• TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        Thanks. Yeah I figured this was a weird definition thing…

        Zillow defines a starter home as one in the lowest third of home values in a given region.

        To be sure, the typical starter home still costs far less than $1 million at just under $199,000, Zillow noted. Overall, the median home costs nearly $418,000, according to the National Association of Realtors.

        Again I am not doubting the point, but my personal definition of starter home would be basically “the cheapest livable home with minimal standards applied”. Given that I live in a metro area but have seen homes for $450-500K which are decent, reading $800K was a starter was surprising to me.

        • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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          6 days ago

          Is it a metro area with significant sprawl?

          Median list price in Massachusetts is $716,000 and most houses still go from listed to pending in around 8 days.

          • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            Yeah there’s some sprawl. It seems like it’s a competitive market. Haven’t been seriously looking and I know most homes go for more than listing price but the listing prices at least are sometimes much less than the cited $800K.

        • ramble81@lemmy.zip
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          6 days ago

          Yeah starter home should be based on median salary for the area, not the product itself. That just becomes inconvenient because then 95%+ of homes would fall out of that range and fuck the narrative even harder.

    • Noite_Etion@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      I live in Adelaide Australia, I have approval for a 800k loan and have been unable to buy anything. Every house always sells for 50-100k more than the asking price and it’s just stupid - and building new is even worse (just as expensive and the quality is terrible).

      Gonna look at some crack shacks next.