I'll stay in the San Francisco Bay Area, thanks.

Location, location, location.

WOW I am so not in the consumer class!

Very few earthquake shacks are left because they were intended as temporary dwellings. No surprise that this one is uninhabitable. If the city approves its removal a million dollar house will be built on the lot.

We moved out of the Bay Area when we retired... this is one of the few affordable places we could have gone to.
Fortunately, I love it here.
Esp. the low prices bit.

If you pay extra, does it come without snow???

Snow today, gone tomorrow!

When it comes to housing costs, the market is a fairly good indicator.

And that's all I have to say about that.

I really, really want people pushing for a national $15 minimum wage to let that sink in. Literally half of Alabama makes less than that.

People with decent jobs in SF cannot afford to live there, as has been discussed many many times.
The prices are so insane even 15.hr ( which would be gross income) won't cut for a single person.
People with low wages CAN afford to live down here.
Mr. Dixie and I bought this one when we retired and moved from SF area, could afford to put half down, thus our mortgage payments are incredibly low, which pretty well matches our retirement income level.

So while we struggle to get a decent wage for all, at least most people here have housing.

Location.

SF is a far more desirable location to live in then AL will ever be hence the high prices.

IF one were to suspend all reality and pretend that AL is more desirable then SF, I know it is pretend, then the AL house would be worth more then one in SF.


NYC
London
Tokyo
Berlin
Amsterdam
Paris
Munich
Moscow
Montreal
and the list goes on......

All highly desirable places to live with high real estate costs, way more then AL or any other southern or midwest state, it is not just an American thing.

Want high real estate prices, make your city/town/village/hamlet a desirable place to live.

Happily, there are city mice and there are small town/country mice.
Outside of the 4 major cities here, ( all with a pop. of less than 300K) there are small towns and lots of country, very nice to the people who live there.
some of the them are even Democrats!

Different strokes for different folks, not everyone wants to live in a city, I can walk literally ten feet out my door and take pictures like this..

Taken a number of years ago on our back fence -

a down payment: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/real-estate/average-nyc-payment-350k-report-article-1.2151007

More than "headed that way," even. The mayor just declared an emergency (seriously!) over the radical increases in housing costs here in Portland, Oregon. Our sleepy, oddball little city got "discovered" a decade or so ago...and the pace of gentrification in some parts of town over the last three or four years has been insane. Like everywhere else in de-facto-oligarchy America, wages haven't remotely kept place, and even people with jobs have become homeless. Rents have been rocketing up, and the vacancy rate is under 2%.

I was there in the mid 1970's, it was glorious.
I was there for 5 years in 2000, making a good income, luckily Mr. Dixie had an affordable place to live ( but it is isn't affordable now).

whereupon it will be scraped off like every other house in the 'hood. And that is about as cheap as you can go in my neck of the woods.

especially when they are replaced by giant McMansions that are way too large for the lot.

And young, too. My neighbor, who shares a huge oak with me on the property line, said she would pay my asking price for fear whoever moves in will cut down the oak.

The houses across the street from me have been sold for 650. Both are in good shape and reamed out totally. No matter. They will be scraped. One has a cluster of mature oaks that may be cut, even if the law and its puny fine are violated. Think...

Giant.

As in the movie.

is to me a criminal act.

one doesn't know what's ahead in life but I am pretty sure. No.

I said "I don't ever want to live east of the Rockies again"
being a rather young naive West Coast woman at the time.

When I drove away from Alabama the 2nd time, in 1999, again heading for the West Coast, I missed it a lot.
and after 9-11 a WHOLE lot, much to my surprise.

When I drove to Alabama, from SF, in Sept of 2005 ( during Katrina, yet) I said, " I don't ever want to leave again."


Life can be funny.

It is funny how that works, how important the 'where' is.

Dunno if everyone gets to have that, it took me half my life to find it, despite loving where I was born and raised in another place.
and, happily, I can afford it!