I just got off the phone with a first time buyer. Thinks he has to be in expensive area X, where his budget will get him a junker, but I could take him a ten minute drive away to area Y where he could buy a great starter home. But no, that area isn’t cool enough. And rates of appreciation in both areas are basically the same.

The real estate trilemma: affordable, high quality of life, near good jobs; pick no more than two. (Or have the government mandate that it's all three, somehow.)

Does the school district have something to do with it?