How do people afford expensive houses in small towns/the middle of nowhere?
Posted by kyungari@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 382 comments
I currently live in NYC but am from another non-American city, so acknowledge this is an ignorant question from a born and raised city person. I get why home prices are insane in NYC, SF, and other big American cities because these are economic hubs with lots of company headquarters and high paying jobs. These are also desirable places to live. But who is buying and living in these multi million dollar properties in small towns/ the middle of nowhere?? Both how can you afford it if youre someone who actually lives there (what job do you have in a small town that pays enough to afford it?) and it’s hard for me to believe if you’re a rich nepo baby you would choose to live in some of these areas
TheBimpo@reddit
Lots of people that live in the middle of nowhere make a lot of money. The middle of nowhere still needs construction, attorneys, business owners, etc..
GhostWatcher007@reddit
And doctors.
greatteachermichael@reddit
Apparently rural area doctors earn more money than city doctors on average specifically because they need an incentive to move out there.
Zephyr_Dragon49@reddit
When I was looking into getting my DVM 10 years ago, I vaguely remember seeing that Texas whould either do full loan forgiveness or 25k forgiveness per year till gone if you used your DVM for large/food animals and they got to decide where to put you which whould likely have been the rural panhandle or west portions.
4Q69freak@reddit
Vets are different, small animal vets in cities make more on average than large animal vets, plus they don’t get emergency farm calls in the middle of the night in freezing rain. There are fewer and fewer large animal vets every year. That’s why some states like Texas have these programs trying to lure more vets into large animal practice.
aznsk8s87@reddit
Yeah I'm not even rural but moving to NYC would be about an $80k paycut for me.
greatteachermichael@reddit
I'm jealous. I teach English as a langauge and am currently living abroad looking to move home. I'd have to teach in a city because international students and immigrants usually get lessons there. So I'd be hit hard from the COL or I have to commute and sit in a car for a long time.
Silver_Breakfast7096@reddit
Or change careers.
JoeyKino@reddit
I taught ESL in a really small city of 20k in a rural part of the country, you might get luckier than you think. We have a pretty large ratio of immigrants for our size. You should narrow it down to states you like and look for bigger per capita populations of non-English speakers.
giraflor@reddit
Came to say that. A friend is teaching ESL in a farming community in NC.
Zephyr_Dragon49@reddit
When I was looking into getting my DVM 10 years ago, I vaguely remember seeing that Texas whould either do full loan forgiveness or 25k forgiveness per year till gone if you used your DVM for large/food animals and they got to decide where to put you which whould likely have been the rural panhandle or west portions.
worldslamestgrad@reddit
My wife is a family med doctor, if we moved 2hrs away from the relatively small city we live in, she could make 50% more money for essentially the same job.
The_Law_of_Pizza@reddit
And yet, you still don't make the move.
Just goes to show you why they have to offer such huge pay increases to try and entice people.
Utaneus@reddit
It could also be that the husband's job is tied to being in town and a 2 hr commute each way every day is not feasible.
A_Fartist@reddit
Right, but that’s definitely part of what they’re saying. You might have to pay both peoples salary in order to get them to move where as there is a broader job market in a city. You have to take into account the household income as much as the singular salary being better.
Utaneus@reddit
Yep, I'm a physician and all the jobs in desirable cities pay far less than rural jobs, like waaaaaay less. My best friend is a roofer in Manhattan and if I moved there I would probably be making less than him or maybe slightly more depending on how much I worked.
Sea2Chi@reddit
Yep I have a friend who works in a medicine in a small isolated town in Alaska. They said it can be very strange how massive the income disparity is there because people who work at the government funded clinic make a crazy amount of money due to the location. However, the locals there are mostly under the poverty line. So it's this weird world where you have a bunch of rich doctors working and living in a town where most of their neighbors are barely scraping by.
DickWhittingtonsCat@reddit
What is a rural doctor at this point? Like a country doctor with a black bag. Travelling nurses and assigned doctors from cities do make a mint going out to chip in.
My friend is a surgeon and ships out to Rockford Illinois- a rather blighted but not huge rust belt city halfway between Chicago and Iowa.
A huge percent of his cases are accidents all the way on the Iowa side of the River. The next big hospital is Iowa city.
Another friend is a doctor near a larger wisconsin city. It’s ruralish but not unpopulated. I don’t think there is any mystery where the money for a million dollar mansion outside of Madison or Moline comes from.
But out in BFE, with the nearest town of 15,000 50+ miles away, where are they getting cash. How many of these actually exist considering overall population. Like what doctors are roaming the countryside once you get out to great plains or mountain west?
ramblinjd@reddit
My wife is in the medical field and one of her coworkers moved from a mid sized city in the South to Nome Alaska and more than doubled her salary (almost tripled).
