920s.

  Whittier here. I pay $890 for a one-bedroom one bath 2nd story apartment with 1 off street parking space, Water and Gas (including heat) included. Granite counter tops but a tiny kitchen. The house at the end of the block (3 bedroom 1.5 bath detached 2 car garage with porch and menards-style full remodle) just sold for around $375K. 
  

  
  
  
  That does sound about right to me for Whittier. I wish I could transplant Minny down here in the warmer climbs of the Southwest.

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• hellosweetie1015 member

  

  March 2015

  badbnagdway said:

  Real estate in our area is really and truly interesting and variable. I live in a fast growing Tennessee city (not Nashville or Memphis) . We live within two miles of the main downtown area, walkable to restaurants, less than a mile to the best grocery store in a 10 mile radius, and in stellar school zone. We paid $390k for a house that was built within the last 10 years. It's got a 2 car garage, a beautiful deck, 3 bedrooms and 3.5 baths. We do not have a lot of land, and a lot of our yard is on a severe slope. A lot of the houses in our area do not have a garage or even a driveway just because of how high a premium there is on space and the age of a lot of the houses. I would say, staying within that same school zone, which is only 2-3 square miles in size:

  
  

  $150k - A very small house that is likely not fit for habitation on a less desirable street and a small lot (like, less than .05 acres small). 

  
  

  $300k - An older 3 bed 2 bath that could use some love with a very small yard. Probably no garage or driveway. 

  
  

  $500k - A new built (within 10 years) house with at least 4 beds and three baths. Some kind of yard, but probably not very big. A garage and driveway, probably. 

  
  

  $1,000,000 - A big old house that has been fully restored on a good sized lot. 

  
  

  All of the above is for the areas not right near the waterfront and most desirable streets. In those areas you'd be hard pressed to find something under $1,000,000.

  
  

  Meanwhile, we have friends who live about 5.5 miles away from us. They are further out from downtown, are not walkable anywhere, and have not very good schools. They paid about $170k for a 3 bed 3 bath ranch with a well-updated kitchen, two car garage and a big yard. For what we paid for our house we could probably buy a mcmansion in that area. 

  Ooooh see this one helps me a lot - I think I know where you're at, and if I'm right, FI and I have talked about moving there. He interned there and liked it pretty well, it's got opportunities in his industry, andplusalso it'd put us maybe 2 hours from my parents, and 5 from his, so not prohibitively far, but not so close that they're right there all the time. I love our parents - his and mine - but I don't want them right there all the time.

  

  
  

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• [Deleted User] member

  

  March 2015 edited June 2015

  
  

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• FiancB member

  

  March 2015 edited March 2015

  I'm a transplant to the twin cities area- near NE St Paul. It's more expensive than OR was, but then again I left before Portlandia and everyone and their free range chickens started moving there.  I know some Portland prices are skyrocketing, but then they were insanely cheap in the beginning. 

  
  

  I feel like Minneapolis tries to be like Portland with the craft brews and such, so I fit in well enough. Still want to leave the goddamn cold though. 

  
  

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• julieanne912 member

  

  March 2015

  We are in an HOA despite being on over an acre kind of "in the country".  it's $48/mo and covers the garbage service and the street plowing.  There's a few street lights here and there, and supposedly they're reimbursing us for our back fence because we back up to a road, but we haven't seen that yet (it's a new neighborhood).  

  
  

  I read through the rules before we put in a contract here, as one of our main requirements was to be able to park our camper on our property without having to have it contained in a garage or outbuilding.  Most of the HOAs around here have that rule, but ours does not.  While we eventually want an outbuilding, we don't have $30-40k right now to build one.  They have a few other lame rules, like we couldn't paint our house gray because the 2 neighbors to the north are already shades of gray.  They also have a few rules in terms of landscaping but they're reasonable.. ie we have to have at least 6 trees and we can't have any rocks outside in shades of pink (which is a good rule to have).  

  
  

  As long as you know what you're getting into, HOAs are not a big deal.  I certainly wouldn't pay $1200 or whatever for one though.

  Married 9.12.15

  
  

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• hellosweetie1015 member

  

  March 2015

  julieanne912 said:

  We are in an HOA despite being on over an acre kind of "in the country".  it's $48/mo and covers the garbage service and the street plowing.  There's a few street lights here and there, and supposedly they're reimbursing us for our back fence because we back up to a road, but we haven't seen that yet (it's a new neighborhood).  

