i'm so bummed out ....

[shireen]

My apartment complex (where i've been for 18 years) was bought by developers and is being converted to condos. For those of you familiar with the Towson area, that's the Rodgers Forge apartments. (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.condo16jan16,0,5956851.story)

Not only am I mad about housing affordability madness, I am terrified by the unaffordable real estate market! I'm also single, minority, and female with a history of medical problems which puts me at a bigger disadvantage.

WTF is going on with home prices? I don't understand how regular working class people like me can afford to own these homes! There is something terribly wrong when the townhouse a block from my apartment is going for $400,000. That's insane!

All I want is a nice little home with a large yard for gardening in a semi-rural or rural setting about 45m from my Baltimore workplace. My little American Dream. Duh! Now I remember ... Bunny Pants and crooks are destroying that dream for the middle-class.

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[marmar]

1. There is not going to be a "middle class" in the very near future...

Remember the feudal lord system you learned about in history classes? It's coming soon.

[Sammy Pepys]

2. Yup, I'm in the DC area.

There a lot of money around here and a lot of people that want houses, that's why housing is so expensive.

I thought you guys had it better up in the Baltimore area by comparison!

[Imalittleteapot]

3. Towson. My home town!

I know the Rodgers Forge apartments.

My friend had your dream also -- small affordable home, large yard, semi-rural. She looked and looked without any luck. She ended up downtown, close to Camden Yards in a decent size town home (row house) with a small yard...but it was affordable. Her street probably isn't "hot" yet. She too is single with medical problems.

Good luck.

Same thing is happening in my city. It's pathetic.

[Warpy]

4. My first place in NM was a trailer in a trailer park

It had a place to park, a cement patio to sit on, and just enough land to put in a veggie garden. My neighbors were great and manufactured housing is well thought out, with a place for everything. I loved that little trailer and only moved when interest rates came down because I wanted to be inner city, not edge of town. I, too, have health issues and convenience is important. My little house is a dump in a neighborhood with a bad reputation, but once again I have good neighbors. I still miss the trailer. They didn't plan anything in 1952 (when my place was built) but a series of boxes.

The trailer park has had a developer express interest and tried to pay its residents $1000 per trailer to move to other locations. The residents discovered that it costs much more than that to move a trailer in NM and refused. Now the park people have served 3 month eviction notices on them and upped the space rent to $1000/month, pretty much ensuring none of them will be able to afford to move. Some people will simply have to walk away and move into apartments, a real step down.

In the meantime, the housing market in that city is flat because developers have overbuilt. The main people snapping up all the new construction now are speculators, mostly from Califonia. So over a thousand people are going to be uprooted and socked with a massive expense just so some fatcat developer can make a buck satisfying California yuppies looking for a place to put their extra money, into houses no one will live in. I can't imagine the kind of rage those folks are feeling.

I symapthise with what you're going through, it's one of the reasons I abandoned Boston for NM. The best I could have done in Boston was a condo, the worst parts of apartment living combined with the worst parts of home ownership.

However, I'd advise you to sit tight for the time being. The hyperinflated markets like the east coast urban corridor are overdue for a correction. Keep socking your money away and watch as those foreclosure signs sprout like mushrooms on the manicured lawns.

[LiberalEsto]

5. I'm near Rockville MD

I hear what you say about the insane house prices.
There is no way on earth we could afford to buy our house today. We moved to this house in 1998 from another house in Gaithersburg. The price has gone up beyond anything I could have imagined, and the taxes are rising steadily.
I don't know who is buying these houses at these ridiculous prices. Where do they get the money from? They certainly can't be average working Americans.
And I don't know how my kids - age 19 and 22 - will be able to move out. They will probably never be able to own houses.
Good luck to you in your search.

[freestyle]

6. Come into the city. Really. Not rural, but plenty of gardens.

There are still some pleasant and fairly affordable neighborhoods in northeast and northwest Baltimore. Check out the city. We can't offer semi-rural, but we can offer large yards with room for gardening. Also, the medical facilities can't be beat.