Are home prices really that cheap in TX?

[NewJersey]

Hi all!

I'm looking at new construction now since this time next year I'll have enough saved up to move out and buy my first house ( ). for me, I do lots of research before purchases, especially a house. I've been looking in my area now (NY metro), the Philly metro, and DC metro. Here in New Jersey, I'll be lucky if I find a condo or small townhouse for $275,000. Just outside NYC in Hoboken or Jersey City, is about double the price. South Jersey outside Philly seems to be cheapest. I can get a nice townhouse for 225,000. I really love DC and the northern VA and MD area around DC but prices there are just as much.

So I decided for the heck of it I'd look in TX (I could never move there..no offense! ) and prices are in the $100s for a single family house. Up here, it's about 500,000 for that. Even the Atlanta, the prices are a bit cheaper than here.

I guess I just can't believe the huge difference in the housing market prices between the Northeast and South. Geesh!

I'm still holding out hope of finding a nice newly built townhouse for 275,000 here in NJ or the DC metro area.

I've looked at Centex, Khov, Tollbrothers, and Karahomes. Any others people know of either here in NJ, or down in the DC area?

 

[gradtchr]

275,000 where I am at would get you a really nice house and usually with a little bit of land.

 

[HayGan]

NY/NJ prices are EXTREMELY high compared to many other parts of the nation! Here in SW PA you can get a very nice 4 bed/ 2 bath new cosntruction home for $275k or even less!

And yes, house in Texas are that cheap thanks to cheaper labor, lower land costs and plenty of available land (all things which the NY/NJ area does not have!!!)

 

[NewJersey]

275,000 where I am at would get you a really nice house and usually with a little bit of land.

That's amazing!

 

[Paging Tom Morrow]

275,000 where I am at would get you a really nice house and usually with a little bit of land.

Where I live, it would get you a one bedroom bungalo in the middle of a highway with a sanitation facility on one side and a cemetary on the other.

I wish I were kidding...

 

[barkley]

here 275,000 might get you a.....um......now that i think about it i don't think there is anything on the mls below $350,000.

texas must be cheap-but give all the californians moving there a chance, they'll drive up the property prices (we've had droves of neighbors move there over the past few years).

 

[RadioNate]

what's funny is that nearly all the people I know who have moved here are from CA and they all own outragious houses.

We moved here from TN, our house is 2800 in a upscale neighborhood (guard/gate/pool/rec area) and about 225k. We don't have any real land though.

Prices here are climbing though. We are thinking about selling but we'd have to stay in the same school boundry because of capping and I don't think we could afford the house that we want.

KB is a pretty low quality builder here as is Centex and they both offer 3-4 bedroom homes in average neighborhoods for under 200k.

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

I am a licensed real estate agent and am currently selling Perry Homes (one of Texas' largest builders).

Prices are good here in Texas and we get a lot of out-of-state buyers moving here for that exact same reason.

Example: Right now we have a 4000sqft house, a block from a major lake, loaded to the gills for under $315k.

Not bad!

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

Double post - sorry!

 

[KT27]

I just moved from Long Island to Texas. On LI you could not touch a fixer upper for less than 350k. I bought a 2 bedroom condo last year for mid 200's. It's currently in contract fpor over 300k. We are building a duplex in Texas (husband is stationed in Ft Hood) for $144k 3 bedrooms on each side, 2 bathrooms on each side, 2 garages etc etc. The taxes are a bit lower.

 

[tinkamom]

Where I live, it would get you a one bedroom bungalo in the middle of a highway with a sanitation facility on one side and a cemetary on the other.

I wish I were kidding...

You can't even get that! I think you need to add $100,000 to the purchase price!

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I just moved here from Missouri and Texas homes are not cheap compared to there. In Missouri you can have a yard and a nice house for half of the cost here in Texas.

It is all relative and location is always a factor.

 

[AuntieM03]

Hopefully the prices will stay lower for a couple of more years. I would like to move, but not until at least 2008. Yet another Californian, although when I was looking into North Carolina it seemed that all Californians were moving there.

 

[NewJersey]

I hope that maybe everyone will move out of NJ, drive prices up elsewhere and I can buy a new house cheap here! I guess I can keep dreaming.

 

[carone0318]

Hi all!

I'm looking at new construction now since this time next year I'll have enough saved up to move out and buy my first house ( ). for me, I do lots of research before purchases, especially a house. I've been looking in my area now (NY metro), the Philly metro, and DC metro. Here in New Jersey, I'll be lucky if I find a condo or small townhouse for $275,000. Just outside NYC in Hoboken or Jersey City, is about double the price. South Jersey outside Philly seems to be cheapest. I can get a nice townhouse for 225,000. I really love DC and the northern VA and MD area around DC but prices there are just as much.

So I decided for the heck of it I'd look in TX (I could never move there..no offense! ) and prices are in the $100s for a single family house. Up here, it's about 500,000 for that. Even the Atlanta, the prices are a bit cheaper than here.

I guess I just can't believe the huge difference in the housing market prices between the Northeast and South. Geesh!

I'm still holding out hope of finding a nice newly built townhouse for 275,000 here in NJ or the DC metro area.

