70 miles from the downtown of a major city is still generally considered part of that city’s metropolitan area and prices reflect that. Still though getting a 1br condo in LA for 150-300k is more reflective of what it actually costs to get an affordable place as a single person in that area. Yes you have condo fees, but maintain a house comes with serious costs as well.

That’s the thing, if it’s a trivial expense then who cares, but when there’s more affordable options it’s hard to imagine why stretching yourself buying a house at that price would be a good idea.

255k for a 1,952 square foot place in Harrisonburg, VA 22802 is far more representative of most of the US’s housing prices. It’s a modest 50k population university town 130 miles from DC so not in the middle of nowhere but still cheap. https://www.redfin.com/VA/Harrisonburg/1036-Meadowlark-Dr-22... Plenty of places listed for less than that or far more, but in general there’s still a lot of options under 300k.

>getting a 1br condo in LA for 150-300k is more reflective of what it actually costs to get an affordable place as a single person in that area.

A house is a multi decade investment. Why would I buy a single shack if I want to perhaps have a family one day? Especially in this market? I don't want to own a house for the sake of ownership.

And yes, like anything else in life, you have super cheap deals and super expensive. I was using a very rough median pricing. Especially since the lowest cost houses likely mean you need to do the most work on it. I'm not a carpenter nor a house flipper, so that's not of interest to me (and I imagine many other people in tech).

Median pricing downtown is 1m for 2 Bed/bath. I feel the cost going down to 40-50% for going beyond what is considered LA county (which is huge, but not a 70 mile radius) seems to make sense. I suppose you can keep looking northeast towards Death Valley and find something at 200-300k, but you're legitimately getting towards food desert[1] area at that point. The high desert area is already pretty rural as is, unless you are a true hermit (or a stargazer) I can't imagine going further out and making it a 20+ mile drive to any and everything.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert

That phrase only refers to the distance from you to a grocery store. So, no you don’t need to enter food desert territory when you buy a house in one of the many smaller CA cities/towns.

Anyway, buying a house can be an investment but living in a larger one than you need is wasting a productive asset. If you have a 4 bedroom house you can rent out for 4k/month then living in it is costing you 4k/month the same way renting a place for 4k would be. There’s nothing inherently wrong with buying an investment house, but you shouldn’t be out anywhere close to the full monthly cost.

[delayed]

> I don’t really consider an extra room a waste.

By waste I simply mean it’s consumptive. It’s obvious when you’re spending well above the norm on rent, but it doesn’t slap you in the face in the same way when buying a larger house.