Flgirl420@reddit
A lot of rural hospitals can’t take most insurances either bc of it being considered rural
Joel_feila@reddit
depending on specialty and just how rural you are talking about
rando435697@reddit
Bingo
AustynCunningham@reddit
Can confirm, friend of mine is a PA (physicians assistant)/primary care provider in a rural area somewhat nearby (50-mile daily commute each way), $250k take home, plus student loans paid off, and crazy good benefits, another friend is a PA at local hospital and makes half that.
Note this is a PA and not an MD, and not a high COL area.
Silver_Breakfast7096@reddit
Teachers. Mail carriers. Bartenders.
SnooChipmunks2079@reddit
A big farmer can be worth a lot too.
CupBeEmpty@reddit
And that random factory or large industrial plant that brings in pretty high paying blue collar labor or oil field that is technically “in the middle of nowhere” but not really.
PraetorianOfficial@reddit
At my 10th HS reunion I was chatting with someone who became a dentist. He said he'd set up practice in a city of like 15000 in the middle of western KS. Nowhereville. I asked why there? Answer: There is a shortage of dentists out yonder and he can charge whatever he wants and they gotta pay it. In the city, there are too many dentists and prices are depressed because of competition. He said he planned to retire in 10 more years.
I just checked... he has not retired and this chat was 30 years ago. He has quite a large practice, now, with multiple dentists working for him. I imagine he's worth many, many $millions.
catslikepets143@reddit
Veterinarians too.
mvanpeur@reddit
Yep. I grew up in farming country. All the big houses in the middle of nowhere belonged to surgeons.
TheBimpo@reddit
Nurses, veterinarians, engineers…areas outside of the coasts aren’t exclusively farms
shelwood46@reddit
Also, when there are company with multiple locations -- I know a few people who worked for big companies in NJ, and got transferred to other places, including smallish towns. So they sold their expensive house in NJ and suddenly they needed to buy something nearly as expensive, for tax reasons, in a much lower COL area and went from a normal house to a frigging honking big house.
94plus3@reddit
They NEEDED to buy it for tax reasons?
Live_Today1943@reddit
Yes, if you sell a house and then buy another one for significantly less money than what you sold for, they hit you with a ton of taxes.
Dangerous-Safe-4336@reddit
No. You can just write off 250/500,000 of profit if you meet the ownership and residency requirements.
Snirbs@reddit
As someone from NJ, I have a lot more than $500k equity. So there would still be a substantial bill to pay.
SnooChipmunks2079@reddit
If you sell your house, and sink the proceeds back into purchasing a new house, there isn’t a taxable income event.
Dangerous-Safe-4336@reddit
That hasn't been true in a long time.
SnooChipmunks2079@reddit
Ugh. I’m old.
Aspen9999@reddit
Right now, if you’ve lived in your home for 2 yrs, a single persons capital gains exclusion is 250k and a married couple 500k.
4MuddyPaws@reddit
Yep. It used to be if you were over 55 you got a one time capital gains pass to downsize.i guess the assumption was you were empty testers and wanted a smaller place fir retirement.
You can't do that now and a lot of people can't afford that tax hit.
alligator124@reddit
This isn’t always true though, right? We sold our house to come back to where a we grew up. We made a lot on the sale and didn’t buy a new house. We didn’t pay capital gains though because the house had been our primary residence for x amount of years.
I knew that required length of time varied state to state, but are there states where it doesn’t matter, and you pay capital gains no matter what? I just never considered that.
Julesagain@reddit
You used to get a one-time exemption from capital gains tax on your primary residence to move to a presumably smaller, empty nest retirement house. Another comment said that hasn't been true for a long time, I dont knoq if they mean the taxes or the tax break. But, that's likely what the "for tax reasons" means, because it definitely was true for a long time.
smartie_mcfarty@reddit
My old boss did that. They were from Long Beach, California. He, his wife, their 3 kids and her brother all lived in a small 3 bedroom home they bought for 300,000. They came to Northeast Ohio and were able to buy a 5 bedroom with a fully finished basement apartment on a golf course in an upper class area for just a little more than they paid in California.
Previous_Reindeer339@reddit
And engineers.
Think-Location3830@reddit
If it’s an older house it was most likely inherited too. Especially if it looks like it could use some maintenance.
Some of these “Main Street USA” towns have been around awhile and the same families live there.
The_Law_of_Pizza@reddit
Which is, frankly, a small part of the reason why they have to pay professionals to move and live there.
The "old families" dynamic in small towns is awful and sometimes frightening.
That guy who is the current sheriff, and his dad was the mayor, and his grandpa was the prior sheriff - those people can do literally whatever they want and are functionally above the law.
