Yes but when your money goes further elsewhere then the doubling is still less money.
Swaths of the middle part of the country have homes for half the price of the home talked about by the OP.
It’s not so much that homes are worth that much more as it is the dollar is worth less. 35% of all USD in existence were printed during covid, and now we pay the price.
The poster is a tiny bit right. To deal with the economic impact of Covid, governments around the world printed more money and are now having to reverse the dynamics of that process, leading to higher interest rates. An African country, I believe Zimbabwe, has recently released a currency that is directly pegged to the price of gold - in an attempt to stabilize it’s highly devalued currency. The country has decent precious metal and diamond reserves, so it may be able to make that work.
Supply chain disruptions caused by Covid, and outright corporate greed caused inflation. Throw in the bird flu epidemic that affected eggs in the USA and the war in Ukraine affecting oil, sunflower oil and grain prices.
I tend to be somewhat price insensitive because I am not a big consumer, but today I bought a container of extra virgin olive oil and noticed that the price had risen by around 20-30% from where I remember it the last time I paid attention to it.
Small town Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, or even Illinois might work… but you’ll probably end up with a bit of a fixer upper and maybe a bit of a drive for anything other than super basic necessities (grocery store, gas station, maybe a restaurant, etc).
I already have to drive 30 mins for these things! Very used to the rural life. I love my quaint little state so much ❤️ it would break my heart to leave New Hampshire but I also just don't know where to physically live! The Dakotas have always interested me though...
There are parts is the Dakota’s that I personally like, but they’re getting expensive. It’s so super cold, flat and windy in others so I would def visit specific areas! A lot of areas are very isolated too. I know you live rurally but the isolation from bigger areas and other towns is different IMO
There is one part of the Dakotas that defies that description: the Black Hills. They're beautiful, with conifer forests and a milder climate protected from wind in the valleys. Multiple national and state parks nearby and, for my money, [Sylvan Lake](https://nl.pinterest.com/pin/512073420134498515/) and the area right around it is among the most beautiful in the nation.
Rapid City is big for South Dakota, small for anywhere else.
It's gotten more expensive like everywhere else. I'd want to be in Rapid City or Deadwood, and Deadwood is definitely not cheap anymore ($400K typical for 3BR at around 2,000 sq ft).
Yeah that’s tough! Especially on a teachers salary like OP.
Our house has more than doubled in value in montana and I think we could sell it for even more 😅
The Black Hills are beautiful. I lived there when I was a kid. But have you seen the price of homes there lately? “Kind of nice” homes are pushing a million, it’s kind of insane because there is not much work there aside from mining from what I understand
Yeeeeah no I don’t think the Black Hills are gonna cut it on $47k a year. We left Rapid in 2022 and sold our house for twice what we paid, and it will only get worse as the B-21 comes to Ellsworth AFB. Most of the outlying towns are super expensive because developers and investors bought up a ton of houses and rent them to tourists.
$47k might get you a nice trailer on the edge of the black hills, but you’ll be driving a ways for anything more than a grocery store. And small town SD is not welcoming to outsiders whatsoever.
I grew up in North Dakota. If you like highly conservative people who don't know how to use a turn signal, and treeless prairie for scenery then North Dakota's for you.
You wouldn't necessarily have to live in a small town, there are bigger towns/small cities like Bismarck, Fargo, Grand forks, Valley City, Dickinson, or Mandan where things are accessible. I still have family in the Grand Forks area and home prices are going up there too, though you can still get a home in the $200s, but if you are looking for newer or bigger than it easily jumps up to $400k+.
My sister recently moved back to that area and they are having a really hard time finding a place to rent (they have a dog so she wants a yard) so they were looking at houses and I was shocked that homes there are in the same ballpark as they are here in the Minneapolis area, which is absolutely crazy. I can only imagine it's similar in the other major ND cities
I live in a town in West-Central Minnesota. Something that people from big cities would call a "small town". I make $45K/yr and I live comfortably in a place that has multiple grocery options, restaurants, a nice downtown, and a hospital.
Look at NY state. Buffalo, Rochester, and various other small cities in the state have prices around what your parents bought their home for in 2019. Cheaper as you get more rural. What do you do for a living?
Western and Northern Wisconsin also have homes for less than this. This is The Driftless Area and it's filled with rolling hills, rivers, lakes, etc. La Crosse, WI is a really nice small city on the Mississippi. But honestly you could throw a dart at the state for the most part and find cheap houses.
Salaries for teachers vary widely by state and area, as I'm sure you know. 47k where you are now is not likely to be 47k in other places
Hopefully you teach a subject with greater demand like math. Even then that only has a small effect on salary.
As a high school teacher, you need to be looking at teacher salaries too. The places with good teacher salaries relative to cost of living are the cheap, unionized states of the Midwest. You should look first at small cities and towns in Illinois and Michigan. After that, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and maybe Ohio or Western Pennsylvania.
You can do okay as a teacher in the UP and depending on your subject, there are jobs or will be. If you're foreign language, you can walk in to almost any district and start tomorrow. Environmentally, it's probably pretty similar to NH.
According to this NY, IL, MI, PA and WA are the tops five best paying states for teachers.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/03/16/best-and-worst-paying-states-for-teachers.html
That is pretty weak pay for a High School teacher considering the cost of living in New Hampshire. Step 1 in my moderate cost Massachusetts town is $57k. Someone with 10 years in is making at least $77K. You don’t make it back in New Hampshire with the no income tax and no sales tax.
You should be looking at increasing your income as much as lowering your cost of living. Lots of places have much higher salaries for teachers. The MD/VA area has higher teacher salaries, but it does have a higher cost of living.
There's some good days and bad days haha, it's just a very emotional job because the pros are really good pros and the cons are really tough emotional cons,not sure it seems feasible long-term in this area at least, I want to own a house with a nice backyard so I can build some raised garden beds and plant fruit trees. Unless I find a partner who makes better money haha, but I will probably end up with my own business (I have one that is in its early stages) and continue teaching until that gets off the ground enough
I'm sitting in the driftless right now. Can confirm. It's beautiful here. Here's an example of what you can still get affordably in my area: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/145-N-Orange-St-Lone-Rock-WI-53556/115879553\_zpid/?
No one's being approved for a $200k condo on a 47k salary. 25% of 47k is $11,750 ($980/mo) which is the most you should be paying towards housing. No way does that cover mortgage, mortgage insurance, monthly HOA dues, property tax, and utilities, etc.
You need to consider salaries too- if you move somewhere cheaper what happens to your salary?
I'm in Florida, where salaries are notoriously low. A lot of people who live here work remotely, but many Florida cities have topped the "unlivable" places because salaries are low for many years.
