Of course, we’re all socialists hereabouts, so no-one would bat an eye at that price tag for a politician’s house. 
The closest around me is a listing for $629k, which is a 7BR/5BA with 6400 sq. ft. sitting on 10 acres.
In my area (expensive part of Montgomery County, MD) that would get you a pretty nice condo, a decent townhouse, or a small older split-level SFH. With some variation by neighborhood depending on which high school cluster it’s in. The nice houses around here are over $1 million.
In my particular suburb of St. Louis, $600,000 will buy approximately two houses built in the mid-1950s with three bedrooms, 1.5 baths and a one car garage.
However, looking over the local sales records for the last several years, it’s far more likely that a developer will buy one of those houses, tear it down, build a new house that’s way too big for the lot and sell it for $900,000+.
Brian
I live on the NW side of Chicago. There are tons of single-family homes in my neighborhood that cost significantly less than that. For $600k you could get something large, nice, and renovated, with yard, garage, etc. But if you go just a mile or two closer to the lake and/or downtown, and the pickings in that price range become much slimmer. It takes me about an hour to get to work in the Loop on the El.
Surprisingly, there’s this, much bigger than I thought. 4 bedrooms, 2700 s ft.
Must be haunted.
I live in Bergen County NJ and worked in real estate. $600K will buy 4BRS, 2Baths on about 50 x 100 lot, tops.
In my neighborhood, $600,000 USD gets you a lot. Not “A lot” as in a lot of stuff; a lot as in a plot of land. A SMALL lot. There will be a house on it, but it would probably be one you’d tear down and spend half a million dollars building a nicer house on.
I’m totally serious. a 50’ by 120’ lot is a $600K asset. So, to a close approximation, $600,000 buys you no house at all. You can find some condos for $600,000 and some OK townhouses.
A 4000 square foot house will cost you two million dollars and not a penny less.
If you want a family home for $600,000 you have to be a hell of a lot further outside Toronto than we are.
I’m about 12 hours outside of Toronto, so that’s nice.
That will get you a two bedroom condo in Santa Barbara.
He seems to spend a fair amount of time caring about how I spend mine. So there’s that.
Median price for houses in my area is $297K, so he could buy a couple. The nearest house to mine that goes for more than $500K is 4 bedrooms, five bathrooms, and is on a golf course. That one goes for $569K. So he could buy that, and spend the rest on deodorant.
Hey, he can afford more house than me! No fair! Let’s protest!
Regards,
Shodan
A few years ago, $600k might buy you four houses in my neighborhood. Not tiny ones - 1600 to 2100 sq. ft. with 3 bed/2 bath and a two-car garage.
Today, you could still probably get two houses in my neighborhood for that price. But the trick is, houses around here don’t stay listed very long. If you see one on sale you’d better jump on it the same day and offer $10k+ over asking if you want any chance to participate in the bidding war. Welcome to Nashville!
I did a Zillow for my zip code. The only places in that price range are condos of about 1200 sq ft. Houses start at $800K and anything over 2,000 sq ft is a million or more.
I imagine the price of construction would be astronomical in deep space.
Some of the above posts simply boggle my mind (which I admit is not hard to boggle these days).
I paid $107,900 for a 3-BR, 2 Bath 1600 sq.ft. house with yard and attached 2-car garage in 1997. It’s appreciated since then, of course, but nothing like what I am seeing above.
Guess there are some good things about living in the South…
Oh, did find a $600,000 listing…no lake view, however…7773 Wildcreek Trl SE, Huntsville, AL 35802 | Zillow
In my neighborhood, a 2 bedroom condo in an older building. A one bedroom (or more likely an “open 1 bedroom” which is really a studio with ambitions) condo in a newer one.
However, for just a teeny bit more, and a bit outside of the city, you could buy a castle. (I used to have a co-worker who used to commute from Graham; it’s not that far away. Plus castle)
I see three properties for sale at $600,000 or lower in my town: two condos and a mobile home. We’re a bedroom community within commuting distance of Silicon Valley.
I’m hoping for a still-high sales price for our home when we retire, and that the prices stay proportionately lower in our chosen region for retirement. That’ll be in about five years or so from now.
This thread is like catnip to me because one thing I never get tired of is marveling at real estate listings.
In the Bronx, or at least in my neighborhood, one model for homeownership is multiple families (usually one extended family) in what is clearly a single family home. I know someone who recently moved into a single family, freestanding 3 bedroom home that sold for about $650,000 – mom and dad + two kids, a cousin and her husband, and the mother-in-law. I don’t know if they (the adults) shared the cost of the purchase, or if one family purchased and the others pay some form of rent, but it’s not too uncommon around here.
To compare my summer home to Bernie’s, mine did not cost $600,000. Most of the summer cottages where I am (Lake Erie) were actually built as worker’s cottages – my dad once mentioned that his parents’ mortgage was financed through the steelworkers union. A typical house would be between 800 and 1100 sq ft, and the ones I see listed right now range from about 85K (for houses that are essentially the original house sitting there on a half acre lot) up to about 175K (for houses that people have put some money into updating). There are two listings just shy of $600,000 – one is a ridiculous McMansion that someone built on one of these tiny lots, and the other is a more spacious, more historic home on a large lot.