Damn....a nice sized 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment here in Upstate NY will run ya between 500 and 600. If you want a 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath townhouse, it will run ya around 800-900.

1 bedroom studios will run around 300, and 2 bedroom Lofts will go for about 900.

 

For a contrast if you were living out on the Washington coast in Aberdeen or Hoquiam (where I grew up) a 2br 1 bath apartment is somewhere around $450/month and you can buy a 4 bedroom 2 bath house for under $100k. That's 50 miles from where I live but that place SUCKS. I couldn't wait to get out of there.

If you're in around Seattle good luck finding any 2br+ house for under $400,000. My friend just bought a junker 3br in Everett a year ago or so for $375k. It's a POS. I wouldn't even live in it. He's going to have to jack up one whole side and redo the foundation because it has settled more than 6 inches on that side.

 

There was a guy from another forum that bought a house just outside seattle about 6 months ago. He paid somewhere in the low 200s and the house was something like a 3 bedroom 2 bath ranch with a 3 car garage w/workshop. And he showed us the view outside his dinning room window and it was just forest and mountains.
I want to live in a place like that.

 

I'm betting it was quite a ways outside Seattle. If you're 15 miles outside that's a 2 hour+ commute in some places.

 

Most of what I said was in a joking manor anyhow. You didn't miss anything important, lol. It's hard to find a good price on a "liveable" home here. Anythiny 200k and under around here is about 1/2 the apartment's size and usually very old and contains hardly any land.