What a Deal!

As many of you probably know, Ben and I have started looking at houses this past week. We started our home search online on realtor.com and from there contacted a realtor in the area who has given us a few more prospects. Despite the pushy world of realty, this realtor is actually quite nice and wasn't pushy at all, nor did she try to push beyond our "budget" price. Our biggest issue so far has been that of sticker-shock. Coming from Ohio, our views on a reasonably priced house lie somewhere in the vicinity of $125,000, or less, for a starter home. Here, we have yet to see a house priced in the $100Ks. And believe me, we aren't looking at huge new homes (well, I have, but just for fun)...we are trying to look at smaller homes but with a little bit of land-along the lines of 1/2 an acre or possibly more. Unfortunately there is nothing that would be deemed reasonable. Here is an example of a listing in Sterling, VA, around where we live now:

"Attention investors and handyman, 3 FIN LVLS. Cherry cabinets in kitchen. Home backs to woods. Anderson windows. Huge deck. Extensive water damage to basement and 1/2 of the first level. THERE IS MOLD IN THE HOME, The BANK MAKES NO WARRANTY AND IS NOT LIABLE FOR THE POTENTIALLY HARMFUL EFFECTS THEREOF, but the home is priced accordingly. GREAT BUY!"

Ready for the sticker price on this house of death? $350,000. And no I am not kidding. The lot is less than a quarter-acre. What a deal.
After we reluctantly passed up on this dream home, Ben and I looked out more towards the mountains in Round Hill, Va. We were mostly dissappointed. Although the houses looked nice and were a little lower priced, they were in newer crammed developments and the town center consisted of an old mini-mart. There wasn't even a gas station. Of course we don't have to buy a house right now (good thing) but we are still looking around. We found a few houses we are interested in up in Maryland. They are about an hour from Ben's work, but are slightly more reasonable, emphasis on slightly. But a big plus is they are about an hour closer to Ohio. :)
Like i said, we are just looking right now...I don't actually see us buying a house anytime real soon, unless someone is practically giving away their house. Yeah, that's not going to happen.