Ezra has a link to a story about high housing costs. Havng recently been home to another coastal state with insanely spiraling real estate values, I can identify with the sentiment.
As the attentive reader may have noticed, Bloodless Coup is in West Virginia. One of the many charms of this state is the affordability of property. However, the downside to this is that if one invests in a home here, one is investing in a losing proposition if one ever plans to move. That is, it's great to be able to buy a three bedroom house for a hundred grand, but if you want to move to coastal Carolina, you'd better be trading up big time in terms of salary, because you're accumulating equity in a Pinto rather than a Ferrari.
I went home over the holidays, and talked with my family about how scarce real estate had become, and how formerly "normal" (read: lower middle class) houses in the neighborhood now had Porsches parked out front because they were worth scads more than before. It really hit me that I could never move back home without inheriting property. Even then, I might not make enough to afford the property taxes and electric bills.
And I was lying about West Virginia. It sucks. It's ugly, expensive, and full of horrible people. Really. Stay away.
Posted by binky at December 29, 2005 06:26 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Economics