I am genuinely at a loss as to the answer to this. Houses in my neighborhood used to run in the low $100k range, but since 2020 things have gone batshit. A house around the corner went for about $350k, and one down the street that the owners built for about $250k a few years back just sold for almost half a million, and my own little hovel has just about doubled its purchase price as well.

I don’t mean to sell my neighborhood short, either – we like where we live, but like… the schools are terrible, the area across the street from us is a little sketchy, and just last week I had to call EMTs for a couple guys who were ODing in their car around the corner from me. If I bought the expensive place down the street, I would be splashing out something in the range of 60% of my take-home pay to live here, and I am well above the median income for the area.