America's Last True Bargains

[dim635csi]

Мне показалось интересным. Оригинал - тут.

October 23, 2005
National Perspectives
America's Last True Bargains
By PATRICK O'GILFOIL HEALY
HERE are the stories of four towns the housing boom forgot.

Their house prices have sat still or crept up slowly while values across the country raced past them at gold-rush pace.

For some people, these cheap markets represent the last true bargains in America. Bit by bit, families are relocating from expensive towns to affordable ones, drawn by the good housing stock and low home costs.

To understand the lure of these overlooked markets, it helps to begin with the median price of an existing home nationally- $220,000 - and see what it buys in these four locations. Go west, to Billings, Mont., and you can buy that median house and still have $80,000 left over. Head south, to Spartanburg, S.C., for an even better deal - housing prices there are about half the national median. In upstate New York, the cheapest market in the Northeast, $220,000 will get you two houses in Binghamton and leave $40,000 to furnish them. In Youngstown, Ohio, you could buy almost three houses.

"It's nothing compared to the rest of the country - nothing," said Billie Briggs, a real estate agent in Binghamton, N.Y. "We're still very affordable. I have schoolteachers who are looking to buy houses in the $70,000 to $85,000 range. A lot of times, people can buy mansions."

As with any cheap investment, homeowners in these areas risk buying a seed that will never sprout. Houses are inexpensive for a reason. Often, local economies are depressed, the population is aging and shrinking, and the cities are far from cultural and economic hubs. Families who have moved to these towns for their affordability say it has been painful to leave behind family and friends, yank their children from school and move to places that are physically remote and culturally foreign. Some have contemplated moving back.

But day by day other transplants said they are making their decisions work.

Binghamton, N.Y.

Median price: $93,000

Even though home prices in Binghamton have grown 10 percent since 2002, the city remains one of the cheapest metropolitan housing markets in the Northeast, according to the latest quarterly index by the National Association of Realtors.

Like Rochester, Buffalo and other struggling upstate cities, Binghamton saw its housing prices stagnate as the local economy shed nearly half its manufacturing jobs over the last 15 years. That trend may be starting to turn around, however. In the last few years unemployment levels have dropped and now stand at 4.7 percent, and real estate agents say housing prices are showing some bounce.

Jim and Loretta Beals, a retired couple living on Long Island, are now trying to buy a ranch house in Binghamton before the prices bounce too high. After living in various parts of New York, they had retired to Long Island to be close to their children, but Mrs. Beals said she and her husband are weary of living in a two-room apartment attached to their children's home in Lindenhurst.

"Sometimes you just want a little more room," said Mrs. Beals, who worked for the state Department of Motor Vehicles and Department of Correctional Services before retiring. "We couldn't afford to buy a home on Long Island, and the apartments are very expensive to rent," she said.

The couple began looking along Interstate 81 and near the Pennsylvania border. The commuter suburbs of New York City were too expensive, and Syracuse was nice, but too far away. Towns of 2,000 and 3,000 people were simply too quiet, Mrs. Beals said. Binghamton was affordable, and a four-hour drive from Long Island - just close enough.

Meanwhile, two newlyweds, Rita and Scott Morgan, are reaping the economic benefits of buying in Vestal, in the Binghamton area, where Mr. Morgan got a job at the State University of New York. Ms. Morgan sold her three-bedroom town house in Wappingers Falls in Dutchess County for $215,000 and bought a larger home upstate for $160,000. It is a 1936 Cape Cod that sits on a half acre, and Ms. Morgan said she plans to put $20,000 into renovations. The rest of the profits will go toward the couple's savings and big-ticket purchases like furniture and a riding lawn mower.

"It's all-around much nicer," Ms. Morgan said. "We're on a dead-end street in a beautiful section. We did very well."

Billings, Mont.

Median price: $142,500

After the online economy burst in 2001, Kim Backstrom found herself out of work and unable to afford her condominium in the San Francisco Bay area. She scraped for 18 months doing freelance graphic design work, but she ultimately put her condo on the market and began looking for a cheaper place to live.

"I'd done some research in the Internet and found out that I could make a good living and afford a good lifestyle" in Montana, Ms. Backstrom said. "It was kind of a crazy whim."

She wanted rocks, views and a dry climate, but not the unyielding heat of the Arizona deserts. She also wanted to buy a home that didn't require a large mortgage. Missoula was too expensive and other towns were too remote, so Ms. Backstrom bought in Billings, which the real estate firm Coldwell Banker this year named the cheapest market in Montana.

