If Bellingham Housing is just too expensive...

All real estate is local.

That means every real estate market is unique and the conditions, trends, and values from one locale to another WILL vary.

They often vary WILDLY.

The median price of a single family home in Bellingham, Washington is currently $721,000.

The median price of a single family home in Miami, Oklahoma is $100,000.

I have not really studied how that is even possible, though I would like to know.

Do carpenters in Miami, Oklahoma make $6/hour?

Does a 4X8 sheet of 1/2" plywood there cost $3.99?

How is it even possible for a house to cost so little?

And that's not even the least expensive out there, if you really travel around.

Which is exactly what we're going to do in this blog post.

Let's go on a road trip to 5 different real estate markets around the US.

Let's go house-shopping, and simultaneously harken back to the days when you could buy a house for something not quickly-nearing a million dollars.

Below, I'll share 5 real-life, eye-catching homes for sale that I found by scrolling around on Zillow.

I started in the $25K range and went up incrementally from there.

I'll add a little detail about their towns, too, and drive times from B'ham in case you're captivated enough to make a REAL road trip.

Buckle up, get your home-searching goggles on, and let's hit the road!

First Stop: Parsons, Kansas

Parsons is a railroad town of about 9,600 people.

After an F3 tornado ripped through the center of Parsons in the year 2000, the locals set to work rebuilding.

On June 5, 2006 the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Parsons a 2006 Great American Main Street Award winner for its successful efforts in revitalizing its downtown area through historic preservation.

The town is also known for the 2002 film Zombiegeddon, which was filmed there.

If you were shopping in Parsons right now, you might take a run at this 3-bed, 3-bath Craftsman-ish bungalow sitting on a .28 acre lot, with a 2-car detached garage.

It needs some renovation inside, but hey, for $25K, you could probably swing it!

PS: Drive-time from Bellingham to Parsons, about 30 hours, just over 2000 miles.

Next Stop: Roswell, New Mexico

All you UFO buffs will love this one!Roswell, New Mexico is home to about 50,000 residents, making it New Mexico's 5th largest city.

It is also home to the New Mexico Military Institute, and Eastern NM University has a campus there -- practically making it the Bellingham of the Southwest!

Most notably, Roswell sits about 75 miles from an alleged UFO crash site, dating back to 1947, and has become an epicenter of aerospace and UFO-ology museums and tourism.

If you were shopping for a home there with a budget of just $85K, you could scoop this 3-bed, 1-bath cutey built 8 years before E.T. crash-landed nearby.

PS: Drive-time from Bellingham to Roswell, about 27 hours, 1700 miles.

Next Stop: Ishpeming, Michigan

Michigan's Upper Peninsula is a wild and awesome place, with harsh winters and hardy residents.

Just over 6000 such residents make up the population of Ishpeming, considered the birthplace of organized skiing in the US, and home to the US Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame.

(Don't ask me how a town with an elevation of 1400 feet became the skiing capital of North America.)At any rate, were you shopping for a home in Ishpeming, and you could afford a price tag of about $150K, you could do worse than this 4-Bedroom, 2-bath home with refinished wood floors, and in just gorgeous condition.

PS: Drive-time from Bellingham to Ishpeming, is about 31 hours, 2000 miles.

Next Stop: Pueblo, Colorado

Situated about 110 miles of Denver, the city of Pueblo is a smidge more populous than Bellingham, with just over 110,000 residents.

It is known for its arid desert climate and very minimal precipitation of just 12" per year, (Bellingham typically gets about 39" per year, according to Google).

Situated at the confluence of the Arkansas River and Fountain Creek, Pueblo was once considered the saddle-making capital of the world, until the Great Flood of 1921 swept away 1/3 of Pueblo's businesses.

Nonetheless, Pueblo enjoys a relatively strong real estate market with a median home price of about $300K, which makes this 3-bedroom 1-bath brick bungalow a bargain at just under $215K.

PS: Drive time from Bellingham to Pueblo, is about 22 hours, 1500 miles.

Final Stop: Limerick, Maine

OK... enough of these 3 and 4-bedroom "guest houses" right?

Let's get serious here and look at something with some elbow room!

Our final stop finds us in tucked into the northeasterly-most state in the Union, in the town of Limerick, Maine.

In 1668, a trader named Francis Small negotiated a large tract of land from Chief Wesumbe of the Abenaki Indian tribe.

The mutually accepted price was two blankets, two gallons of rum, two pounds of gunpowder, four pounds of musket balls, and twenty strings of beads.

Half of that land was quickly flipped by Small to one of the wealthiest merchants in the region, (price unknown).Then the French and Indian Wars raged across the land for nearly a century.

Eventually, in 1775, Francis Small's heirs worked with an attorney to incorporate the town of Limerick, current population: about 3,200 souls.

A century and a half later, this 6-bedroom, 4-bath Colonial SFR was built at 18 Locust Hill.

For less than $94 per square foot -- a price even Francis Small might appreciate -- it can be yours.

PS: Drive time from Bellingham to Limerick, about 47 hours, 3200 miles.

I wouldn't trade places

It's fun to scroll around on Zillow and look and think about how far the home-buying dollar could go in these other markets.

It definitely conjures some wanderlust in my heart.

There's a reason, though, why Bellingham's real estate costs what it does.

Supply and demand, for sure.

And the demand exists in part because it's practically surreal how high-quality the lifestyle is here.

The natural beauty, the temperatures, the people who call it home, the proxmity to sooooo much additional goodness.

To be clear: I don't really foresee how any of us are going to afford to live here a decade from now.

That's a topic for another blog post.

But I know one thing I can truthfully say right now about our little fourth corner pocket tucked up here against the Pacific Northwest: LIFE IS GOOD.