Elfert was right, what a royal pain this has been. Although SWMBO and I have discussed moving to a new place in passing many times over the last few years, I suddenly got a burr up my butt a couple of weeks ago. So we looked on Zillow, did a little market research, and took a long drive to see what was out there. Scary!
Frankly, we need more space... we're at something like 2,200 square feet right now (75% of which is finished), give or take, in an early-70's house. I want a bigger workshop, we'd both like a separate home office, and the munchkin could use a bigger bedroom. The munchkin is going into middle school this year, and while the local elementary and high schools are highly rated, the middle school is, well, in the middle. So, off to looking we went.
I expected to find something with more space and in a nice neighborhood for the $500-600k range. LOL! No. Okay, what about bumping it up a bit to $600-700k. Not really. The houses are nicer (but used... generally 15-20 years old, or more), but the square footage is about the same. After all is said and done, we're looking at houses starting in the $850k range (BASE!), which essentially jumps to a cool $1mil when you add in the large lot fees (1 acre) and "upgrades" (i.e., stuff you should get anyway at those prices). These things are huge, with 4,500+ square feet of finished space, huge unfinished basements, etc.
Honestly, I'm not a happy camper. What bugs me the most? There's little to no middle ground. You either get something that's a bit newer for twice the price, but nothing else, or you swing the pendulum the other way and get way more than you want for three times the price. Honestly, I would drop 1,000 square feet in a heartbeat for $200k off of the price. I think I'd drop 2,000 square feet for $400k off if it still came with the basement! I don't need that much "living" space.
Sadly, I have a feeling the $1mil direction is where we will end up heading... not sure how I feel about this