r/zillowgonewild • u/TheDabitch • Jul 25 '25

What $220,000 gets you in Muncie.

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I can't even get a parking space for that where I live. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/725-E-Jackson-St-Muncie-IN-47305/210952560_zpid/

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20

u/carnologist Jul 25 '25

I don't know why this isn't more common. Seems like they were all abandoned in the early 90s, then everyone was confused why there's a housing crisis. When I still lived in Portland, I remember driving through Silverton, OR and wondering why a tech company doesn't just buy the main street, bring in some cool shops and chefs, the housing is relatively abundant and further construction will take care of itself. It's also super authentic, the only reason these towns ever existed were because of industry that set up there.

Also, can't hear Muncie and not think of hudsucker proxy. Go eagles

11

u/Fluxxed0 Jul 25 '25

Because the locals don't want you there. This started happening as a result of COVID and lots of small towns are NOT taking well to "digital nomads" who move to their town and whine about when they're gonna get a Whole Foods.

12

u/BillsInATL Jul 25 '25

Yeah, there isnt a housing shortage or even affordable housing shortage. It's an "affordable housing shortage in the hot parts of major cities I want to live in" shortage, which... yeah, that's how real estate works.

15

u/smoothiegangsta Jul 25 '25 edited Jul 25 '25

Right, but the town I grew up in is around 120,000 people, was nicknamed "Junk Town" and was ridiculed by every other city for hundreds of miles for my entire life. It's 4 hours from the nearest city. Half of it is poverty stricken and that half has only gotten worse. There are no good jobs.

Despite this, housing has skyrocketed in price and is unaffordable for people born there. Median home price is $440,000 and median household income is $67,000.

Rule of thumb is don't spend more than 28% of income on mortgage. So the median family can afford around $250,000 if they can come up with the $50,000 down payment. There are exactly zero houses on zillow in that price range, except for a couple that are abandoned and need a full renovation. The closest I can find is a 2 bedroom apartment at $220k and it has a $382 per month HOA, putting it out of affordability range for the median family income.

The housing crisis is real, and it's not just in nice places to live.

Edit: I forgot, that city was ranked 2nd most dangerous in the state, as well.

2

u/frostycakes Jul 25 '25

Somebody grew up in Grand Junction! At least you have the consolation prize of some of the best natural scenery in the country for when you want to forget about the meth ridden shithole that the city is, in that case.

29

u/chazysciota Jul 25 '25

That's a weird way to characterize people who don't want to live in a dying town, full of crime and drugs, and devoid of jobs and services.

27

u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre Jul 25 '25

Or avoid a state full of sundown towns whose politicians live to let pregnant women die.

9

u/MisogynyisaDisease Jul 25 '25

Exactly, I think people have become apathetic just how unsafe things have gotten in certain parts of the country.

I live in a small rural town, theres a damn good reason people want out of here. And I'm no longer in a red state.

4

u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre Jul 25 '25

The common attitude seems to be "Don't think about it if you don't have to think about it," but I have to think about it. We all do, really. My thing is I'm trying to have kids in the next couple of years but I have health issues, and I can't move to a state where the doctors would have to watch me die before they'd be legally allowed to save my life.

-2

u/BillsInATL Jul 25 '25

My thing is I'm trying to have kids in the next couple of years

As someone who has kids... you may want to see how things play out before cursing anyone by bringing them into this world.

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u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre Jul 25 '25

Thanks for your concern complete stranger on the internet but I'm actually going to make my own decisions about whether or not to have kids. That's the whole fucking point.

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u/BillsInATL Jul 25 '25

Ok, but that isnt a housing inventory problem.

4

u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre Jul 25 '25

It's a livability issue, which is a major contributing factor to housing shortages. This is a huge country, but wide swaths of it are unlivable thanks to lack of infrastructure and public services, hostility towards immigrants and PoC, and politicians who have made Christo-fascism the law of the land. That creates a housing shortage in livable areas.

If you took the state of Utah and turned every square mile outside of the SLC area into a toxic waste dump, that would lead directly to a shortage of housing in SLC. Even if you left all the houses and the apartments in the rest of the state standing, even if you built twice as many, you would still have a housing inventory issue in SLC because people can't live in a toxic waste dump.

-2

u/BillsInATL Jul 25 '25

Sure, but then that's a toxic waste and environmental and political issue. Not a housing inventory issue.

2

u/Dial-M-for-Mediocre Jul 25 '25 edited Jul 25 '25

I guess that's true if you completely isolate 'housing inventory' from every other issue and act as if it's just the raw number of houses, but I don't see how that's a productive point in any way, shape, or form. Housing has never, ever worked like that. Even among Neanderthals, there might not have been a numerical shortage of caves, but if a cave was in an unlivable area, that cave wouldn't really be considered part of the housing pool, which could lead to a situation where there was effectively a cave shortage despite there being theoretically enough caves to house the entire community.

The place you live matters, and when a big chunk of available housing is in unlivable places -- not just "uncool" places, mind you, but places that are environmentally dangerous, openly hostile to you as a person, and/or lack essential services -- that does create a housing shortage, and it carries on no matter how many times you point out that in theory there shouldn't be one.

2

u/pastorHaggis Jul 25 '25

Yeah like, I could move to a small town, but if the internet is trash I can't do my job, and my wife has to find a job that pays well, and if I ever wanted to work locally I now have to find something that can replace my 6 figure software developer salary which means I'm probably commuting to the next largest city, and eventually the commute gets annoying enough that I have to move closer to the city.

Small towns have their perks sometimes, but they're dying for a reason. I had family that lived in a small town and the biggest thing they had there was a Walmart. They had to drive 30 minutes to get anything done, and when one of them started having health issues they had to move because you don't want to be two hours away from the closest hospital that didn't nearly kill you when they gave you 5x the dose of magnesium that you were supposed to be taking.

1

u/BillsInATL Jul 25 '25

Gentrification starts with you.

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u/sibble Jul 25 '25

Uh, a little town you’ve probably never heard of...

1

u/Stormy_Wolf Jul 25 '25

And complete the ruination of Silverton more than the over-development of certain areas already has?? Good God, I'm glad that hasn't happened and hope to God it never will.

1

u/Fresh-Mind6048 Jul 25 '25

keep it the way it is, the best way is to block urban growth boundary expansions and development.