She had sold her 1,300-square-foot condo in San Francisco for $325,000, and started looking for comparable condos in Montana until her real estate agent stopped her and described the buying power of $325,000 in Billings. Ultimately, she found an 80-year-old house downtown that covered 2,600 square feet and sat on half an acre. It cost her $140,000.

Ms. Backstrom found a job designing advertisements for The Billings Gazette and hikes through the hills on weekends, but she said she sometimes feels unmoored, isolated from her old social and cultural nexuses. In San Francisco, culture seemed to drive to her doorstep. In Montana, she said, she has to prospect for it.

"It was definitely an adjustment," she said. "I questioned, What am I doing here? I should have given poverty a try in California. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad. I'm missing out on the sense of class and glamour. I feel like that's absent."

Spartanburg, S.C.

Median price: $118,700

Spartanburg used to be called Textile Town before the factories were shuttered and a new BMW plant became the city's main hope for economic health. The National Association of Realtors calls it one of the cheapest markets in the South, where the median home price has ticked up a mere 3 percent since 2002.

It was those housing prices and the possibility of work at that BMW factory that lured Shirley and John Coleman to South Carolina from North Brunswick, N.J.

The couple, in sight of retirement, recently began considering how old age would affect their financial health and living standards. Could they pay their $7,000 annual property tax bills with pensions and Social Security? Were they happy with their social network?

Then Mr. Coleman lost his job with Electrolux and Ms. Coleman, 53, had to quit her job in December for medical reasons. Suddenly, economic circumstance had decided. They would sell the house and move south, where land was cheaper and where their family once lived.

"It's just so hard now," Ms. Coleman said. "The mortgage, the insurance, the car insurance and the taxes were just outrageous. We had to change our ways. We couldn't go out like we used to. Things just got really tight."

They began driving south. Virginia wasn't far enough for Mr. Coleman, so the couple visited North Carolina and looked at some "really nice houses" in Raleigh and Durham. Nothing captured their attention, so they continued on, landing in Spartanburg.

They pounced on a foreclosure deal, paying $85,000 for a four-bedroom house with a large kitchen and a $600 annual property tax bill. The Colemans sold their house in New Jersey for $260,000, enough to pay for a roof and a kitchen floor in their new house, with plenty left over.

"We don't have the big bills," Ms. Coleman said. "It'll be a different environment. We're ready for that, too - ready to slow down."

Youngstown, Ohio

Median price: $82,900

Youngstown was an escape hatch for the Kaplin family.

Three years ago, Ken Kaplin lost his job developing stealth technology, but he and his wife, Sherri, decided to stick it out at their home in New Haven. The Kaplins' children were in school and the family had a well-formed social network through their Orthodox Jewish synagogue.

But three years passed with no job prospects for Mr. Kaplin, and the pressure of caring for children and aging parents forced Ms. Kaplin to give up her job as a certified nurse's assistant. With each month and each mortgage payment, the family carved itself more debt. They decided they had to sell the house, buy in a cheaper market and use the equity to pay their bills and survive until Mr. Kaplin found work.

Mr. Kaplin began cross-checking cities with affordable housing against cities with Orthodox synagogues, quickly narrowing his search to Ohio. They discovered Youngstown, a struggling Rust Belt city whose economy is propped up by an aluminum factory. Home prices have dropped nearly 3 percent since last year, according to the National Association of Realtors.

They needed a house within walking distance of a synagogue, one that would be big enough for Mr. and Ms. Kaplin and their two daughters, and the husband and wife's two aging mothers. And they needed the house to cost less than $200,000.

In August, they bought a 2,800-square-foot colonial for $169,000. Previously owned by a doctor, it is just outside Youngstown, in Liberty Township, and has six bedrooms and a finished basement, Mr. Kaplin said.

The Kaplins' 6-year-old daughter took the move in stride, but they had problems placing their 15-year-old daughter in the right classes at school. She fell behind in her classes and has struggled to adjust to a new state where she knows no one, but has been making progress.

Mr. Kaplin is looking for work in any field he can, as a truck driver, teacher or banker. The New Haven house remains a millstone.

The Kaplins gambled, buying in Ohio before selling their ranch-style home, on the market for $320,000. Once they close that deal, they said, they'll at last be free.

[IL]

Комиссара там еше не было.

[Komissar]

был, был И со временем, я думаю, в rust belt'е тоже цены взлетят. Но не раньше, чем Мексика, Китай и Индия заселят оба побережья.