Ten cents will get you a dime anywhere, but when it comes to the cost of a house, the same amount of money does not have equal buying power in all parts of the country: Location can be the difference between $300,000 buying a 250 square foot home and affording one that measures over 7,000 square feet. Find out how much a square foot costs in your city, or gawk at the what it rings up as in cities such as Boston or New York City.
If you're hoping to buy a home, one of the main things you've likely obsessed over is how big a home you can get. Can you afford a four-bedroom, or barely stretch your budget to two? Have you saved up enough for a mammoth mansion, or will you need to squeeze into a shoebox-size studio instead?
Whether you can afford a small, medium, or extra-large home depends, of course, on how much cash and income you have on hand. But another critical factor is where you plan to live.
Because at some point in the search process, chances are better than even you'll find yourself muttering a variation on the classic bedraggled buyers refrain: "For the price of a [fill in home type] here, we could buy a [expletive deleted] luxury estate in [fill in lower-end town, city, or state]!"
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