I've looked at Centex, Khov, Tollbrothers, and Karahomes. Any others people know of either here in NJ, or down in the DC area?

I live in the suburbs of Philly in South Jersey, Burlington Cty. My home builder was Beazer. I have found their quality to be pretty good.

One thing to think of is the county you decide to live in. Burlington county is cheaper than Camden or Mercer County because we don't have to fund a welfare system of a large city (Camden or Trenton). Burlington county is very accessible to the Princeton Rte 1 corridor and to Philadelphia via the high speed line. I work in Pennsauken and my ride is a very do-able 25 minutes and I live 20 miles from my work. Granted I don't work the typical rush hours times, but you'd be surprised how many are on the road between 6:30-7am and at 3pm in the afternoon.

$275k you will have to look, nothing is going to jump out at you, but you can find something. Condos & townhouses - there are tons in the Marlton, Mt Laurel and Cherry Hill area.

Good luck!

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Hopefully the prices will stay lower for a couple of more years. I would like to move, but not until at least 2008. Yet another Californian, although when I was looking into North Carolina it seemed that all Californians were moving there.

People are moving to Texas is droves from everywhere...like we did.
It is driving up the housing here, not outrageous yet. My neighborhood is teetering at not being affordable....it is sitting at 325,000 and up to 600,000+ range.

I have 2 from California and 2 from NY on my street.

 

[WendyDarling]

I'm in a suburb slightly east of Dallas and I paid $137,000 for my 3/2/2 1715 sq ft home on a regular sized lot but with a big back yard a couple of years ago. The house was brand new and loaded with extras. Compared to other huge homes people are building around here it may seem small but it works for me. And compared to some threads I've read on the CB of home prices all around, I am happy with what I paid for mine!!!

 

[Kycha]

You don't need to go as far as Texas to find affordably priced homes. If you stay away from the major metro areas(NY, Philly, DC) you can find some affordable homes in the Northeast. I live in Lancaster, PA and you can find nice single family homes from 145,000 and up. I own a 3br,2ba 20 year old home with 1800 sq and 1/3 acre valued at 170,000.

We are 60 miles from Philadelphia, 130 miles from New York City, 54 miles from Baltimore, and 87 miles from D.C. No more than a 2 hour drive from quite a few major metropolitan areas.

 

[brerrabbit]

There are countless studies that have looked a prices across the country and compared them to everything under the sun. The one I found most interesting was a study that looked at income in a particular arear vs house prices. The result was a ranking by percentage of variuos markets. What it means is based on how much money people make in a given area, how much real estate value can that market support. If the level of income times a certain percentage figure (what ever the experts say you housing cost should be I think like 36% ?) is equal to the value of the real estate in aggregate in an area then the factor would be 0%. If houses exceed the income level then the percentage would be positive. If the reverse is true then the percentage is negative. On the study I saw the largest negatives in the nation are all in Texas. College Station (home of Texas A&M) was number 1 followed by Austin, San Antonio and Houston. The largest positives were all in California and the Northeast. About the only thing it really means is Texas has a lot of room for value appriciation.

A couple of major factors that make housing cheap here are the abundance of open land adjacent to our cities and in many areas a lack of zoning restrictions. Within neighborhoods there are deed restrictions meant to keep property value up but no zoning. So you can have a very nice neighborhood but on an adjacent piece of land they could build a dumo if they wanted to. Houston is becoming so sprawling that a trip from the northern outskirts of commuter communities to the southern end could take 120 miles and three hours. Other than the Gulf of Mexico which is an hour southeast of Houston we have no barriers to growth. This means developers just continue to go farther and farther from downtown and build more neighborhoods.

I live in a 3,000 square foot home on a lot that is over 11,000 square feet, with a four car garage, and a pool, which we purchased in 1994 for $137k. I could buy the same house in my neighborhood today for about $180k. I am only 19 miles from downtown Houston where I work. To live "inside the loop" will cost you considerably more. A house comparable to mine in an area called West University would probably sell for $700k to $800k. There are still many areas where young couples can buy starter homes for under $150k.

 

[NewJersey]

I live in the suburbs of Philly in South Jersey, Burlington Cty. My home builder was Beazer. I have found their quality to be pretty good.

One thing to think of is the county you decide to live in. Burlington county is cheaper than Camden or Mercer County because we don't have to fund a welfare system of a large city (Camden or Trenton). Burlington county is very accessible to the Princeton Rte 1 corridor and to Philadelphia via the high speed line. I work in Pennsauken and my ride is a very do-able 25 minutes and I live 20 miles from my work. Granted I don't work the typical rush hours times, but you'd be surprised how many are on the road between 6:30-7am and at 3pm in the afternoon.

$275k you will have to look, nothing is going to jump out at you, but you can find something. Condos & townhouses - there are tons in the Marlton, Mt Laurel and Cherry Hill area.

Good luck!

Thanks! My sister moved to Burlington County a few years ago and love it. She got a really nice townhouse for 130,000. I just went to beazer.com and found 2 sites coming soon so I put my email in for information about it. Thanks for the tips and the referral to the builder!

kycha,

I'd love to be able to move away from the major metro areas, but my job has me stay near the big cities.