I'm really starting to think moving here was a massive mistake.

[u/Demifiend101]

It was this, Huston Texas or north Carolina. I was just so sick and tired of living in a poverty state (WV) and wanted to make way more money.

Now I'm making 3600 a month, but the housing market is so competitive and high market I might as well be making 1200 back in the mountain state.

It's a complete god damn nightmare, currently staying in a motel that's costing me 2000$ a month just because I can't get in anywhere no matter how hard I try or applications I fill.

Applications which all have 50-80$ background checks. I've spent will over 1000$ in less than a month filling out those things.

Huston has a population of over 2.7 MILLION, and you can get a place there for just 600 a month still.

Where did it all go wrong here?

[u/[deleted]]

Things are way better on the east coast compared to Oregon. I relocated from NC to Oregon due to work. And housing is just far far far better there, and you don’t get nickel and dimed like in Oregon

[u/sepia_dreamer → u/[deleted]]

Basically as soon as you enter the Rocky Mountains property values go up significantly. It’s the case in Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, California famously, not sure how true it is in New Mexico but pretty much all the mountain states have higher property values (and all the associated issues) compared with anywhere except the HCOL hubs of the east. This is true even in the dying nowhere towns due to expectation spillover I suppose.

I suspect this is due to the fact that the west has had consistent population growth while the east frankly hasn’t, and then the states that do have growth have 1) limited wilderness lands to endlessly protect (except Florida), and 2) little desire to restrict development anyway.

But it also makes sense when you consider that a random piece of land anywhere in the southeast is largely indistinguible except by proximity to some city or another, where in the west we have deserts, rugged mountains, and rain forests that just can’t be expanded into easily. In fact in the east property values drop sharply as soon as you get away from major cities while in the west rural homes can cost almost as much as — and often more than — urban ones.

Edit to note: I’m a 5th generation Oregonian which means my whole life I’ve been hearing this tale of how people moving here — especially from California — is throwing the housing situation out of wack. But I’ve also lived in Virginia for a few years for contrast.