Sam Kenison used to do this routine about starving people in Africa. He was a screamer, if you remember him, and his solution to the problem of starvation was (and he would scream this out) - MOVE WHERE THE FOOD IS? You can't expect to have food if you live where it won't grow, like in the middle of the desert. I feel like screaming the same thing at people who pay upwards of a million bucks for a diddly/squat litte house in some overpriced market like L.A., or Boston. Are house buyers there nuts, or whut?
I watch the shows on television about house shoppers, and I saw one not long ago about a young couple trying to buy a house in a big city back east. Everything they looked at was old, needing lots of updating and repairs, and was at least a half million bucks. I live in a house in central Texas that's not old, isn't outdated, and is big, and for a third of what a piddling little house was going to cost these folks. And I'm wondering why they'd do that. I know their reasoning behind buying in a grossly overpriced market, but I think it's absolutely stupid. What it comes down it is just how bad you want to live in a particular area. If Boston is the only place I'll be satisfied, then it's bite the bullet time when it comes to housing. If I've just got to be in L.A., same deal. I just don't get that, but I'm not an urbanite, don't have a cityslicker's outlook on life, and I hate almost everything that comes from living around a lot of people.
Yeah, I know, that makes me different, but it also makes me lucky. I watch these shoppers who expect to pay upwards of a million bucks for a house like I live in wondering what they do for a living to be able to afford such an expense. A million bucks gets me a mansion almost anywhere in Texas. For a million bucks, I can live in Austin - in a house on a lovely lake, with anything anyone could want in a house. But I live in a small town two hours from there . . . in a big house that would cost at least $400,000 even in Austin. If I could pick my house up and move it to L.A. (in the right neighborhoos), we're talking well over a million bucks for it.
First off, you could in no way entice me to move to L.A., or to Boston, or to any other big city. I would live in Austin, but I can't afford the lifestyle there that I can afford here in the small town. If I want something the city has to offer, I get in a vehicle and drive to the city . . . and in a nice SUV I wouldn't be able to afford if I was shucking out big payments for a house. Second, even if I could afford the high dollar house in the city, I wouldn't buy it. "But my job is in the city. I don't have a choice about where I live," I'm told. "Yeah? But why did you take a job there? Why not take a job in a town where housing is affordable? Even if you make half as much in salary, you're better off financially to go smaller town and smaller market."
So, I'm going to shout it at you. If you want a nice house, MOVE WHERE THE HOUSES ARE AFFORDABLE! Cities are to housing what the desert is to food. But it's your life and your money, and you can live anywhere you want to. You can live there in that small, overpriced house . . . and I'll be here in central Texas living in my big, inexpensive house. If you're happy, I've got no problem with that. Besides, if all you cityslickers loved country living, or small town living, you'd come out here and screw up everything for us country bumpkins. I've got a feeling that wherever you go, the high prices are going to be close behind.
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