[olliej]

The bulk of a "house" price in populated areas is the cost of the land.

That's why rundown, dilapidated, etc "homes" in the Bay Area are so expensive. You're paying for the land. So a $20k home is still going to cost you a stupid amount.

If you go out to the middle of nowhere, you can get huge, and amazing, homes for less that $100k (because no one wants to live there).

[zorak8me]

> If you go out to the middle of nowhere, you can get huge, and amazing, homes for less that $100k (because no one wants to live there).

Median home prices in flyover country start at $100K (West Virginia) and max out around $300K (Colorado, Nevada, etc.). "Huge and amazing" is probably 3x that.

[olliej]

What I’m hearing is that a huge and amazing place is cheaper than many small apartments in the Bay Area :)

[kevindong]

> If you go out to the middle of nowhere, you can get huge, and amazing, homes for less that $100k (because no one wants to live there).

In flyover country, the land is pretty close to free and typically you can buy the house at a discount to what it would cost to rebuild the same structure.

[rdtwo]

Which is interesting because you can’t build a new house for that price in most urban areas even if land and permits were free. The costs of an ADU are typically in the 150-200k range and once you add permits and sewer it’s easily 200+

[fred_is_fred]

In the arid west (Colorado) my building permit cost more than the land - and I was in town (30k permit, 20k land). Why? Because the city has to use that money to buy a water right.

[olliej]

yeah, there are so many amazing houses that I'd love to own, were they not so far from anywhere useful, which is of course why the buildings/land is affordable :D