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Thank you all for your input. I really appreciate it.

As it turns out, the seller wouldn't go lower than 430k. At that
price, the house is still a fair deal, which is why it sold about two
weeks after we looked at it.

We were somewhat relieved that we didn't get the house. 400k would've
put us in the poor house for a while. Instead we started looking in
the 325-375k ballpark. As it turns out, everything under 350k in the
towns we were looking were complete and utter DUMPS! We ended up
finding a gem, though. Its a 1500 sf ranch with a 3/4 finished
basement (walkout, another 600sf of potential living space) on 1.13
acres. We're sacrificing 1 floor, 1 acres and 500sf [against the
house we were originally looking at] but we're at a much more
comfortable 355k purchase price.

I wish you many happy years in the place. But that just reinforces my
impression that I'm gonna have to stay in flyover country- the notion of a
1500 sf walkout on around 1 acre, for 'only' 355k being a good deal, makes
my head hurt. I know all such things are relative (and I have relatives
living in such areas, to boot), but around here such places are common below
200k. In fact, around here, the only things that are commonly north of 200k
are the drywall McMansions and/or waterfront or water access property. I
only paid around 1/3 of what you did, for 1400 sf on a 100x300 lot. (~2/3
acre?)

aem sends....