My salary didn’t change at all, but homes went up 82%. The money I saved for a down payment and my salary no longer are good enough for this home and many others. This ain’t even a “good” home either. It was a 200k meh average ok home before. Now it’s simply unaffordable
The answer is to go somewhere cheaper. If you go far enough out of town the prices will go down.
So basically, somewhere no one wants to live because of distasters, is boring AF, no jobs there.
If it’s boring, then so are you. There’s plenty to do in the country, just not much that involves “going to crowded places and spending ridiculous amounts of money on things that would be 20x cheaper at a regular store”
No argument on anything else though…
You’ve never been to a rural area of the country, have you? I traveled to Idaho recently and good fuck was it boring. Hiking is fun for a few days, but then there’s 20 degree weather, snow, ice, hail, poor Internet that’s basically DSL so you can’t play any games or access the Internet. People live within 50 miles of cities for their own sanity
I once lived in a town of around 1,000 people. It had everything I needed in walking distance - a grocery store, doctors office, pharmacy, post office, restaurant, bar, and mechanic. A beautiful bike trail and river ran through the town. Fiber Optic internet was available, and there was a medium-sized town 15 minutes away with good jobs.
I just checked and the average home price is still around 100k. A 2br apartment rents for $750/mo. These places still exist, but they’re called hidden gems for a reason.