It's really nutty-you HAVE to read this article. How can anyone afford to live here anymore? The Census Bureau says Cambridge is the city with the highest percentage of $1-million- plus single-family homes in the country. Incredible. $1 mil buys you jack in Metro West.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2004/09/12/would_you_pay_a_million_dollars_for_this/<snip>
"Home prices in Massachusetts are six times what they were in 1980 -- by far the largest spike in the country. But salaries here are only about three times what they were in 1980, creating an enormous imbalance between what we're earning and what we're paying for our houses. There's no way this can continue. Except if it does."
<snip>
"Look at the charts Lawler keeps to track the growth in housing prices, state by state, and
you see those "two Americas" the Democrats have been talking about so much these days ...Drill down even deeper, and you see that
this is essentially a Northeast/West Coast -- or "blue state" -- phenomenon. Of the 14 states that have seen the biggest jumps in home prices since 1975, all but one of them (borderline-blue New Hampshire) voted for Al Gore in 2000. Meanwhile, 24 of the bottom 26 states are solidly in the red. People can debate how much the blue and red states diverge in terms of values, but when it comes to housing, there's no question that we live in two profoundly different worlds.