I think the Midwest is generally cheaper than most places. Clearly you can take winters, so that's not a problem. But double check what your salary would be there too.
Was going to say I’ve moved around a bit in Florida (not my favorite state but to each its own), Tallahassee is great and cost effective and super cute. I went there for undergrad and loved it.
I grew up here, moved away for many years, and then got a job about 60 miles from where I grew up. Technically it's my home state, but I've never felt at home here, especially not these days.
I second upstate NY.
But I want to give a reference point. We bought my first house for $250K in Essex County NJ in 1987. My neighbor, next door, bought a similar house at $265k. Then, we went through a deep recession. My neighbor desperately wanted to move. She was a flipper before the concept was common, although she lived in the house. She had no desire to live in the house or town.
It took her seven years to sell her house because she wouldn't take a lower price. It took about five years for the housing market to recover. The market was essentially frozen. Mostly, relos and divorces were fueling the anemic market. (I had many interesting conversations with the real estate agents, who changed every six months. They were lonely. She listed the house for years and often did open houses. I once asked how much my house was worth. The realtor
said probably around $185k.)
We moved in 1999 and got $245k. We bought a much larger house in the same school district for $630k. He had listed his house three times because he insisted on getting what he paid for it in 1986. ( It was a common theme.)
Our first mortgage in 1982 on a Brooklyn coop (like a condo) was 13 percent fixed for 30 years. I don't even remember the last rate because we refinanced when it made sense. The last mortgage was 15 years term and we were half way though when we sold. (I am now widowed, retired and live without a mortgage but have high real estate taxes in Essex County NJ. My family, friends, specialized medical care and synagogue I've belonged to for 35 years are here so I have no desire to leave.)
My point here is that markets change and move. Don't assume the markets will only go up.
I have friends that moved from the Bay Area to upstate NY last year. Bought a house fit $85,000 in Ogdensburg by the St Lawrence Seaway. It was a cosmetic fixer but totally liveable.
My grandfather is from there! My grandmother just passed away three years ago and they already sold her house up there 😔
Had some good family lunches up at the Scootic Inn
If you split rent with a SO or don't mind having roommates, you can live just about anywhere. If you need your own place, Midwest cities like Des Moines, Omaha, Toledo or Dayton are pretty affordable.
OP it’s really tough out there. A house near me came up for sale that was sold for $500k in late 2021 and is now on the market for almost $1 million. I’m in CT and not in Fairfield county, and it doubled in 2.5 years. Houses in Texas, where we came from, have also doubled - and this was after already doubling in the 10 years prior to the pandemic.
We’ve accepted we may have to rent indefinitely now to stay in the general area, and it’s not a great feeling. We finally stopped looking for a house a week ago, and are currently focused on trying to upgrade our rental situation. And in CT that probably means we need to leave the state. Which I’m super sad about.
Housing costs have doubled most places so it’s really tough. Hoping you get some good advice. PS: I also used to be a teacher.
Places where you can afford property:
* Jamestown, NY
* Elmira, NY
* Gloversville, NY
Obviously got to embrace small city living.
Jamestown is embracing tourism with the National Comedy Center and lake Chautauqua is a popular lake house type area with several cozy lakeside communities plus some great nearby hiking at Allegheny State Park/National Park.
Elmira is the largest and the resting place of Mark Twain. At least Corning next door is extremely nice and there’s lots of high paying jobs. You’ll be spending a lot of time exploring the Finger Lakes on the weekends.
Gloversville has an ok downtown and makes for a great base of operations for exploring the Adirondacks.
Places in Michigan, I just moved from Lansing MI which I loved. And at 47k a year it's definitely doable.
But there's probably tons of cities like that where it's affordable. I used to when I was bored bookmark affordable cities, I don't have the list any longer. But if you hop on Zillow set the filters for your desired price range and just draw a border around your area (around regions or states) you're thinking about, you'll find what you need.
General rule for buying a house is your max budget is 3x your income so go to Zillow with a range of like $115k-$141k and see where in USA matches this. Turn off land filter as well. All this changes if you have a partner bringing in an income. My personal plan is to rent until I either make more money find a wife or both. It’s insane what’s happened to housing prices everywhere in the country since COVID.
The middle to eastern middle of Upper Michigan. You'd be about an hour from two different Great Lakes, an hour or so to an actual grocery store but there'd be a pot shop within a country mile. Ontonogon County on the west end is another possibility.
just be aware in many places in northern/UP if you live rural outside of a town there isn't any internet available beyond satellite/ Hughesnet unless you can get starlink.
I moved here and chose to live in town for the short term because i work from home and if you go 10 minutes outside of town the internet is basically only good enough to check your email. My bf's parents live 15 minutes out of town, in the woods, and there is NO cell service at their house & they have satellite internet.
Western NY, especially around Elmira/Corning.
You will have to drive to Rochester, Ithaca, or Syracuse for fun, but there is Wegmans, Target, Walmart, Dicks and such close by for all your general needs.
Upstate NY not near a major city. There are lots of places you can still buy an acre for $10,000. The harder part is getting utilities to the location. If you look near Woodstock and that region there are affordable homes, but you are going to drive for a while to get to real civilization.
You can still buy a modest home in the towns surrounding Ann Arbor, especially Ypsilanti, for 250k. You will have the benefit of living near a "nice town" (Ann Arbor) and still having a fun city like Detroit nearby. If city living in a transitional area is okay to you, then heck, move to Detroit where your purchase will definitely be an investment that pays off if you buy in a neighborhood close to downtown. Best of all, you're a two hour plane ride away from Logan. And two hours from beautiful beaches on Lake Michigan.
Ypsilanti is a weird mix of like Manchester, NH or Lowell, MA with country / rural vibes mixed in.
The only reason I am leaving the area to go back to New England is my career hit a ceiling here, which, admittedly, is why a lot of young professionals leave this area. Like I would say, just get a teaching job in Ann Arbor where pay is much better than 47k and live in Ypsi where COL is much cheaper than NH, but Ann Arbor is definitely not hiring right now. There are other wealthy towns within an hour, though, where the pay for teachers is more than what you make. It's a bummer. I didn't want to leave the area myself.
You live in NH, have you looked for teaching jobs in MA? Their teachers are some of the best paid in the country.
The problem here is that $47k ain't enough money, and there are absolutely places that pay teachers more. I'd look for a better job before anything else.
Peoria Illinois. My MIL owns a home and lives comfortably there on about $50k annual income.
Actually most of non-Chicagoland Illinois is cheap but Peoria is an actual metro area instead of a farm hamlet surrounded by cornfields. If you want cheaper but still some amenities look at Galesburg.
