Nothing but sweat inside my hand...

I feel there are enormous forces at work in my blogging...meaning, the more I write, the more the topics I write about begin to take on more complexity and take more thought-space in my brain. So much so, that if I were so inclined, I'd go back and rewrite almost all of what's already been written. But that's cheating (sort of), but I say it now because it makes this writing (to me at least) active and interactive, not set in stone or static. (This is a long way of saying, I might end up being wrong about some stuff.)

But before that day comes, if it comes at all, I'll address the third "golden promise" I feel was first set forth in the lure that brought me to the capital of Texas. This was the promise of a low cost of living in comparison to other medium to large US cities. With the way things are now--always, it seems, on the brink of total collapse--I really don't want to bitch about not having any money. It's bratty and inconsiderate to whine about not being able to eat Ethiopian more or go see some band that probably's going to make me hate music anyway (see post #1). I make enough money to live. I buy food thriftily, I don't buy clothes or music or other forms of entertainment (save beer, there must always be beer). I can pay rent, I can pay for my car, its insurance, my bills. Just barely, I can pay for these things.

So I understand it's not Austin's fault if I don't live the high life right now. But I still have a bone to pick and it's with the damn house prices in this town.

According to The Real Estate Center website, published by the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University, the average price of a home in Austin in January of 1990 was $89,700. The average price of a home in Austin in September of 2008 is $240,800. Yep, that's 260% increase over 18 years. But how does that compare with national averages? The National Associate of REALTORS (r) lists the national average price of a home as $234,700 and in the South that average price is $207,600 (listing for September 2008). You can read this paper, published by Brookings Papers, if you can make it through (I admit, I skipped ahead to the charts) to see a more in-depth analysis of the rise and fall (bubbles and stickiness as they put it) in the housing market in the US since 1975 and how that roller coaster affects all of us. Most importantly, check out the chart on page 42, where you can see the rise in house prices from 1975 at$52,000 to the peak of $390,000 in 2007.

I give this information to give you a glimpse that I understand I do not live in a vacuum. I know there is a large, intricately complex and almost impossible to understand crisis going on outside of my little unhappy world. I know people are losing their homes, losing credit, and losing jobs so I dare not try to fit this little complaint into the larger context. I don't even fully understand all the information I just wrote down in the above paragraph, but it seems to me that Austin is right there in the middle of this national trend. It's no San Fransisco (house prices-wise and otherwise) and it's certainly no rural town in Arkansas (where friends of mine are buying houses for $80,000 and less). It's snuggly there in between the two extremes.

Yet the salary averages are not. From AboutAustin.com, the most recent data available is from 2005 when the median household income was $67,300, which the website (arrogantly) puts in this nonsensical context:

"Thinking of moving but you're looking at a paycut if you do? A dollar in Austin goes further than a dollar in Boston. If you make $65,000 in Austin, you would need approximately the following annual income in these other US cities:

1. San Antonio: $56,314
2. Phoenix: $58,465
3. Salt Lake City: $63,182
4. Austin: $65,000
5. Houston: $65,651
6. Denver: $65,730
7. Ft. Worth: $66,246
8. Dallas: $70,566
9. Boston: $93,488
10. Los Angeles: $96,183"

Need the income to buy what exactly is not made clear. But remember, this is 2005's numbers. A basic search of the average salary for Austin in 2008 comes up with $50,000.

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Ok, that's the numbers. Here's what life is like: there's no way that my husband and I, with jobs in our fields and for established businesses and organizations, will make enough money within the three-year trial period I'm making up to see if this experiment would work, to ever be able to afford a house in the neighborhoods we're interested in living in. Yes, I understand I just said "in the neighborhoods we're interested in living in." And yes, I understand there are other places to live. And that's the big BUT in this whole scenario.

But, those aren't the places we moved here to live in. Those aren't the places that were advertised as affordable, as attainable and those aren't the places I had in mind when I decided to move here. Yet another wave comes over me, a memory of how we spent all our savings, how we left a house that we enjoyed living in, in a neighborhood we loved, being able to save money or spend it if we had an occasion...Austin has, I feel, jipped me of what it said it was going to be. But the worst part is that I jiipped myself out of what was really a pretty terrific way of living.