[missy123]

I find it interesting how much people pay in rent/mortgage. I have lived in different states and for me Atlanta GA was the cheapest (big city) place I have lived.

For example: I currently live in a 3 bedroom place, approx 1500 square feet, full gym with indoor pool, door man, huge picnic area with grills and pay $1500 a month. I lived in a very similar place in Georgia and paid $850. When I lived in south Florida I paid $1600 a month for a small 2 bedroom place and in upstate NY I paid $650 for a 3 bedroom place which included heat! (not big city)

In the area you live what is the average rental/mortgage payment?

[ohnicole]

I'm not sure of the averages. We purposely chose to live outside the city to save some money, so we are living in a small town about 40 minutes from the city. Our total mortgage payment is $700 for a 2 bedroom house with a finished attic.

[.:Shortcake:.]

Mortgage $1500-1600
Rent $1100-1200

[ashj_1218]

Where we live, the rent prices are astronomical. The only thing I can figure is we live in a college town...close to the beach. So for a 3-BR apartment, you are gonna pay around $1300-$1500. For a one bedroom, you are still paying close to $900-$1000.

As for mortages, we are variable around here. But we live in a nice two-story, 3-BR, 2 bath, 2000 sq. foot house and pay $950 without property taxes (which would add around $70 monthly...so still a little over a thousand). It is much better to buy here. But lots of people can't afford it or don't want long-term commitments.

[Jessica121706]

Not sure of average I know we were looking for cheap so we can save for a house and the wedding we pretty much took the cheapest we could find in NOVA that was in a nice area

We have a 3 bed 2.5 bath townhome, the separate dining area for $900 plus all utilites.I know from looking at houses average cost is $200,000 and up. We are about an hour out of dc

[j&jmom]

We own two homes . . . one in the city which is about $1200 a month (5 bedroom 5000+ square feet including property tax & insurance) and one in a small town about 2 hours away which is about $300 a month (3 bedroom 1500 sq. ft.)

[sadie97007]

Wow j&jmom!! Where do you live? That is some affordable housing.

I'm a lucky one who lives in one of the hardest hit states. We own our home. It's 3 bedrooms + office, ~2000sf. The mortgage, including taxes and insurance, is about $1700/month. Our home would rent out for about $900-1000. We purchased our home in 2007 and we are now currently $120,000 underwater on the home. That kind of stat seems to be the trend all around me. *sigh* We have some big and scary decisions to make in the very near future about what to do.

[*SamF*]

We are fairly lucky here. I know there are a lot of properties that are super affordable.
When I first moved here I rented a two bedroom 1.5 bath two story townhouse for $400 a month.
Our current home is @3000 sg ft, 4 bedroom 3.5 bath and our mortgage payment is @$1200. It's only that high because we did some remodeling and put a second on it to do that.

[j&jmom]

Well we bought both houses at the perfect time! We live in MO. We bought our small house 7 years ago and prices have since gone up because of what's going on in the community around here so we are pretty excited about selling it within a year. The city where we bought our bigger home the housing market has remained pretty stagnant. We bought ours as a FSBO where the owner had already bought another house out of state and was anxious to sell simply because they were drowning in debt. They took a huge hit, to our gain! The house has been appraised well over what we paid.

[Toots216]

It is super-expensive where I live - our mortgage is absolutely ridiculous, ridiculous enough that I'm embarassed to put it on a public forum, but we do have a big, brand-new 4-bedroom house.

When I used to live upstate in PA (10-ish years ago...), I rented a 2 bedroom older townhouse for $315 a month. Boy I had it good back then!!!!!

[missy123]

I am thinking of moving to MO!

[onedaysoon]

Wow! Some crazy good and crazy bad prices out there.

We used to live on the island of Montreal (Quebec, Canada lol) where rent for a 2 bedroom is about lowest $750 up to crazy prices the closer to the city you get (I had a friend who lived downtown 4 years ago and paid $950 for a bachelor...no bedrooms and just a kitchenette!!).

We bought our 3 bedroom "townhouse" just off the island (on another little island called Ile Perrot) and our mortgage is $1100 (plus property and school taxes $2300 year) - full price of the house was $197 500.

[Shadeauxe]

Massachusetts is very expensive.

Our mortgage is about $2200/mo (3100 sqft) and property taxes are $800/mo.

[msshamis23]

We rent a three bedroom, two bathroom, full backyard, and two car garage for 795.00 a month, plus utilities.

It's actually one of the better deals around here.

[Erin84]

I don't know about mortgage, property tax, etc. San Diego is huge and varies wildly in price. We don't live in the rich part of town, but toward the end of our pregnancy with Drew, we moved into the apartment we're at now, which is much nicer than our previous two in San Diego.

We pay base rent of $1,600 a month for a 2br/2ba apartment that's just over 1,000sqft. We could have gotten a less expensive unit in this same complex, but we pay extra because we have a washer/dryer set-up on our balcony. And even though we hide the fact that we have dogs (because that would be an extra $100/mo), places that allow dogs tend to be more expensive for some reason, and we have to be somewhere that at least allows dogs so we can blend in.

[*SamF*]

Originally Posted by missy123

I am thinking of moving to MO!

We'd love to have you here.

[LindseyE117]

Well in Vegas the average price for an apartment was around $1200-$1500 for a 3 bedroom in a somewhat decent area. Nice areas were more. Houses right now because of the economy have dropped tremendously (I read a news article that lists Las Vegas as the worse hit in the world and an unemployment rate of almost 17%), so for a brand new 3-4 bedroom house around 2000 sq ft starts out around $170,000ish in a good area.

Now in Texas, prices are cheap. You get a lot of bang for your buck. Houses start out at $140,000 for 1300 sq ft near the cities. Our house is 2500 sq ft and in one of the best suburbs around Houston. We got it for more than that. But the tax rates are super ridiculous and the insurance rates are too. Taxes out here is 6.7% and you have to have wind/hail storm coverage because we get hurricanes. Our taxes and insurance combined is more than our mortgage by $100. Figure that one out.

[dreamer10]

We live in a suburb of Salt Lake and prices are still pretty high. When the bottom fell out of the housing market our area wasn't hit as hard as most so our home didnt lose much equity. The average home around where I live is 260,000 for a 5 bedroom house. It's pretty high still. We are looking to move south. Strangely enough it's cheaper to live in St George, which in Utah is almost considered a vacation spot.

Apartments? Pretty high too....1500 for a 3 bedroom....I think living here in the Salt Lake valley is a little more money than it's worth. Just my opinion though.

[LindseyE117]

I love Salt Lake. Beautiful area and wonderful people.

[Cait&AngelAbove]

We rent and live close to the beach. We pay $695 for a three bedroom, one car garage, 1000 sq ft. We used to rent downtown in a historic city and we paid $900 for a one bedroom apartment.