Housing costs

Inkara1

Inkara1

Well-Known Member
If I'm able to make it to Wichita for the OTC BBQ this year, maybe perhaps I should look at buying a house in the area.

This place for $62,500... I don't know much about the neighborhood but the house looks really nice for that money... three-bedroom, one-bath, 9,000-square-foot lot, hardwood floors in the living room and bedroom... estimated mortgage payment is about half what my rent for a tiny-ass one-bedroom apartment costs.
 
I've been looking through houses on the realtor.com site... I set an upper ceiling at $150K and I've got 160 pages of results to search through. The amount of places I can get for less than $200 a month with a 20 percent down payment is staggering.
 
Inkara1 said:
I've been looking through houses on the realtor.com site... I set an upper ceiling at $150K and I've got 160 pages of results to search through. The amount of places I can get for less than $200 a month with a 20 percent down payment is staggering.
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Yeah but how much would you make working in that area? It's all relative.
 
Housing in Wichita is some of the cheapest in the nation. But jobs are hard to come by and while crime is low i can count the things to do in Wichita on one hand.

That house is in a lower income area but by no means a bad area of town.
 
Are there any newspaper jobs in the area? I have experience doing that now... I've also got $25K set aside which, in that area, would also be a real down payment. Over here, it's about a monthly payment.
 
Inkara1 said:
Are there any newspaper jobs in the area? I have experience doing that now... I've also got $25K set aside which, in that area, would also be a real down payment. Over here, it's about a monthly payment.
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The major local is the Eagle. There are a few other area papers, but they are much smaller and some aren't daily.

For comparison, median income is about $40k per household; Per capita is $20k.
 
So I checked houses in Kansas City... it looks as though I'd have to spend about $70K to get a house I'd actually be willing to move into. The under-$15K houses were, umm, interesting... one of them had fire damage, and I couldn't tell whether that was blood or red paint splattered across the wall in another.
 
KC and Wichita are VERY different places.

Housing in KC is more expensive and cost of living is higher. KC is a city that sits between two states (half in Kansas half in Missouri). Wichita is actually larger than KC KS but when you combine KC KS with KC MS it becomes one of the largest cities in the country. The vast majority of KC is on the MS side and it can be very confusing for people who are new to the area because certain state laws apply to one side that don’t apply to the other.

Also KC and Wichita housing markets are vastly different. KC is one of the fastest growing cities in the Midwest and is expanding at an amazing rate. While Wichita is growing at a more moderate speed which creates less demand for new housing. That is not to say Wichita is not growing. Everyday it seems I see new housing areas pop up like weeds.

Wichita’s main industries are aircraft and medical while KC is mostly telecommunications and industrial manufacturing. Both cities rely heavily on agriculture which affects almost everything and weighs heavily in the political landscape. Around 60% of all jobs in the Wichita area are reliant on the aircraft industry. If a major player in the aircraft field announces layoffs it can result in job loss in other sectors simply do to sheer amount of income generated by aircraft manufacturing.

http://www.nationjob.com/wichita/
 
I have a bachelor's in Journalism so I'd be looking for a newspaper job. Christina's got this hard-headed opinion that walking on the streets of any part of Wichita will get you shot and nothing I told her would alleviate that (she was there once and didn't feel safe, she said).
 
Inkara1 said:
I have a bachelor's in Journalism so I'd be looking for a newspaper job. Christina's got this hard-headed opinion that walking on the streets of any part of Wichita will get you shot and nothing I told her would alleviate that (she was there once and didn't feel safe, she said).
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Well if you come this summer you could check it out for yourself. Honestly the crime rate is VERY very low. I personally don't know anyone who was ever robbed, shot, or killed in this city and I’ve lived here for 24 years. Sure we have the occasional murder or whatever but I think the only crime that has ever happened to me was I forgot to lock my car once and someone stole my car stereo.

http://www.cityrating.com/citycrime.asp?city=Wichita&state=KS
 
Gonz said:
she lives in Fresno & is frightened of Witchita :rofl:
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Seriously...Fresno seems to be somehow involved in many famous murder cases (I read stories about serial killers sometimes cause I find it interesting).
 
She's not from Fresno. Actually, she refuses to live there, too. Fresno wasn't so bad from my own experience, but then again, I didn't live around Edison High School, or on Kings Canyon Boulevard, or by Princeton and Weber avenues.
 
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