The Red Sox game is on rain delay. I am still quite sore today, and I need to drag myself out of the house, and at least go walk around somewhere for a bit to stretch out.

As far as owning v. renting, I am not sure I could afford to own anytime in the near future, even if Teacup Guy and I went in on it together. The housing prices around here have just about doubled in the past few years.

Even here in Madison, the median house is $150k.

There is almost nothing for that price around here.

Housing costs are insane just about everywhere.

So very true. The town where I grew up in NJ is insane-o now. There's no space for new construction, but the town is so desirable (shortish commute to NYC, pretty town) people are spending $500K for a tiny Cape Cods, then *knocking them down* and building McMansions on the wee lots instead. The big old Vicorians go for $800K and up. Crazy.

Here, north of Syracuse, you can buy a 3-BR Colonial for around $120K, if not less. In *this* town, though. Closer to Syracuse, which is maybe twenty miles away, you'd add $100K to that. Weird.

I hate my POs. I hate my POs. 99% of what's wrong with the house went wrong under their watch

This is how I feel about what has become my father-in-law's house (was in my mother-in-law's family, but Dad is all that's left now). The women who grew up here and lived here almost all of their lives (my MiL's aunts) were so cheap. And didn't have anything resembling taste. They took what could have been/once was a gracious old farmhouse and ruined it. Put plastic tile in the bathrooms. The ugliest, cheapest carpeting you could find on the floors. Never fixed anything that wasn't actively falling on their heads. Replaced what I assume were solid doors with crappy hollow-cores. Feh on them.

My PO was an elderly man with excellent taste in furnishings (all antique Asian pieces - beautiful) but cheap as all get out on actually fixing up the place in which he lived. Everything needed/needs replacing. So far we've redone 80% of the flooring, painted the entire place except for one small bathroom, replaced doorknobs/cabinet pulls/etc., and replaced some nasty lighting fixtures. It's livable but it really could stand more extensive remodeling. We're looking at this as a temporary living space and future rental so we're loathe to do to much to it but I admit that I often dream of redoing the kitchen and both bathrooms.. In reality, we'll probably replace the windows, do a minor remodel to one bathroom, and some cosmetic fixings in the kitchen. Still, living here compared to living in the last couple of apts I rented is like night and day. We got lucky that we bought just as prices were starting to skyrocket so it was still in our budget. This place has doubled in its worth since we bought it 2.5 years ago. Insane.

My family live in Barnsley. Barnsley has pretty countryside around it, but precious few jobs. It has not, traditionally, been regarded as a desirable place to live.

The tiny wee houses that have been constructed on the former High School Field behind my parents' house? £300,000.

Tiny. Wee. Houses. Tiny. Not in a sexy location.

I cannot foresee any possibility of me buying a house/flat in the UK in my lifetime.

Were I living & working in Britain now, I'd be on around £20,000. Instead I'm on £13,000 (plus rent allowance & health insurance, tax free).

Susan, I'm glad that your MiL will be able to help your family out when you're out there. You are handling this, from what I've seen here, exceptionally well, and have all your ducks in line. I just wish you didn't have to have them in a line.

I hope the 5pm service is helpful.

I forgot to add my footnote to the above, which is that I'm not allowed to play with powertools, because I generally have no idea where my limbs are in relation to my body at any given time, unless I'm concentrating really hard, and only on the whole where-are-my-arms thing. I only got a passing grade in Shop class because I promised my teacher I'd never attempt to learn woodworking again. It's one of those things where I tried *really* hard, and just, frankly, sucked. I'd find it lowering, except the other one was Home Ec, where I stayed in class at lunch to try finishing my sewing projects and still got a D, because they don't reward for effort. Clearly, the extremes of manly and womanly are not for me, and I should have stuck to the effete, like that time I had two art classes in a row right before my free period, so I essentially had a three hour block of art.

Also, I want to be a mom like Laura when I grow up. She's my role model.

Just to give you an idea, this condo [link] is in my neck of the woods. We bought our 2+2, 1300 sq. ft. condo for considerably less than this 2.5 years ago.

I don't know what the median price is here, but I just played with listings on realtor.com. The cheapest place in Seattle that looks like you could move into it right away (i.e. not property or a half-ruined house) is a tiny studio condo for $100K. The cheapest that would meet our space needs (i.e. 3 bedrooms) is around $250K, and those are usually fixer-uppers or in less than ideal neighborhoods.

Still, once I've found a job and we've gotten our credit card debt punched down a bit, we should be in a decent position to buy. I just hope I can find that job by November or so, so we can think about a bigger place not long after Annabel turns 2.

I just googled, and according to an article in the Providence Journal published a few weeks ago, the median price of a single family house in RI right now is $285,000.

From the Times last week

According to the latest multiple-listing service numbers, the median price of King County condominiums was $216,995 last month. That's $158,000 below the single-family house median.

Hell, our tax assessed value is now 45k over what we paid four and a half years ago.

My grandmother died yesterday. It's one of those expected, but "it's always sudden" kind of things. Anyhow, my mom is up there seeing to the details.