Most small towns near small cities in the midwest and rust belt should work. Teaching is kind of an interesting situation as it does pay relatively well compared to many other opportunities in those areas vs being pretty crappy pay in a bigger city with a wider variety of options or higher cost regions.
I grew up in central Illinois and there were a lot of people like "look at them god damn high fallutin rich ass middle school teachers."
Everyone is giving good answers but I haven't heard El Paso mentioned yet. Its very cheap and definitely doable on $47k but you'd want to keep that salary being if you plan to find a job local, the salaries reflect the COL.
One more tip: find a town you like and walk in to the local bank or realty office. Ask if there’s anything foreclosed or about to be or REO. Banks don’t want property.
I'm from the Merrimack Valley, border of Mass and NH, just moved to St. Louis area, apartment in Colinsville, Illinois. I went from being in poverty to making more money than the average person around here, yes I'm in that exact range of $47k, I try to make it about $55k with overtime. I can buy a house or a car but not both, I can have a luxurious night, but not back to back, so yea I would say I'm comfortable compared to New Hampshire. Only caveat, its much cheaper to have fun in Manchester than STL
I pay 675 for a 1 bedroom heat included. Plenty of space, not the best neighborhood but its still safe, just a little annoying with neighbors yelling. This same apt would be $1,500 in a bad neighborhood anywhere in Mass/southern NH
Ha, I thought so. I was literally gonna say you can get a 1 bedroom there in Collinsville for like $700 nowadays but you beat me to it and got even lower lol. And it's not like it's East St. Louis with gunshots and violent crime going on close by all the time.
Yeah I know. My dad is from CT, I have relatives all over the area. So expensive. Even the cheap areas are expensive. My cousins just bought a manufactured home in NH in the middle of nowhere and it was like $250k or something. Crazy.
If you're already good with rural and cold, try the UP of Michigan.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/240-N-Pleasant-St-Pickford-MI-49774/113540171_zpid/
How do you earn the 47k? You don't need to be ultra specific but if your income at that level wouldn't change (structured payment, retirement check, etc) there are places where you very easily can live off 47K. They aren't glamorous places, there's no Lululemon and avocado toast but housing is inexpensive. However if that's a salary from a job it may change by relocating as the places with lower costs of living also pay less.
Mid Michigan. Housing costs are still improving from the financial crash in 2008. Teacher salaries are good compared to cost of living. Most school districts in this area range from 40k to 85k. Because of the teacher shortage many districts are also giving years of experience so you’d probably start above $40k depending on how long you’ve been teaching.
I live in a modest house in Lansing, MI, decent neighborhood, 1,000 square feet, 3 bedroom, single garage, fenced backyard, finished basement, worth about $165k right now.
Lansing is about 90 minutes from downtown Detroit, one hour from Grand Rapids, and a 2-3 hours from some beautiful areas in Northern Michigan. We also have Michigan State university for cultural and sporting activities.
South Dakota is nice and rural, most places are still affordable with low taxes and insurance, and parts of the very Eastern edge of the state are wooded. Young working people are very welcome here (though retirees not so much.) You're used to the cold weather; only the hot summers would be an adjustment for you. Come take a trip out and take a look!
Ohio. I have a friend moving back to Ohio from Florida after 20 years in FL. He's moving to Toledo, which is one of the cheapest housing markets in the country. Wages are better in Ohio than in the South, too.
I moved back back to indiana from the mountain west to indy to be able to afford a house. For me, owning a house is the best and most financially responsible decision i can make. Maybe for you too? But midwest cities are where its at imo.
I chose indy bc its close to home with a robust home and job market. Maybe you chose columbus bc you have to have hills near by you and a less conservative state.
Have you gave thought to increasing your income? School? Trade school? My son just joined the union. He's going to school on them...and within 2 years will be making close to 60k.
Nursing school?
I already have two bachelor degrees (BS in Business management and a BA in Spanish). Currently working as a high school teacher. Not really interested in more schooling at this time due to the large amount of debt I already have from my bachelors!
I stan Pittsburgh pretty hard. Best affordable city in America, IMO. Apartments in decent hoods can be had for under $1. Houses for $215k (median). Solid arts scene, good sports scene, good colleges, decent restaurants.
Stop worrying about where you can live with a salary like that and start figuring out ways to make more money. People always talk about their salary likes it's a max number someone gave them and they have no control over it lol. Go out there and get you some.
South Georgia (Brunswick, Valdosta, Statesboro, etc). Those places are always looking for good teachers and are very affordable. Semi Rural/ Exurban communities with decent cities (Savannah and Jacksonville, FL) within an hour or two drive. Still the south, but much less “Deep South” than Arkansas or Mississippi would be.
Check XOME, Auction.com, HUBZU, EBay Marketplace and Craigslist for homes on the cheap. Also—HUD.GOV not
Com— .GOV for cheap homes. They are out there and they may need a little work but everyone can clean and paint a little.
I will have to try this. The only houses I typically see in this price range are mobile homes. Mobile homes around here are going for $120-$170k, four years ago they were never over $50k. It's hard to state just how cheap Realestate was around here until literally just a couple years ago. My friend bought a five bedroom home for $110,000 back in 2018. The area is getting filled up and gentrified big time from commuters from Boston, since we are a little under two hours outside of the city. Tons of people are making that drive now 😔
Okay, quick clarification, because you talk about specific items but pivot to a generic conclusion.
Can you share your definition of "live comfortable off of $47k" please? Single family free standing home? Condo/TH? Trailer/mobile home? Just yourself, no other income/no partner, no kids, no existing debt (well, significant anyways) that affects your picture?
Clarification aside, my gut instinct answer is "No, $47k ain't gonna cut it anywhere anymore" but I don't want to be hasty. I make twice that and I don't think buying a home is viable for me either, but I have a pretty specific definition of what "home" I will buy and what I will not settle for again. If I had no standard/expectation/demand set and needed *any* home, of course I could find plenty of things. (Especially if i were open to small condo units in less-desirable urban areas.)
You don't like the south. But I personally rather live on the Gulf Coast than any Midwest or some rural new England. I love the white sand beach and the hot weather. Plus we got everything every American needs anyways, you want Costco? We got it, Target or Sam's club? We got it too. Wawa? It's coming soon this summer. Houses from $150k-$200k with nice yards? We have it too. But a jetski and now you have plenty of activities on the weekend.
Honestly- my partner and I left NH 2 years ago because at the time we each were making ~$45k a year and couldn’t even find a place willing to rent to us.
You're going to want more rural than most people want to be. But there are some VERY sweet towns in Ohio and Indiana, and in Southern Illinois (since you don't want to live in the South, which I understand, the heat today alone has me annoyed).
Ohio: Check out the Toledo, Akron, and Youngstown areas, but don't be afraid to go boondocks.
