insert teeth-gnashing here

[hot_pastrami]

Local cost-of-living is a huge issue on the housing question... one of the (very) few nice things about Utah is the housing market. For instance, my first house was a 2400 sq. ft. place on a 1/4 acre plot. Six bedrooms, two-car garage, brick, central air, nice part of town... all for $143k. I spiffied it all up with new paint/carpet/linoleum, and sold it... and those guys got a NICE house for only $155,000.

I feel some mortgage pain now though... I bought another house, a bit of a fixer-upper, on an acre plot so my wife could keep her animals when we got married (horses, etc)... the mortgage on $200k is sometimes tricky to make on a $61k salary, especially with the added expenses of feeding animals, and making home improvements. But we just budget a little more... we don't go out to eat so often, etc... and it we manage OK most of the time. I've been doing a little contract work on the side to get a few extra bucks, so it should help relieve a little more pressure. Of course when we decide to start having kids, we'll have to do something to cover those large expenses.

In some areas, when the average salary is compared to the cost of the average house, it is obvious that buying a home is out of the question for the average person. I suspect PA is one such place.