Good Homes Under $50,000?

You can find cheap homes for sale all over the country; there are still great towns where you can find cheap homes for sale.  How do you find these towns? Look in areas where the population is slowly declining due to lack of jobs. Look in more rural areas where home development is conservative and where tourism in low or non-existent.

You must be careful to avoid areas where there is a rapid exodus of people and boarded up shops.  Make sure that the community governments are fiscally conservative but stable. Best of all, talk to the residents.

Manufacture home communities

Another great way to buy a cheap home for under $50,000 is to look at manufactured home communities. Avoiding the single-wide “trailer parks”, you can find many lovely communities with resale homes starting in the teens and rarely over $100K. We took a tour of central Florida manufactured home communities recently; you can read about them on our blog under Florida Manufactured Home Communities. Manufactured homes built in the last 2 decades are sturdy and have not suffered more damage in recent hurricanes than more expensive site built homes.

Make your retirement YOUR retirement

Think downsize – big time. So many retirees feel that they must retire in a home large enough to accommodate their visiting children and grandchildren.  Think about this for a minute; you pay for the home all year, the family visits maybe once or twice a year, and secretly, they might prefer to stay in a nearby hotel with privacy and amenities like a pool that you may not have.

Also consider that as you get older, it becomes more difficult to maintain a large free-standing home. One of the most tragic events occurs when one of you becomes seriously ill and must be institutionalized. Suddenly the home is a financial burden that you can no longer enjoy. Medical bills may force you to sell at a loss. Downsizing is a realistic strategy for retiring and makes it easier to find a cheap place to retire.