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<p>If an 80k house existing surprises you, you really need to get out of your rich suburb more often. </p>
<p>To the OP: just to echo everyone, YES it is that bad. You shouldn’t be taking out nearly that much, nor should anyone be cosigning loans for you that high.</p>
<p>I honestly didn’t know you could buy a house for only $80,000 dollars either. Location, location, location.</p>
<p>My dad refused to let me take out loans, even though he knew it would be a financial struggle for them and me for me to go to school (I got good FA, but it was half loans, so not as much as we would have liked). Still, I’m incredibly grateful that I don’t have to take on that debt. Grad school, unfortunately, will probably be a different story.</p>
<p>Go to [Student</a> Loan Calculator](<a href=“http://apps.collegeboard.com/fincalc/sla.jsp]Student”>http://apps.collegeboard.com/fincalc/sla.jsp) and plug in some numbers. IMHO it is nuts to take out $80K in loans. On that web page I plugged in a few numbers and came up with a monthly payment of about $900. Starting salaries for college grads average about $50K these days. Go to [Paycheck</a> Calculator](<a href=“http://www.paycheckcity.com/NetPayCalc/netpaycalculator.asp]Paycheck”>http://www.paycheckcity.com/NetPayCalc/netpaycalculator.asp) and you’ll see that take-home pay at that salary is about $750/week if you live in a state with no income tax. </p>
<p>You’ll be paying 1/3 of your take-home income for your student loan! And forget about making any investments in your future up front such as taking a lower-paying or volunteer position to get a leg up, or entering a career that doesn’t pay that much.</p>
<p>You can easily purchase a house for $80,000 in several parts of the country. It will be small and outdated, and most likely not in the best area, but it’s very common. A good friend of mine bought a house while in college for $65,000 and lived in it for 5 years, then sold it for about $75,000.</p>
<p>You could also purchase several acres of land for $80,000. It’s not uncommon to find land for about $1,000/per acre or less in many parts of the country. </p>
<p>For $80,000 you could purchase 80 acres of land (or much more), have it cut and sold for timber and actually make money in some parts. You could also sell the mineral rights and lease it to utility companies.</p>
<p>My friend just bought a really nice, but small, house for 30k. Three bedrooms, one bath, giant lot, new appliances, and a wrap around porch. I really like it, and I am a big sissy in terms of crime and I’d still live there. You’d be surprised what you can find in this market.</p>
<p>The problem is that as a college student, I know how hard it is to imagine what money means. That’s why I am not paying for college at my state U instead of paying $50,000 per year at a top 15 school that I could have gone to. Think about it this way: $80,000 buys you a house in a rural area, a new Porsche, or twice the median family income in the USA. Also, that debt is unsecured (no collateral) and comes at a time in your life when you will want to buy a house, start a family, etc…</p>
<p>If you want to get a good education, look into graduate school. PhD programs are for free (they usually pay a stipend) and even an average school doctorate distinguishes you from the crowd more than getting a Bachelor’s from an expensive school. If you want to go to medical school or law school, you should also consider not getting college debt.</p>
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<p>Depends on where you live. My neighborhood isn’t really wealthy, yet housing prices peaked at $900k-1M a few years ago (around $200 per square foot apparently). Even the “worst” neighborhoods in the city have houses starting well into 6 digits.</p>
<p>And what makes you think people who can afford that aren’t wealthy?</p>
<p>Yeah, you can get a house for 80k, but not in big cities that have a lot of job opportunities. Mostly in Rural, southern and other low cost of living areas.</p>
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<p>The gap in COL changes what it means to be wealthy. The money effectively isn’t worth as much. (Also, most people in the neighborhood moved in at a fraction of the peak cost)</p>
<p>Otherwise you’d have to say that almost every homeowner in Los Angeles is wealthy, and that certainly is not the case.</p>
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<p>I fundamentally disagree. The non-wealthy don’t get to choose to live in places with high COL. That is a privilege of being wealthy. The rest of us do not have that option.</p>
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<p>The rest of us also don’t have the option of moving out into rural communities and finding a decent job.</p>
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<p>Plenty of non-wealthy people live in places with high COL.</p>
<p>Otherwise you’d have to say that almost every homeowner in Los Angeles is wealthy, and that most certainly is not the case.</p>
<p>TCBH, it wasn’t that there were no houses around him for $80k, it was the fact that he seemed surprise that they even existed that bothered me. That is what I was commenting on.</p>
<p>Frankly, it’s hard for me to imagine what an $80k house would be like, though I’m sure in certain areas you could get a very nice house for not a whole lot more than that. If I didn’t have family in other parts of the country and I didn’t have a passing interest in housing markets I don’t know how I would be aware of their existence.</p>
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<p>And you think they do?</p>
<p>I hate to have to tell this story AGAIN, but I was offered my dream job in washington DC and DID NOT HAVE THE OPTION OF TAKING IT because I couldn’t afford to live where I needed to go to take the job. People who cannot afford to live in those areas don’t even have access to those job markets unless they are high income-- ie are not lower or middle class.</p>
<p>^ Well, millions of federal government workers live in the DC area, and very few of them are upper class.</p>
<p>@TCBH- I kind of thought it would be common sense, unless you live in a bubble. Surely you know that there is a rather large lower-middle / lower class that needs to live somewhere. Not all of them live in apartments, duplexes, or trailer parks so logically they would need cheap housing. I guess common sense isn’t always so common? Meh.</p>
<p>My brother-in-law just bought a two bedroom cottage along Lake Erie…deck, lake view, standard lot, kitchen, laundry room, full bath, living room, and sun room for $95,000. Set in a beautiful area, scenic and peaceful.</p>
<p>It’s a bit dated, but pretty nice place to have for boating, fishing and other recreation.</p>
<p>The person he bought it from lived there year-round for the last 11 years.</p>