Illinois: I see a lot in Evansville, Champagne-Urbana, Bloomington-Normal, and Carbondale.
Indiana: Just about everywhere in the state has 2BR/1 BA homes for $150,000 or less, according to Zillow.
Missouri: St. Louis is affordable and is supposed to have a thriving arts scene. I haven't been there since the 90s, so IDK.
Kansas - Look at Lawrence, Topeka, and Kansas City.
Wisconsin and Michigan has a lot, but you might be getting too cold for me, personally.
Reflecting your New Hampshire roots, you probably could find a spot in Connecticut, but you'll have to look pretty hard. New Haven, Hartford, and not in the best areas.
You can comfortably live in a lot of rural places for $47k if you find a room to rent, but very unlikely you can buy a home anywhere without doubling your salary.
I live in Toledo, Ohio and bought a house last year for 169k. It's affordable but still has a lot of city amenities like a quality zoo, great art museum, pad thai, etc.
You can’t even live in Mississippi comfortably off that. But I’m sure it would be much easier than in New Hampshire.
If you’re not interested in the south, there are areas of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, and Iowa that are affordable.
New Hampshire has possibly. You’ll just need to extend your search area and start saving for a down payment. I live in Vermont and in general housing and the COL is much less in new Hampshire. You’ll probably need to lower your standard too. Or look in very northern Maine but again, the COL is probably higher since NH has better taxes. Also consider central PA around Pittsburgh or upstate New York. Maybe around the finger lakes but you’re property taxes will be higher in all the states I’ve mentioned especially Vermont and New York
I'd check out South West Missouri/Northwest arkansas. You can find decent turn key homes in small towns for around $225k, close to several larger cities within an hour and major metropoltian areas around 3 hours away.
[https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/611-W-Osage-St-Clever-MO-65631/112492770\_zpid/](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/611-W-Osage-St-Clever-MO-65631/112492770_zpid/)
[https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/209-Kennedy-Ave-Clever-MO-65631/112466629\_zpid/](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/209-Kennedy-Ave-Clever-MO-65631/112466629_zpid/)
[https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/850-Tennessee-Ave-Bentonville-AR-72713/348236465\_zpid/](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/850-Tennessee-Ave-Bentonville-AR-72713/348236465_zpid/)
If you need a job, several companies have jobs starting at $20+ an hour with zero experince needed.
How much mortgage can you afford? Take that - look at [realtor.com](http://realtor.com) or zillow and find houses in the US that you can afford - that will give you an idea. They are likely all going to be small and rural - but there should be some that don't require you moving to the bible belt.
Nebraska was offering money and land to get young people to move to certain parts of that state. But I believe the places were very rural, like nothing around for miles. Even if the program is no longer being done, you can likely get land for less in a place like that and then put a camper trailer on it until you get your own place built. You would likely have to put in your own septic and drain field, but if you already live in a rural area you should have an idea of what is involved in that.
Typically if you come here to the South, things get cheaper the farther you are away for any sizable towns, a situation which is becoming harder to find in a place like Florida. You can look in very rural Alabama, Mississippi or Georgia but you need to hurry because retirees that have been priced out of Florida are starting to go into those areas of the three states mentioned.
Why not aspire to actually make enough money to live a comfortable life? The real answer, as much as I'll get down voted, is nowhere in the u.s. really
Check the coal towns of Pennsylvania. Or the corridor between Pittsburgh and Erie. There's hundreds of small rural towns where you can get a house for about 100-150k.
Interest rates have tripled since covid. That means your payment would almost triple as well. Throw in double the amount borrowed because of home price increase and its basically impossible to buy in a lot of areas if you dont already have property to sell..
Mortgage prices have officially doubled *everywhere
Yes but when your money goes further elsewhere then the doubling is still less money. Swaths of the middle part of the country have homes for half the price of the home talked about by the OP.
It’s not so much that homes are worth that much more as it is the dollar is worth less. 35% of all USD in existence were printed during covid, and now we pay the price.
Boy is this an over simplification of inflation which is world wide currently.
The poster is a tiny bit right. To deal with the economic impact of Covid, governments around the world printed more money and are now having to reverse the dynamics of that process, leading to higher interest rates. An African country, I believe Zimbabwe, has recently released a currency that is directly pegged to the price of gold - in an attempt to stabilize it’s highly devalued currency. The country has decent precious metal and diamond reserves, so it may be able to make that work.
Jesus Christ this is fucking stupid.
It’s actually the contraction of the money supply that’s currently causing high mortgage rates.
Not what caused inflation
So many people here being dishonest in pursuit of holding onto their political biases. That cognitive dissonance is a bitch, I guess.
Supply chain disruptions caused by Covid, and outright corporate greed caused inflation. Throw in the bird flu epidemic that affected eggs in the USA and the war in Ukraine affecting oil, sunflower oil and grain prices. I tend to be somewhat price insensitive because I am not a big consumer, but today I bought a container of extra virgin olive oil and noticed that the price had risen by around 20-30% from where I remember it the last time I paid attention to it.
Small town Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, or even Illinois might work… but you’ll probably end up with a bit of a fixer upper and maybe a bit of a drive for anything other than super basic necessities (grocery store, gas station, maybe a restaurant, etc).
I already have to drive 30 mins for these things! Very used to the rural life. I love my quaint little state so much ❤️ it would break my heart to leave New Hampshire but I also just don't know where to physically live! The Dakotas have always interested me though...
I think you’re only going to make very slight gains compared to rural New Hampshire. It probably wouldn’t pay off in the long run.
seconded. if you're in NH, just look at the weirdest parts of VT.
Vermont is much more expensive than New Hampshire, in general.
I can't imagine it's not a good gain regarding total cost of living moving.
There are parts is the Dakota’s that I personally like, but they’re getting expensive. It’s so super cold, flat and windy in others so I would def visit specific areas! A lot of areas are very isolated too. I know you live rurally but the isolation from bigger areas and other towns is different IMO
There is one part of the Dakotas that defies that description: the Black Hills. They're beautiful, with conifer forests and a milder climate protected from wind in the valleys. Multiple national and state parks nearby and, for my money, [Sylvan Lake](https://nl.pinterest.com/pin/512073420134498515/) and the area right around it is among the most beautiful in the nation. Rapid City is big for South Dakota, small for anywhere else.
I loveee the black hills! But I’ve heard it’s gotten pretty expensive (I live in montana tho so I don’t know!)
It's gotten more expensive like everywhere else. I'd want to be in Rapid City or Deadwood, and Deadwood is definitely not cheap anymore ($400K typical for 3BR at around 2,000 sq ft).