  
  

  I read through the rules before we put in a contract here, as one of our main requirements was to be able to park our camper on our property without having to have it contained in a garage or outbuilding.  Most of the HOAs around here have that rule, but ours does not.  While we eventually want an outbuilding, we don't have $30-40k right now to build one.  They have a few other lame rules, like we couldn't paint our house gray because the 2 neighbors to the north are already shades of gray.  They also have a few rules in terms of landscaping but they're reasonable.. ie we have to have at least 6 trees and we can't have any rocks outside in shades of pink (which is a good rule to have).  

  
  

  As long as you know what you're getting into, HOAs are not a big deal.  I certainly wouldn't pay $1200 or whatever for one though.

  Please please please PLEASE tell me the no pink rocks rule is actually straight out of the contract. Please. It will make my day that an HOA somewhere felt the need to specify no PINK rocks.

  

  
  

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• julieanne912 member

  

  March 2015

  hellosweetie1015 said:

  julieanne912 said:

  We are in an HOA despite being on over an acre kind of "in the country".  it's $48/mo and covers the garbage service and the street plowing.  There's a few street lights here and there, and supposedly they're reimbursing us for our back fence because we back up to a road, but we haven't seen that yet (it's a new neighborhood).  

  
  

  I read through the rules before we put in a contract here, as one of our main requirements was to be able to park our camper on our property without having to have it contained in a garage or outbuilding.  Most of the HOAs around here have that rule, but ours does not.  While we eventually want an outbuilding, we don't have $30-40k right now to build one.  They have a few other lame rules, like we couldn't paint our house gray because the 2 neighbors to the north are already shades of gray.  They also have a few rules in terms of landscaping but they're reasonable.. ie we have to have at least 6 trees and we can't have any rocks outside in shades of pink (which is a good rule to have).  

  
  

  As long as you know what you're getting into, HOAs are not a big deal.  I certainly wouldn't pay $1200 or whatever for one though.

  Please please please PLEASE tell me the no pink rocks rule is actually straight out of the contract. Please. It will make my day that an HOA somewhere felt the need to specify no PINK rocks.

  Straight from the design guidelines: "Stone: generic is fine, shades of pink are prohibited."

  Married 9.12.15

  
  

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• julieanne912 member

  

  March 2015

  They also mention "shrubbery" a lot, which makes me giggle thanks to Monty Python.  

  
  

  “First you must find... another shrubbery! Then, when you have found the shrubbery, you must place it here, beside this shrubbery, only slightly higher so you get a two layer effect with a little path running down the middle. ("A path! A path!") Then, you must cut down the mightiest tree in the forrest... with... a herring!”"

  Married 9.12.15

  
  

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• hellosweetie1015 member

  

  March 2015

  julieanne912 said:

  hellosweetie1015 said:

  julieanne912 said:

  We are in an HOA despite being on over an acre kind of "in the country".  it's $48/mo and covers the garbage service and the street plowing.  There's a few street lights here and there, and supposedly they're reimbursing us for our back fence because we back up to a road, but we haven't seen that yet (it's a new neighborhood).  

  
  

  I read through the rules before we put in a contract here, as one of our main requirements was to be able to park our camper on our property without having to have it contained in a garage or outbuilding.  Most of the HOAs around here have that rule, but ours does not.  While we eventually want an outbuilding, we don't have $30-40k right now to build one.  They have a few other lame rules, like we couldn't paint our house gray because the 2 neighbors to the north are already shades of gray.  They also have a few rules in terms of landscaping but they're reasonable.. ie we have to have at least 6 trees and we can't have any rocks outside in shades of pink (which is a good rule to have).  

  
  

  As long as you know what you're getting into, HOAs are not a big deal.  I certainly wouldn't pay $1200 or whatever for one though.

  Please please please PLEASE tell me the no pink rocks rule is actually straight out of the contract. Please. It will make my day that an HOA somewhere felt the need to specify no PINK rocks.

  Straight from the design guidelines: "Stone: generic is fine, shades of pink are prohibited."

  This makes me absolutely gleeful. I want to know why they chose to prohibit pink stones. I don't think I've ever seen pink stones in any landscape design, except this one artist dude who lives a million miles out in the middle of nowhere who is... a bit eccentric.

  

  
  

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• julieanne912 member

  

  March 2015 edited March 2015

  hellosweetie1015 said:

  julieanne912 said:

  hellosweetie1015 said:

  julieanne912 said:

  We are in an HOA despite being on over an acre kind of "in the country".  it's $48/mo and covers the garbage service and the street plowing.  There's a few street lights here and there, and supposedly they're reimbursing us for our back fence because we back up to a road, but we haven't seen that yet (it's a new neighborhood).  

