Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by floxy | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

floxy

Take your down-payment, use it to buy a house free-and-clear with it somewhere less expensive, then work remotely?

$199,900, 3,594 sq. ft. -- https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/110-E-1st-Ave-Flandreau-S...

$149,000, 2250 sq. ft. with an outdoor pool -- https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1643-Washington-Ave-Baxte...

$192,500, 3,017 sq. ft. -- https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/906-7th-Ave-S-Moorhead-MN...

$199,500, 2,799 sq. ft. -- https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/906-5th-Ave-NE-Devils-Lak...

$174,900, 2,449 sq. ft. -- https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/504-W-3rd-St-Washburn-WI-...

View on HN

I would be cautious moving to a "city" with a population lower than 5,000 (Flandreau SD, but home of Gene Amdahl, and Washburn WI); good repair people/contractors/restaurants will be much harder to find. And without Starlink, perhaps useless internet. But some of the other places you list seem to be much closer to modern, if not Seattle level, "civilization".

On the other hand, "free and clear" is free and clear.

If you want world class dining just hop in your Tesla down to the airport for a quick weekend excursion, who cares what it costs, you're swimming in money without a rent bill.

Rent is never zero -- you still have to pay property taxes, which looks a lot like rent.

We’re talking about an order of magnitude difference in cost. Property taxes on a $300k house would be in the range of $3k per year — less than a months rent of a 1bed apartment in an expensive city

Yes, less than rent. But you also can't get a $300K house in an expensive city. Apples and oranges.

It's all about what you value. Do you value living more financially sustainable or do you value being closer to entertainment, people your age, and outlook on life? Not saying either is right or wrong but it's a choice. My wife and I had this discussion earlier this year and we value sustainability and being close to family so we're moving back to the rural county I'm from.

Something that blew my mind when researching internet there was that 90% of the county has fiber to the door with 1GB speed. The entire county has a population less than 25k distributed pretty evenly throughout.

Nwa?

I'm sorry I'm unfamiliar with this abbreviation.

What are these locations like though? I’m not from the US so maybe I don’t know but the first two look pretty “middle of nowhere” places in states that might be less progressive (am I wrong?).

At 200k I’d prefer an apartment and trade size / space for location. Even with kids.

They're all frigid wastelands, every winter, except for the place in Kansas, which is about as middle-of-nowhere as you can get and still have neighbors. These houses are affordable because they are awful to live in. In Moorehead the average temperature is below freezing for five months out of the year.

These discussions tend to end up contrasting a handful of large cities with middle of nowhere. You can find plenty of places in maybe the $400K range and probably less than I think an hour of many major coastal cities.

Too expensive for what you get

200k is too much for a six bedroom house?

Yes - because then you have to live in North Dakota.

There is a reason these places are cheap. It is partly because it would mean living in North Dakota.

If that were true, houses in SF would be the cheapest in the nation.

But they are not, so what does that tell you?

Supply and demand don't lie :)

> what does that tell you?

Others are less sensitive to human waste then I am and will work 60 hour weeks to be around it.

That is a meme and not representative of the actual experience of living here.

To wit, it’s currently windy and -2° in Devils Lake ND. Pretty rough for someone used to the climate in Seattle or San Francisco.

That alone isn't enough data. In London it can get to -2. Depends how much -2 you are getting per year though!

The average daily low temperature from December - February is below 5°. The average daily low in January is below zero. It's a cold, barren place.

-2 Fahrenheit? Certainly not anytime recently[1]. Lowest recorded at Heathrow since 1948 was 8.2 °F.

I'm seeing claims that it got that low once back in 1795.

In North Dakota they get some days that cold practically every year[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_London

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_North_Dakota

For those on a tighter budget:

$70,000, 1,808 sq. ft. -- https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/909-E-12th-St-Parkersburg...

$77,00, 1,168 sq. ft. -- https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/921-W-5th-St-Elk-City-OK-...

$60,000, 2,216 sq. ft. -- https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/154-N-Cedar-St-Manistique...

Even worse. This means you'd have to live in West Virginia.

My fiancee is from West Virginia. She doesn't even come from the really rural part of it, but she basically has nothing good to say about living there. Poverty, drug abuse, environmental degradation. And seeing as half the people I've met from WV are basically lowlifes I'm inclined to agree.

You can get land pretty cheap there, though. I've thought about buying a forested plot before but ... nah. If I want to do that I can afford to do it in a more rural part of Ohio.

You can see the damage on google maps

You start to notice these little brown specks all over the state: https://www.google.com/maps/place/West+Virginia/@38.5978727,...

then you zoom in and see the mines: https://www.google.com/maps/place/West+Virginia/@37.9086459,...

I was born a stones throw away from WV on the Pennsylvania side. I grew up a stones throw away from WV on the Ohio side.

That entire geographical region is an economically depressed shithole (until you get up to Pittsburgh and Columbus and their suburban areas). WV may be ground zero (it's also not the only one, Kentucky has it's fair share of the same thing going on) but its contagion rots out from the center. If you're ever looking for land in rural Ohio or rural southwestern PA, I'd implore you to go spend some time on the ground in those communities first.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com