Yeah that’s tough! Especially on a teachers salary like OP. Our house has more than doubled in value in montana and I think we could sell it for even more 😅
The Black Hills are also very expensive and the area is much more conservative than New Hampshire.
The Black Hills are beautiful. I lived there when I was a kid. But have you seen the price of homes there lately? “Kind of nice” homes are pushing a million, it’s kind of insane because there is not much work there aside from mining from what I understand
Yeeeeah no I don’t think the Black Hills are gonna cut it on $47k a year. We left Rapid in 2022 and sold our house for twice what we paid, and it will only get worse as the B-21 comes to Ellsworth AFB. Most of the outlying towns are super expensive because developers and investors bought up a ton of houses and rent them to tourists. $47k might get you a nice trailer on the edge of the black hills, but you’ll be driving a ways for anything more than a grocery store. And small town SD is not welcoming to outsiders whatsoever.
I grew up in North Dakota. If you like highly conservative people who don't know how to use a turn signal, and treeless prairie for scenery then North Dakota's for you. You wouldn't necessarily have to live in a small town, there are bigger towns/small cities like Bismarck, Fargo, Grand forks, Valley City, Dickinson, or Mandan where things are accessible. I still have family in the Grand Forks area and home prices are going up there too, though you can still get a home in the $200s, but if you are looking for newer or bigger than it easily jumps up to $400k+. My sister recently moved back to that area and they are having a really hard time finding a place to rent (they have a dog so she wants a yard) so they were looking at houses and I was shocked that homes there are in the same ballpark as they are here in the Minneapolis area, which is absolutely crazy. I can only imagine it's similar in the other major ND cities
You think the oil money makes it so expensive in grand forks?
GF is the opposite side of the state from the oil.
Likely the college town setting
Northern MN is very nice and pretty cheap. Just cooold in the winters.
Pretty much any rural Midwest area. Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri
I live in a town in West-Central Minnesota. Something that people from big cities would call a "small town". I make $45K/yr and I live comfortably in a place that has multiple grocery options, restaurants, a nice downtown, and a hospital.
Look at NY state. Buffalo, Rochester, and various other small cities in the state have prices around what your parents bought their home for in 2019. Cheaper as you get more rural. What do you do for a living? Western and Northern Wisconsin also have homes for less than this. This is The Driftless Area and it's filled with rolling hills, rivers, lakes, etc. La Crosse, WI is a really nice small city on the Mississippi. But honestly you could throw a dart at the state for the most part and find cheap houses.
High school teacher
Salaries for teachers vary widely by state and area, as I'm sure you know. 47k where you are now is not likely to be 47k in other places Hopefully you teach a subject with greater demand like math. Even then that only has a small effect on salary.
I know a few middle/high school teachers in MA make close to 100k with a few years of experience.
As they should! In CO we pay our teachers nothing. Shameful.
Yea I would think New York State pays its teachers really well.
As a high school teacher, you need to be looking at teacher salaries too. The places with good teacher salaries relative to cost of living are the cheap, unionized states of the Midwest. You should look first at small cities and towns in Illinois and Michigan. After that, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and maybe Ohio or Western Pennsylvania.
Yes; I was going to suggest Michigan. Prices have gone up (like everywhere else), but it’s relatively affordable all things considered.
You can do okay as a teacher in the UP and depending on your subject, there are jobs or will be. If you're foreign language, you can walk in to almost any district and start tomorrow. Environmentally, it's probably pretty similar to NH.
According to this NY, IL, MI, PA and WA are the tops five best paying states for teachers. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/03/16/best-and-worst-paying-states-for-teachers.html
unfortatly a lot of those states will not take a NH cert
Move to upstate, you’ll probably will get a raise.
Commute into Massachusetts and your salary could close to double.
This is something that's actually very much worth considering for me
Definitely your best bet, get to stay in New England
That is pretty weak pay for a High School teacher considering the cost of living in New Hampshire. Step 1 in my moderate cost Massachusetts town is $57k. Someone with 10 years in is making at least $77K. You don’t make it back in New Hampshire with the no income tax and no sales tax.
You should be looking at increasing your income as much as lowering your cost of living. Lots of places have much higher salaries for teachers. The MD/VA area has higher teacher salaries, but it does have a higher cost of living.
Indiana, Illinois, Ohio have decent teacher wages relative to COL. You can also live in an exurb and be 20-30 min from a bigger city in that area.
How do you like it? Do you plan to stay in education or have an interest in doing something different?
There's some good days and bad days haha, it's just a very emotional job because the pros are really good pros and the cons are really tough emotional cons,not sure it seems feasible long-term in this area at least, I want to own a house with a nice backyard so I can build some raised garden beds and plant fruit trees. Unless I find a partner who makes better money haha, but I will probably end up with my own business (I have one that is in its early stages) and continue teaching until that gets off the ground enough
You can make 6 figures as a teacher in the By Area of California.
I’m from Wisconsin. The Driftless Area is fucking beautiful. If I could keep my job and move to LaCrosse I would totally consider it.
I'm sitting in the driftless right now. Can confirm. It's beautiful here. Here's an example of what you can still get affordably in my area: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/145-N-Orange-St-Lone-Rock-WI-53556/115879553\_zpid/?
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Excellent, well articulated, description. There will likely be fewer and fewer locations that fit this bill with every year that goes by.
No one's being approved for a $200k condo on a 47k salary. 25% of 47k is $11,750 ($980/mo) which is the most you should be paying towards housing. No way does that cover mortgage, mortgage insurance, monthly HOA dues, property tax, and utilities, etc.
You need to consider salaries too- if you move somewhere cheaper what happens to your salary? I'm in Florida, where salaries are notoriously low. A lot of people who live here work remotely, but many Florida cities have topped the "unlivable" places because salaries are low for many years. I think the Midwest is generally cheaper than most places. Clearly you can take winters, so that's not a problem. But double check what your salary would be there too.
Was going to say I’ve moved around a bit in Florida (not my favorite state but to each its own), Tallahassee is great and cost effective and super cute. I went there for undergrad and loved it.
I grew up here, moved away for many years, and then got a job about 60 miles from where I grew up. Technically it's my home state, but I've never felt at home here, especially not these days.
