I agree with all your points. And just to be clear, my position is definitely not "look, idiots, we could solve the home affordability issue if people knew that the midwest existed" but instead just "for some specific people, these small 30s midwest towns could be promising and worth looking into."
Ferrous
joined 5 months ago
Disclaimer: this comment is not arguing that housing is easily obtainable.
If you let them subdivide into smaller lots, or build multiple units on the lot, they could charge less per dwelling unit.
This is exactly why I encourage people to look at older neighborhoods. In certain spots of the midwest, you can find beautiful 30s homes that were built extremely well: brick, less engineered wood, and the triumph of the home over the filter of time - for less than $70k. The surviving 30s houses were built well enough to survive nearly 100 years. On top of that, those old neighborhood designers knew better than today for exactly the reason you mention. They were trying to build affordable housing, and that manifested itself in smaller houses, more neighborly communities, more proximity to your neighbors, and walkable proximity to surviving corner stores/bars. Oftentimes, modern bus routes run on top of the old school tram lines that serviced these neighborhoods.
If you find one of these gems in a town with a big employer, you could feasibly pay down a perfectly adequate and enjoyable home in less than 5 years - assuming you have an in with the company.
Central IL is a good example what for Galesburg, Peoria, Bloomington, and even Morton.
If you manage to secure a salary at Rivian while fixing up a 30s Bloomington house, I feel you'd be in pretty good shape. I understand that securing a good salary is a huge effort though.
They were finding microplastics in polar bears like 5 years ago. It's safe to assume they are everywhere.