I bought my house about 4 years ago for 162K, and am about 45 minutes from a major Midwestern city (Chicago). Plenty of shopping and entertainment, high speed internet, recreation all within reach. Tech salaries are around 6-figure for many jobs (systems engineer), higher for developers. Oh, and if I felt like doing handy-man work, I could have gotten a house for 90K (would be livable, but require renovation to make it "good").