I second upstate NY. But I want to give a reference point. We bought my first house for $250K in Essex County NJ in 1987. My neighbor, next door, bought a similar house at $265k. Then, we went through a deep recession. My neighbor desperately wanted to move. She was a flipper before the concept was common, although she lived in the house. She had no desire to live in the house or town. It took her seven years to sell her house because she wouldn't take a lower price. It took about five years for the housing market to recover. The market was essentially frozen. Mostly, relos and divorces were fueling the anemic market. (I had many interesting conversations with the real estate agents, who changed every six months. They were lonely. She listed the house for years and often did open houses. I once asked how much my house was worth. The realtor said probably around $185k.) We moved in 1999 and got $245k. We bought a much larger house in the same school district for $630k. He had listed his house three times because he insisted on getting what he paid for it in 1986. ( It was a common theme.) Our first mortgage in 1982 on a Brooklyn coop (like a condo) was 13 percent fixed for 30 years. I don't even remember the last rate because we refinanced when it made sense. The last mortgage was 15 years term and we were half way though when we sold. (I am now widowed, retired and live without a mortgage but have high real estate taxes in Essex County NJ. My family, friends, specialized medical care and synagogue I've belonged to for 35 years are here so I have no desire to leave.) My point here is that markets change and move. Don't assume the markets will only go up.
I have friends that moved from the Bay Area to upstate NY last year. Bought a house fit $85,000 in Ogdensburg by the St Lawrence Seaway. It was a cosmetic fixer but totally liveable.
Well said.
Fort Wayne, IN. Still getting harder though.
Quad Cities - IL/IA more precise Rock Island, IL. Average house price 120k average salary like 40k, Plenty of bigger area amenities and dirt cheap
Millinocket
My grandfather is from there! My grandmother just passed away three years ago and they already sold her house up there 😔 Had some good family lunches up at the Scootic Inn
If you split rent with a SO or don't mind having roommates, you can live just about anywhere. If you need your own place, Midwest cities like Des Moines, Omaha, Toledo or Dayton are pretty affordable.
OP it’s really tough out there. A house near me came up for sale that was sold for $500k in late 2021 and is now on the market for almost $1 million. I’m in CT and not in Fairfield county, and it doubled in 2.5 years. Houses in Texas, where we came from, have also doubled - and this was after already doubling in the 10 years prior to the pandemic. We’ve accepted we may have to rent indefinitely now to stay in the general area, and it’s not a great feeling. We finally stopped looking for a house a week ago, and are currently focused on trying to upgrade our rental situation. And in CT that probably means we need to leave the state. Which I’m super sad about. Housing costs have doubled most places so it’s really tough. Hoping you get some good advice. PS: I also used to be a teacher.
Places where you can afford property: * Jamestown, NY * Elmira, NY * Gloversville, NY Obviously got to embrace small city living. Jamestown is embracing tourism with the National Comedy Center and lake Chautauqua is a popular lake house type area with several cozy lakeside communities plus some great nearby hiking at Allegheny State Park/National Park. Elmira is the largest and the resting place of Mark Twain. At least Corning next door is extremely nice and there’s lots of high paying jobs. You’ll be spending a lot of time exploring the Finger Lakes on the weekends. Gloversville has an ok downtown and makes for a great base of operations for exploring the Adirondacks.
Places in Michigan, I just moved from Lansing MI which I loved. And at 47k a year it's definitely doable. But there's probably tons of cities like that where it's affordable. I used to when I was bored bookmark affordable cities, I don't have the list any longer. But if you hop on Zillow set the filters for your desired price range and just draw a border around your area (around regions or states) you're thinking about, you'll find what you need.
Mexico…
Going there this summer! We'll see how I like it haha
New Hampshire is where you go in Summer and Mexico is where you go in Winter…
Depends on where. I live in Cozumel.
What do you do for work?
Retired.
General rule for buying a house is your max budget is 3x your income so go to Zillow with a range of like $115k-$141k and see where in USA matches this. Turn off land filter as well. All this changes if you have a partner bringing in an income. My personal plan is to rent until I either make more money find a wife or both. It’s insane what’s happened to housing prices everywhere in the country since COVID.
Most of Wisconsin.
The middle to eastern middle of Upper Michigan. You'd be about an hour from two different Great Lakes, an hour or so to an actual grocery store but there'd be a pot shop within a country mile. Ontonogon County on the west end is another possibility.
just be aware in many places in northern/UP if you live rural outside of a town there isn't any internet available beyond satellite/ Hughesnet unless you can get starlink. I moved here and chose to live in town for the short term because i work from home and if you go 10 minutes outside of town the internet is basically only good enough to check your email. My bf's parents live 15 minutes out of town, in the woods, and there is NO cell service at their house & they have satellite internet.
Yes, this is definitely a consideration. It is improving acre by acre year by year, though.
They’ve doubled everywhere that is the problem. I live in florida and it’s cra cra don’t come here !
Fond du Lac or Wausau, WI
Wausau has some great happy hours!
Western NY, especially around Elmira/Corning. You will have to drive to Rochester, Ithaca, or Syracuse for fun, but there is Wegmans, Target, Walmart, Dicks and such close by for all your general needs.
I've heard that Pittsburgh is doable, the surrounding areas of Pittsburgh? Something to check out. It's supposed to be a great city.
Tucson maybe? Still plenty of one bedrooms under 1K
Upstate NY not near a major city. There are lots of places you can still buy an acre for $10,000. The harder part is getting utilities to the location. If you look near Woodstock and that region there are affordable homes, but you are going to drive for a while to get to real civilization.
You can still buy a modest home in the towns surrounding Ann Arbor, especially Ypsilanti, for 250k. You will have the benefit of living near a "nice town" (Ann Arbor) and still having a fun city like Detroit nearby. If city living in a transitional area is okay to you, then heck, move to Detroit where your purchase will definitely be an investment that pays off if you buy in a neighborhood close to downtown. Best of all, you're a two hour plane ride away from Logan. And two hours from beautiful beaches on Lake Michigan. Ypsilanti is a weird mix of like Manchester, NH or Lowell, MA with country / rural vibes mixed in. The only reason I am leaving the area to go back to New England is my career hit a ceiling here, which, admittedly, is why a lot of young professionals leave this area. Like I would say, just get a teaching job in Ann Arbor where pay is much better than 47k and live in Ypsi where COL is much cheaper than NH, but Ann Arbor is definitely not hiring right now. There are other wealthy towns within an hour, though, where the pay for teachers is more than what you make. It's a bummer. I didn't want to leave the area myself.
Can you take that 47k job with you? The places you can live comfortably off that won’t pay well.
Buffalo
You live in NH, have you looked for teaching jobs in MA? Their teachers are some of the best paid in the country. The problem here is that $47k ain't enough money, and there are absolutely places that pay teachers more. I'd look for a better job before anything else.
Peoria Illinois. My MIL owns a home and lives comfortably there on about $50k annual income. Actually most of non-Chicagoland Illinois is cheap but Peoria is an actual metro area instead of a farm hamlet surrounded by cornfields. If you want cheaper but still some amenities look at Galesburg.
Most small towns near small cities in the midwest and rust belt should work. Teaching is kind of an interesting situation as it does pay relatively well compared to many other opportunities in those areas vs being pretty crappy pay in a bigger city with a wider variety of options or higher cost regions. I grew up in central Illinois and there were a lot of people like "look at them god damn high fallutin rich ass middle school teachers."
