what happened to saving up enough cash to buy a house outright? Are you still going to buy a house?

jacob, where, when and for how much?

I would recommend Oregon with no sales tax since you’re likely to have very low income.

@Jacob

There would be many opportunities in the OK,AR,MO, or TN area to purchase some nice land and self-construct a small home. In the Ozark Mountains, there is much wooded area for sale rather cheaply, and living in your present RV, you could build/contract for the amount of funds you stated. You may even find a nice “fixer” already on the property. Avoiding any metro areas, you could have a nice quiet place to live.
My tours through the Northeast (VT/NH/CT) have shown some of those areas to resemble war zones and the economies are terrible. Also very bad weather conditions to deal with.
Of course it’s what you have projected for your future that you will mostly consider, as it should be.

I’m surprised that you are considering buying a house instead of building it yourself. I mean, if you built it yourself you wouldn’t have to go buying an oversized house that has lots of empty floor space to fill up. Personally, I just can’t imagine you living in more than a 1000 sq ft house.

Personally, if I were buying a house I would buy a fixer-upper house that was built in the late 1800′s or early 1900′s. They usually are not oversized like today’s houses, have a solid foundation, are built of old-growth lumber (which is extreamly resistant to decay), and have cellers. Also, just the fact that it is still standing after 100 years seems to imply that it is well-built. Prices for these where I live are about $25000 to $40000 (above $40000 they tend not to be fixer-uppers anymore).

wont property be beyond your reach though in 10 years time, wont something that costs 100k now cost a lot more?

@sue – No. It might even be beneficial to wait since we’re still working off the speculative bubble. In the long run real estate only goes up at the rate of inflation. (It’s a non-productive asset with little risk associated and very little depreciation since houses are generally long lasting.)

@Kevin – Oregon income tax is structured roughly like the federal income tax, so if your total income is under $XX,XXXX, then you pay no tax. I suspect (but don’t know) that other states are similar.

Washington has been contemplating getting into an income tax to relieve their budget shortfalls.