In Utah County the cheapest “House” for sale is 600 square feet, 2 bed, 1 bath, at $300k.
So at current interest rate it would be $1,800 a month mortgage(assuming you put the 60k down payment! A decent amount more if you do 3% down.)
The cheapest condo/town in utah valley is 205k, 1,100 square feet, on a 400 square foot lot. But due to a $500 HOA fee the monthly cost is still 1,700 a month (assuming 20% down).
With 3.5% down they’d both be closer to 2.1k +PIMI.
So yeah, how is where you live doing?
Most people would consider a house that’s 30-40 years old at end-of-life. There are likely restrictions on the property about rebuilding or something as well; that’s usually the only time you see stuff that cheap.
35 minutes to the station is too far for most people as well (prices drop as soon as you hit 20, typically).
You wouldn’t have central heat/air (not a thing here), the insulation is probably very little, etc. That’s all still just normal here.
That’s pretty interesting to me. The house I grew up in was built in the late 50s, as was the entire neighborhood, making it just under 40 years old by the time I was born, and it’s still there today, with the only major renovations being redoing the flooring and replacing appliances.
Is the shorter lifespan more of just a cultural thing, or is it a matter of how housing is built? Because I can certainly see the pricing if it’s the latter and it’s nearing the point of requiring major maintenance.
Post-war housing shortage led to tons of homes being slapped up quickly to deal with civilian homeless, returning soldiers/prisoners, and US troops. There were basically no standards (there were an absurd amount of homeless due to the firebombings and such) or building codes. Codes got stronger, but many houses were still poor quality (and burnt down often). Bonus fact: this is one reason there are such monocultures of certain trees in Japan; clear-cut to provide lumber and replanted with fast-growing trees for more lumber.
Secondarily, families were (and many still are) multi-generational. So, when a parent retires, the next generation will often take over and often knock down and rebuild. That’s becoming less of thing, but it still exists.
Finally, especially when there were few/no regulations, things burnt down a lot, particularly during winter (heating) and when an earthquake would strike. Better standards now, but this was true for quite a while.
So, generally, treat any home/condo you buy as a depreciating asset. The land may increase in value depending upon where it is. In rare cases, the building may as well, but I wouldn’t count on it.
That’s at least a very TL;DR version based on what I know. There may be more that I don’t know as well.