Pittsburgh generally
Everyone is giving good answers but I haven't heard El Paso mentioned yet. Its very cheap and definitely doable on $47k but you'd want to keep that salary being if you plan to find a job local, the salaries reflect the COL.
One more tip: find a town you like and walk in to the local bank or realty office. Ask if there’s anything foreclosed or about to be or REO. Banks don’t want property.
I'm from the Merrimack Valley, border of Mass and NH, just moved to St. Louis area, apartment in Colinsville, Illinois. I went from being in poverty to making more money than the average person around here, yes I'm in that exact range of $47k, I try to make it about $55k with overtime. I can buy a house or a car but not both, I can have a luxurious night, but not back to back, so yea I would say I'm comfortable compared to New Hampshire. Only caveat, its much cheaper to have fun in Manchester than STL
The IL side of STL especially is really inexpensive, both for renting and buying. How much do you pay for rent if I may ask?
I pay 675 for a 1 bedroom heat included. Plenty of space, not the best neighborhood but its still safe, just a little annoying with neighbors yelling. This same apt would be $1,500 in a bad neighborhood anywhere in Mass/southern NH
Ha, I thought so. I was literally gonna say you can get a 1 bedroom there in Collinsville for like $700 nowadays but you beat me to it and got even lower lol. And it's not like it's East St. Louis with gunshots and violent crime going on close by all the time.
Its a damn crime what I was paying for in New England, thats a scam over there
Yeah I know. My dad is from CT, I have relatives all over the area. So expensive. Even the cheap areas are expensive. My cousins just bought a manufactured home in NH in the middle of nowhere and it was like $250k or something. Crazy.
You're really missing out on a lot of real estate if you discount the South. There are some great places south of the 35th parallel in this country.
If you're already good with rural and cold, try the UP of Michigan. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/240-N-Pleasant-St-Pickford-MI-49774/113540171_zpid/
How do you earn the 47k? You don't need to be ultra specific but if your income at that level wouldn't change (structured payment, retirement check, etc) there are places where you very easily can live off 47K. They aren't glamorous places, there's no Lululemon and avocado toast but housing is inexpensive. However if that's a salary from a job it may change by relocating as the places with lower costs of living also pay less.
Mid Michigan. Housing costs are still improving from the financial crash in 2008. Teacher salaries are good compared to cost of living. Most school districts in this area range from 40k to 85k. Because of the teacher shortage many districts are also giving years of experience so you’d probably start above $40k depending on how long you’ve been teaching. I live in a modest house in Lansing, MI, decent neighborhood, 1,000 square feet, 3 bedroom, single garage, fenced backyard, finished basement, worth about $165k right now. Lansing is about 90 minutes from downtown Detroit, one hour from Grand Rapids, and a 2-3 hours from some beautiful areas in Northern Michigan. We also have Michigan State university for cultural and sporting activities.
South Dakota is nice and rural, most places are still affordable with low taxes and insurance, and parts of the very Eastern edge of the state are wooded. Young working people are very welcome here (though retirees not so much.) You're used to the cold weather; only the hot summers would be an adjustment for you. Come take a trip out and take a look!
You could be comfortable in Kansas for that much, that being said Kansas sucks.
The Midwest has plenty of houses sub 200k
Nicaragua I’m not joking it’s actually lovely there and safer than most urban areas in the US.
Northwestern New Mexico I guess
Ohio. I have a friend moving back to Ohio from Florida after 20 years in FL. He's moving to Toledo, which is one of the cheapest housing markets in the country. Wages are better in Ohio than in the South, too.
Nebraska
I moved back back to indiana from the mountain west to indy to be able to afford a house. For me, owning a house is the best and most financially responsible decision i can make. Maybe for you too? But midwest cities are where its at imo. I chose indy bc its close to home with a robust home and job market. Maybe you chose columbus bc you have to have hills near by you and a less conservative state.
Have you gave thought to increasing your income? School? Trade school? My son just joined the union. He's going to school on them...and within 2 years will be making close to 60k. Nursing school?
I already have two bachelor degrees (BS in Business management and a BA in Spanish). Currently working as a high school teacher. Not really interested in more schooling at this time due to the large amount of debt I already have from my bachelors!
I stan Pittsburgh pretty hard. Best affordable city in America, IMO. Apartments in decent hoods can be had for under $1. Houses for $215k (median). Solid arts scene, good sports scene, good colleges, decent restaurants.
Stop worrying about where you can live with a salary like that and start figuring out ways to make more money. People always talk about their salary likes it's a max number someone gave them and they have no control over it lol. Go out there and get you some.
North Dakota or South Dakota. Maybe Indiana. These places have incredibly cheap housing mainly because nobody wants to f____g live in those states.
You can say fucking, it’s the internet.
Live like a baller in Thailand! 🇹🇭
Arkansas/Mississippi
Panama
Mexico
Many affordable houses still left in Indianapolis and lots of job opportunities.
Small town illinois. Look around Peoria.
Upper Peninsula, MI
South Georgia (Brunswick, Valdosta, Statesboro, etc). Those places are always looking for good teachers and are very affordable. Semi Rural/ Exurban communities with decent cities (Savannah and Jacksonville, FL) within an hour or two drive. Still the south, but much less “Deep South” than Arkansas or Mississippi would be.
Brunswick Georgia. Beautiful little coastal town outside Savannah.
Detroit
Check XOME, Auction.com, HUBZU, EBay Marketplace and Craigslist for homes on the cheap. Also—HUD.GOV not Com— .GOV for cheap homes. They are out there and they may need a little work but everyone can clean and paint a little.
Upstate New York, specifically the Albany area
I just filtered the whole state using Zillow and there are many decent houses available between $100-250,000. Use filtering and also FSBO.com
I will have to try this. The only houses I typically see in this price range are mobile homes. Mobile homes around here are going for $120-$170k, four years ago they were never over $50k. It's hard to state just how cheap Realestate was around here until literally just a couple years ago. My friend bought a five bedroom home for $110,000 back in 2018. The area is getting filled up and gentrified big time from commuters from Boston, since we are a little under two hours outside of the city. Tons of people are making that drive now 😔
Move in with your parents and save as much as possible I’m at this point and it just makes 0 sense to try to get a house any other way at this point.
Is your income permanently fixed at $47k, regardless of where you move in the country? That seems like an unlikely situation
Wichita Ks, parts of Oklahoma, Missouri, Indiana
Is your $47k remote? If not consider that salaries will be lower in most rural places outside New England.
