this post was submitted on 04 May 2024
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I live in a Philadelphia suburb (in one of the state's top school districts) and just bought a modest two-bedroom house for $142K. While this represents almost six years of my current income as a school bus driver, I used to make $150K a year as a software developer so the house would have cost me less than one year's salary. As it is, I was able to buy it outright from my savings. TBF the house is 80+ years old and was in need of some repairs, and the average house price in this district is over $500K, and Philly is not Toronto or Los Angeles - but the house-buying situation is not completely hopeless everywhere as long as you're not expecting to live in a brand-new mcmansion.
142 k for a house in a philly suburb? How recently may I ask?
Just last summer.
A house not a condo? Was it a major fixer upper? Do you have a inside track with a realtor or someone?
Cause bucks and Mont Co aren't the best district, but a good one and their prices are 2 to 3 times higher right now. According to a quick and lazy web search the Radnor district is the best in the philly area. Me and the SO have NOT been watching homes in that area, but I know Radnor is a nice area and can't imagine the housing being a 3rd of the price as bucks/mont Co.
I am taking care not call you a liar, but that price seems very unusual (too low) for any area I can think you are talking about.
I appreciate that. :)
I did say "one of the best school districts" and it's in the same ballpark as Radnor, at least (but not Radnor). It is a full-on house, a semi-detached with a sizable yard in a weird neighborhood of smallish houses that were built during WWII to house workers at the Navy Yard in Philly (the neighborhood is known as "Garden City" in Wallingford). These houses were never intended to last 80+ years but they're still better-built than today's pieces of shit. The house was not a complete gut-and-rebuild project but it wasn't move-in ready, either (although the seller thought it was despite collapsing ceilings, a 25 yo water heater, and not a single door that closed properly - including the front door). It was a private sale brokered by a coworker of mine who knew the seller, but the price was in line with recent sales of other houses in this little neighborhood. In fact, given what I've spent so far on the renovations (and not counting my sweat equity at all, having done all the work myself) I think I overpaid a bit.
I'm careful to avoid being the kind of moron who says "I bought a cheap house so I think the housing market crisis is a complete fiction", but I do think in general that having the willingness (and the skills) to fix up a less-than-perfect house can mitigate the problem somewhat. Just not in LA or Toronto.
I gotcha. I still think you did very well. I can see that yea, no one factor shaved 150k off the price. Sagging (you called em collapsing) ceilings does want to make me assume you are already a contractor or super handyperson type.
More importantly, this thing you said,
in a weird neighborhood of smallish houses that were built during WWII to house workers at the Navy Yard in Philly (the neighborhood is known as "Garden City" in Wallingford).
Philly has a lotta neighborhoods and none of us know the names of all of em, but "Garden City" is not a Philly hood. If the people of Wallingford think otherwise, good on em.
Navy Yard is south philly. And as said I once I aint south philly. But, Jim's finally opened back up so let us give praise to one of the few cheesesteak places I'd ever give a tourist directions too..
I agree that the Navy Yard is south Philly and Wallingford ain't Philly, I'm not claiming otherwise (nor do Wallingfordians ever make such a claim). I do not know why they decided to house people who worked in Philly in a place that is so far from Philly - that's part of the story I've never found written anywhere. I can only surmise that since Wallingford is so close to Chester, the workers were able to ride a commuter train to and fro. Or maybe they ran special buses, I dunno.
So, I actually used to live on South Street, right next to the Jim's. When I got a steak from there, I always had to order it with marinara because it was too dry otherwise. How a sandwich with that much grease in it could possibly be dry is not something I can answer. I know this exposes me as non-native, but at least I wan't ordering it with bell pepper.
Now, Ishkabibble's is a place I can get behind.
Sometimes you get lucky. Where i am the housing market is batshit insane. Managed to get a classic quarter acre block in a decent area under the average - and the house isn't a classic postwar piece of shit
If you don't mind me asking, what made you switch from software development to transportation?
I got laid off from my job with a big silicon valley company and was just too sick of the whole industry to even try getting another coding job. I randomly bought a used school bus to convert into a motor home, and when I got to the point where I needed to get another job to avoid paying $1000 a month for shitty health insurance, it turned out owning and driving a school bus made me eminently qualified to be a school bus driver. I really love doing it - it of course doesn't pay what programming pays, but I get the middle of my days off to go on long bike rides, and little kids aren't that awful to be around.