How to begin without getting discouraged

Chad · #61 07/30/14, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ArmyDoc

Former Californian here. How much equity is in you land? How tied to your area are you in terms of job prospects?

I ask all this because the quickest way to lower your cost of living is to move to where the cost of living is lower... I loved California, but I could never own the house and land I do here in GA, if I were living in California.

Not trying to be discouraging. The opposite actually. Land here is 1500-2500 for uncleared and 4000-10,000/ acre depending on amount purchased, and this is near a large town. Lower costs can be found if you move further out. Something to think about.

We have a good amount of equity in our home and land, we bought at the absolute bottom of the market and got the place on the cheap (relatively speaking). However as both my wife and I said, we are very tied to this area. Besides, I have lived all over this country. I've lived in Washington state, Illinois, South East Texas, and Nevada and I always end up fighting my way back here. Here is home, here is where my roots are and here is where I choose to be. If you lived here you know what California has to offer both good and bad. In my eyes the good far outweighs the bad.

Furthermore, I have done the math and you're right to some extent. You can get more land cheaper in other parts of the country however there is no way for me to make the kind of money I do, in my profession elsewhere in the country. My wife will not be able to make the kind of money elsewhere that teachers make here. So yes, things cost more but we also make more. Also, the land value is not going to go up elsewhere like it does here in California. So in many ways we are just talking about bigger numbers not any more actual savings. In other words our money funnel is just larger than that of people in our situation in other parts of the country. At the end of the day we end up in the same place financially speaking. Having said that, if we had a fixed income or something along those lines then yes, of course I totally agree with you, we would be looking in other parts of the country for sure. I guess that is my long winded way of answering your question about how tied to this area we are, in short, VERY.

Besides, it's not the amount of land that my wife and I are worried about it is just having the time to get the most out of it.