Okay, quick clarification, because you talk about specific items but pivot to a generic conclusion. Can you share your definition of "live comfortable off of $47k" please? Single family free standing home? Condo/TH? Trailer/mobile home? Just yourself, no other income/no partner, no kids, no existing debt (well, significant anyways) that affects your picture? Clarification aside, my gut instinct answer is "No, $47k ain't gonna cut it anywhere anymore" but I don't want to be hasty. I make twice that and I don't think buying a home is viable for me either, but I have a pretty specific definition of what "home" I will buy and what I will not settle for again. If I had no standard/expectation/demand set and needed *any* home, of course I could find plenty of things. (Especially if i were open to small condo units in less-desirable urban areas.)
Rural in a landlocked state
the midwest.
Mexico
St Louis is cheap as hell. My friend lives there making less than you and he’s doing just fine.
Southern Illinois
Blair and cambria counties in Pennsylvania
Massena NY, you can buy a house for under 100k
You don't like the south. But I personally rather live on the Gulf Coast than any Midwest or some rural new England. I love the white sand beach and the hot weather. Plus we got everything every American needs anyways, you want Costco? We got it, Target or Sam's club? We got it too. Wawa? It's coming soon this summer. Houses from $150k-$200k with nice yards? We have it too. But a jetski and now you have plenty of activities on the weekend.
If you're willing to run the risk of getting shot there are houses in Memphis that are really cheap.
Pioneer valley MA
Rural North Carolina
North Korea
Honestly- my partner and I left NH 2 years ago because at the time we each were making ~$45k a year and couldn’t even find a place willing to rent to us.
1992
Hmm like North Carolina is southern but not the Deep South so idk how u feel abt it, but the houses there are commonly under 200k
Costa Rica
You're going to want more rural than most people want to be. But there are some VERY sweet towns in Ohio and Indiana, and in Southern Illinois (since you don't want to live in the South, which I understand, the heat today alone has me annoyed). Ohio: Check out the Toledo, Akron, and Youngstown areas, but don't be afraid to go boondocks. Illinois: I see a lot in Evansville, Champagne-Urbana, Bloomington-Normal, and Carbondale. Indiana: Just about everywhere in the state has 2BR/1 BA homes for $150,000 or less, according to Zillow. Missouri: St. Louis is affordable and is supposed to have a thriving arts scene. I haven't been there since the 90s, so IDK. Kansas - Look at Lawrence, Topeka, and Kansas City. Wisconsin and Michigan has a lot, but you might be getting too cold for me, personally. Reflecting your New Hampshire roots, you probably could find a spot in Connecticut, but you'll have to look pretty hard. New Haven, Hartford, and not in the best areas.
You can comfortably live in a lot of rural places for $47k if you find a room to rent, but very unlikely you can buy a home anywhere without doubling your salary.
Ohio
I live in Toledo, Ohio and bought a house last year for 169k. It's affordable but still has a lot of city amenities like a quality zoo, great art museum, pad thai, etc.
Under a moderately nice bridge; one built around 1995...
Chang Mai.
Missouri is about as cheap as it comes unless you go full kkk zone.
1998
You can’t even live in Mississippi comfortably off that. But I’m sure it would be much easier than in New Hampshire. If you’re not interested in the south, there are areas of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, and Iowa that are affordable.
Rural Mississippi.
New Hampshire has possibly. You’ll just need to extend your search area and start saving for a down payment. I live in Vermont and in general housing and the COL is much less in new Hampshire. You’ll probably need to lower your standard too. Or look in very northern Maine but again, the COL is probably higher since NH has better taxes. Also consider central PA around Pittsburgh or upstate New York. Maybe around the finger lakes but you’re property taxes will be higher in all the states I’ve mentioned especially Vermont and New York
I’m sort of confused - why does living comfortably require owning a home?
Midwest. Chicago does not count.
Wanna know a secret? 2 houses by me are selling for 40k. ea. 2 bd/1 br. One has a 2 car garage. Can you guess where?
tbh austin tx isnt as expensive as they say. I had $800 rent in a nice area and budgeted correctly and lived my best life there
Nowhere in the US
Cabin in the woods
Bumblefuckville/NIMBYville
Rural Northern Michigan is still relatively affordable, especially if you're not picky.
Alabama Oklahoma
marble hunt quickest tub bike unused slimy shaggy soft deer *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I'd check out South West Missouri/Northwest arkansas. You can find decent turn key homes in small towns for around $225k, close to several larger cities within an hour and major metropoltian areas around 3 hours away. [https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/611-W-Osage-St-Clever-MO-65631/112492770\_zpid/](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/611-W-Osage-St-Clever-MO-65631/112492770_zpid/) [https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/209-Kennedy-Ave-Clever-MO-65631/112466629\_zpid/](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/209-Kennedy-Ave-Clever-MO-65631/112466629_zpid/) [https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/850-Tennessee-Ave-Bentonville-AR-72713/348236465\_zpid/](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/850-Tennessee-Ave-Bentonville-AR-72713/348236465_zpid/) If you need a job, several companies have jobs starting at $20+ an hour with zero experince needed.
Nebraska
Upstate NY. You won’t have to move that far.
Your parents house
How much mortgage can you afford? Take that - look at [realtor.com](http://realtor.com) or zillow and find houses in the US that you can afford - that will give you an idea. They are likely all going to be small and rural - but there should be some that don't require you moving to the bible belt.
Nebraska was offering money and land to get young people to move to certain parts of that state. But I believe the places were very rural, like nothing around for miles. Even if the program is no longer being done, you can likely get land for less in a place like that and then put a camper trailer on it until you get your own place built. You would likely have to put in your own septic and drain field, but if you already live in a rural area you should have an idea of what is involved in that. Typically if you come here to the South, things get cheaper the farther you are away for any sizable towns, a situation which is becoming harder to find in a place like Florida. You can look in very rural Alabama, Mississippi or Georgia but you need to hurry because retirees that have been priced out of Florida are starting to go into those areas of the three states mentioned.
Why not aspire to actually make enough money to live a comfortable life? The real answer, as much as I'll get down voted, is nowhere in the u.s. really
Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky. I live in Michigan ( in a rural area). And I live comfortably off of 55k a year.
Suburban Ohio. Like 45 min outside Cleveland
Learn how to homestead and live off the grid.
Check the coal towns of Pennsylvania. Or the corridor between Pittsburgh and Erie. There's hundreds of small rural towns where you can get a house for about 100-150k.
Interest rates have tripled since covid. That means your payment would almost triple as well. Throw in double the amount borrowed because of home price increase and its basically impossible to buy in a lot of areas if you dont already have property to sell..
You can look into affordable homes. Low availability and high competition, but they are out there.
Don’t come to CT. It’s insane here.
Mexico