Pittsburgh Estate

The idea of buying a house with cash-money is fairly new to me. Several years ago, I remember hearing a rumor of someone in Pittsburgh buying a house for about 25k, so I kept my ears open for those kinds of prices when I moved here. I didn't look very hard though, because moderate-quality homes near school were going for 100k. I couldn't imagine that prices would drop very quickly with distance.

Then I visited a house just a few miles out and she mentioned the price was only 18k a few years ago. Wow, I thought, I could do that.

Then a friend mentioned that her husband had bought a house for 8k, only about 4 miles out. I can bike 4 miles. I visited them. The house was a wreck, in the middle of remodeling, but it was still obviously a good deal. The neighbor man was there too. "I got my house for four thousand dollars," he said, "on eBay, sitting at my desk back in Vermont."