  
  

  I read through the rules before we put in a contract here, as one of our main requirements was to be able to park our camper on our property without having to have it contained in a garage or outbuilding.  Most of the HOAs around here have that rule, but ours does not.  While we eventually want an outbuilding, we don't have $30-40k right now to build one.  They have a few other lame rules, like we couldn't paint our house gray because the 2 neighbors to the north are already shades of gray.  They also have a few rules in terms of landscaping but they're reasonable.. ie we have to have at least 6 trees and we can't have any rocks outside in shades of pink (which is a good rule to have).  

  
  

  As long as you know what you're getting into, HOAs are not a big deal.  I certainly wouldn't pay $1200 or whatever for one though.

  Please please please PLEASE tell me the no pink rocks rule is actually straight out of the contract. Please. It will make my day that an HOA somewhere felt the need to specify no PINK rocks.

  Straight from the design guidelines: "Stone: generic is fine, shades of pink are prohibited."

  This makes me absolutely gleeful. I want to know why they chose to prohibit pink stones. I don't think I've ever seen pink stones in any landscape design, except this one artist dude who lives a million miles out in the middle of nowhere who is... a bit eccentric.

  I think they take their cues from a ritzier subdivision to the south of us.  There's a few houses down there with pinkish rocks and they look pretty gross. 

  
  

  Speaking of pink... the neighbor's house turned out pink.  She was going for beige and only looked at it on a little paint swatch.  On a large house in certain light, it's pretty pink.  She said she's repainting this summer LOL

  Married 9.12.15

  
  

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• rcher912 member

  

  March 2015

  I live in the western Philadelphia suburbs (JUST outside the city - FI takes the train to center city to work, and it takes him like 15 minutes, I drive to the north end and it takes me 25)

  
  

  Issues to watch out for:

  -Older, not well-taken-care-of home

  -School district!!!!!!

  
  

  150,000 - solid, older home, in a good school district it will probably be pretty run down, in a worse school district it might be pretty nice. Generally 3bd 1 bath.

  
  

  300,000 - Good school district is easy. 3-4 bedrooms, 1-2 bathrooms (FI and I bought out 3 bd 1 bath, move-in ready home for 250k in a good district), could get something smaller in a STELLAR school district

  
  

  (Yes, we have incredible variations on school districts, and a mile really can make a HUGE difference)

  
  

  500k - 1mil - Best school districts in the state, lots of beds/baths (I try not to look cause it just makes me sad, lol, but depending on how much land you want it can vary from 5bed 2.5 bath all the way up to the ridiculous 7bed 7 bath kind of thing)

  
  

  It's really about what school district you want to live in where I am. And if you're concerned about connected (row) homes vs. disconnected single-family homes. Not many condos around, or even apartments, really. That's more inside the city.

  
  

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• Blergbot member

  

  March 2015

  pinkrevenge said:

  Blergbot said:

  pinkrevenge said:

  Blergbot said:

  
  
  
  
  
  Former Minny resident here. I used to live in Uptown (established young, hip neighborhood at the time) from 2004 to 2009. My first apartment was a charming old garden level studio for $650 (so ok, that was over ten years ago...), two years later I moved two blocks away to a charming old one bedroom for $720, where I lived without any rent hikes until 2009. Both had on street parking, but I could walk to work, so it wasn't too big a deal.
  
  My brother, who just bought a detached fixer-upper in a not-so-nice, but up and coming Seward neighborhood, paid around $800 for his Wedge neighborhood apartment back in 2009. He bought his house last year for around $100k.
  
  Minny can be pretty pricey, especially compared to ten years ago, but it's still pretty reasonable in some areas. Plus, I love all the buildings from the 1920s.

  Whittier here. I pay $890 for a one-bedroom one bath 2nd story apartment with 1 off street parking space, Water and Gas (including heat) included. Granite counter tops but a tiny kitchen. The house at the end of the block (3 bedroom 1.5 bath detached 2 car garage with porch and menards-style full remodle) just sold for around $375K. 
  

  
  
  
  That does sound about right to me for Whittier. I wish I could transplant Minny down here in the warmer climbs of the Southwest.

  And our misquitoes?
  
  Best to leave us in the land of ice and snow. Besides, winter-proofing is what makes all the houses such adorable shapes.
  Just visit more often; we just got so many new restaurants! And 2 years ago city liquor ordinances changed, so we have breweries and beer gardens.
  

  
  
  
  Definitely don't miss the mosquitoes. You can keep those!

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• OwningAHome1981 member

  

  March 2015 edited March 2015

  This thread is too long for me to read right now but i live in the #1 most expensive area of the country. Here's to eternal poverty

  

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