Submitted by [deleted] t3_10969ac in pittsburgh
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Submitted by [deleted] t3_10969ac in pittsburgh
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I mean, you can go on Zillow an see what's available in the city for under $100K. You'll have to scrutinize, since houses that cheap tend not to be in great condition, since most of the housing stock in the city is quite old.
You can also punch some numbers into https://pittsburghpa.gov/finance/property-tax-worksheet to estimate your tax burden.
At (combined) $1800 a month (~21k a year) you're falling just barely above the US poverty guideline of ~18k a year for 2 people. I'm going to guess that you probably won't qualify for a 100k home loan, nor does it really leave you much wiggle room for utilities, food, and basic maintenance.
And most 100k houses in Pittsburgh are going to require a lot of maintenance unfortunately.
Look at the counties outside of Pittsburgh for lower prop taxes
Very doubtful that you can find a house like that for that price, but you can look around.
Finding a two bedroom house for $100k is going to be hard and possibly in bad shape or bad neighborhood. Somewhere in the 125k-150k range is more likely. If you can find the house, property taxes will be less than your current hoa fees. But you will be responsible for lawn care, house insurance, and roof repair which is usually part of hoa fees. And moving expense and real estate agent fees will cost you atleast $10k. You will also be subject to a 3% states income tax and 1-2% local income tax.
How close do you want to be to Pittsburgh?
Just to add a little color to the OP's likely situation. Following the surfside condo tower collapse that killed 98 people in 2021, Florida passed strict condo maintenance and inspection requirement to counter the decades of deferred maintenance on many buildings that kept condo fees low. Condo associations are having to substantially raise these fees, so the days of being able to afford to live in a high-rise condo on a low-fixed income are over.
Even though the taxes are higher here, the difference should be the same or less than the HOA you're paying now. You'd be looking at 2-3k a year in taxes all in, so rough an extra $250 a month. I think the utilities would be fairly similar, not including gas, but you can do a budget billing for gas year round so you'd probably be looking at $40-50 a month for that.
In that price range though you're looking at a fixer upper, you won't find a remodeled place, and a lot of those properties will come with issues like needing a new roof, new appliances, etc.
The $1800 a month is net though, the poverty line would be for gross income.
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Also increasingly expensive to obtain property insurance in Florida, so that increase is also probably driving the condo fee hikes.
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In Pittsburgh, no/unlikely. It still might be possible in Penn Hills, though the houses that are under $100K sell quickly, often to investors. You'd also have to be wary of the property taxes. My property taxes are well less than half of your condo fees (not including anything else), but my house is assessed quite low too because I bought it outright for $45K. They are likely to continue to rise due to school district issues & the ways things are done in this state.
As someone who recently moved from Florida to Pittsburgh I found most everything is more expensive here, especially utilities and gas.
Even w/o that, $1800 a month won't go very far. Gas, electric, and water are going to at up a good chunk of that.
Yes I’d say so. Over 500 listings under 100k in the greater pittsburgh area. Some may need work, but they’re livable. Especially once you get outside city proper there’s more rural options
I have family in the Crafton/Ingram area (Montour School District). They purchased a home for $135,000 and they pay about $350/month in property taxes. The house is two floors and > 900 ft² – but it's not particularly large.
You can search real estate taxes for specific properties on the Allegheny County Real Estate Portal.
There is a Property Tax Rebate Program for older adults and people with disabilities. The maximum standard rebate is $650/year, but supplemental rebates for qualifying homeowners can boost rebates to $975/year.
That being said, a $100,000 home in Pittsburgh will probably need some work – especially if you need to make your home more physically accessible.
The greater Pittsburgh area is pretty damn big though. You could get a house for that in Beaver Falls or something but not in the city.
There are decent, livable houses in areas like McKeesport, all of the mon valley honestly. Now if they wanna be up in mt Washington… probably not. But there’s lower cost towns around for sure
The further you get from the city, the more easily that's achievable.
One hour from Pittsburgh, there are lots of nice homes, some even with recent rehab work for $100K or less. Ellwood City, New Brighton, certain areas of Beaver Falls, Rochester, Freedom all come to mind. They won't be the most glamorous of neighborhoods but will be safe and amenities close by.
There are 2 bedroom 1 bath condos with $200 and up HOA fees, in areas served by buses and the T in the South Hills area. If you have a shared car between you, that would be more helpful. The areas I’m talking about are safe, family neighborhoods. Decent schools, nice parks. Somewhat walkable. But definitely suburban and not city living.
I got my 3br 1bath house in Verona in 2019 for $150k. It's an old gal (1930) and takes a bunch of maintenance. Much less than that is going to be a money pit of repairs or in an unsafe area, or both.
Granted, Penn Hills Borough has the highest millage rate in the county, so that plays a huge factor in my mortgage (~$1,000/mo).
10 years ago, absolutely. Today, probably not in any decent part of the city. You might be able to make it work in some of the outskirt areas like Penn Hills. Affordable housing and Americans actually owning their homes isn’t profitable for the 0.1 percent.
Yes they will have to be way outside of the city for sure. Maybe Butler or Lawrence counties.
45 min from the city this is doable. My family member bought a two bedroom trailer with a basement recently for $100,000. Good condition too.
If you don’t need to live in Pittsburgh you can find something close by. We live in a 3 story nice old house that was $125k in 2021 and our neighborhood is very safe and quiet.
This place in Freeport looks nice: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/567-Franklin-St-Freeport-PA-16229/78531603_zpid/
Look in the smaller suburbs and you can find something in your budget, I’m sure.
I think you’re going to come up short my friend. You may find someone similar in size but I would imagine it would be a downgrade to what you have in Florida. You may be better of renting, although that equally sucks.
I think there is a condo like apartment, called a co-op (I think), the details of which are not known to me but they seem to be shockingly cheap when one considers the price of normal condos. I think, one condition is that it must be owner occupied. There are definitely some available in very nice neighborhoods.
I think you will really struggle with your budget. You would need to look at surrounding counties.
Places nearby like Wheeling, Steubenville OH, Weirton are all much more doable on your budget than Pittsburgh. Or far suburbs like New Alexandria or Uniontown
I live in Wheeling. Homes are much cheaper and driving to Pittsburgh is a breeze from here. I’m in Pittsburgh once a week, sometimes more.
Utilities have gone up significantly everywhere over the past 6 months with rising energy costs (both natural gas and electric), so I wouldn’t necessarily link that to Pittsburgh.
A friend just moved back to Pittsburgh from Ft. Lauderdale. He was getting hit with increased rent, his auto insurance is very high (double what he pays in PA), and his renters insurance went through the roof. Seems that homeowners insurance is going to blow up in Florida since the last hurricane. Also, sea levels are rising near the coasts and will start too contaminate the ground water in the not too distant future.
I am not familiar with Moundsville, but Weirton, Follansbee WV and Steubenville, Ohio is less than an hour from Pittsburgh and much more affordable. It depends on what you want to be close to. I live less than 40 min from downtown Pittsburgh. I am 20 minutes to the airport. I lived in the city limits for a few years, it was nice to be close to shows, events, all the cool places but now in my 40's I'm not really as interested with all that.
[deleted] OP t1_j3w9y4i wrote
Nope.