HammyOverlordOfBacon@reddit
Not to mention some companies pay extremely well for some jobs in small cities because of the LCOL
Ok_Bandicoot_814@reddit
Exactly, I grew up in South NJ. We're 90% of our economy is tourism, the other half is the service sector, and the other half is construction. My dad made $33 an hour, and even during a bad you're routinely made over or about 86k, and that's not even including overtime or weekends, which there were plenty of years where I would suspect he was probably making a little less an hour but way more a year because he worked 7 days a week. One sister now works as a trauma nurse, while one previously worked as a dispatcher and I would suspect for a while they made well below what he made.
triggsmom@reddit
Farmers
Alycion@reddit
And some people will just do the commute for their middle class jobs and live in the middle of nowhere to get more bang for their buck. You try to hit an area that is growing do your property worth increases faster. Get in when it’s cheap, sell when it’s high.
QuentinMagician@reddit
And all the independent tradesmen are usually cash only
Historical_Low4458@reddit
It's like people can't comprehend this fact when they say things like "there's no jobs there."
Semirhage527@reddit
One of the richest small town guys I know owns the local pool business. Installing pools for everyone in town leads to $$$
larryjrich@reddit
I live in a rural area, and all the multimillionaire dollar homes are second homes from people that live out of town or out of state. It's also possible in some towns where you have families that are decended from the founders of that town and they own all the land and all the businesses so they are rich while everyone else is just scraping by.
Odd_Consequence_6044@reddit
It depends on where you are, and your exact definition of the nebulous terms “small town” and “rural area”, but don’t discount the folks who have lived there for 6 or 7 generations. Land is one of the only things they’re not making more of, and not all “fine old families” who have lived there forever have devolved into MAGA-voting meth addicts.
Property values rise and some folks sell a few hundred acres and then build a big house on a hill like you referred to. They are asset-rich and manage to figure out a viable cash flow - they’re not just doctors and lawyers, but they are educated, and moving back to the country after college was a choice, not an admission of defeat or sign of failure. It’s the old dichotomy of “natives” vs “move-ins”. Both kinds make up the group you’re asking about. Rural life holds an irresistible appeal for many people.
In the “Cletus Safari” sociopolitical media portrayals that became so popular after Trump won his first election, the narrative was cartoonishly one-sided and reflected the bias and/or ignorance of whoever was making the documentary or podcast, or shooting the photographs and writing the articles. Hillbilly Elegy was a damn joke (though some parts were minimally accurate).
In short, there are regular folks out there. You just don’t hear their stories much. Their lives are somewhere between a stereotype and an exception. Thank you for your question, OP.
Classic-Obligation35@reddit
Not every home in small towns is in the multimillion dollar range or was, small town need low wage median wage workers too. Some of us had families who bought it when prices were cheaper and we stayed because we want to work in our towns.
socabella@reddit
I grew up in NYC, now live in Atlanta, but spent a lot of time around Texas.
Sometimes they made a lot of money in the city, but prefer to live in a small town now. Town attorneys, doctors, the random man who owns all the town gas stations etc. A lot of people assume that folks with money want to be in a big city, which isn’t the case.
My brother is a surgeon making about $750k a year in a random small U.S. town. He loves it with no plans to leave. He lives in a 2 bed and drives a sedan. Money doesn’t always have to scream.
thetonytaylor@reddit
Usually a lot of people in NYC but in areas like Sussex County or Morris County NJ because they’re on a big lot, lake front, and cheaper than what they would pay for their NYC shoebox. Same thing happens elsewhere.
Other people work remote and since proximity to work doesn’t matter they choose rural / suburban areas as well.
ilovjedi@reddit
I’m in Maine so our middle of nowhere can be kind of along the coast. So it’s usually a really rich city person’s other house. But post pandemic our housing prices have risen a lot our house has doubled in value. I assume it’s people working remotely.
Significant-Pen-2274@reddit
Never mind multi-million-dollar properties. Just look at what $900K buys you in the middle of Iowa vs. Queens.
Lanky-Wonder-4360@reddit
Could it be that these are second homes? In my locale, few if any of the ultra expensive homes are primary residences. Some are weekend houses and some are occupied only a few weeks per year.
travelinmatt76@reddit
A lot of people who make tons of money want to live rural. If I ever make tons of money that's what I intend to do, but I just want a small house with a big workshop
beans8414@reddit
Do urbanites really think that everyone outside the city limits is a broke dirt farmer?
BloodwineSupernova@reddit
Yeah this whole thread comes off super ignorant. Half of the replies imply the only way is working remotely or commuting.
There’s a ton of wealth in rural America. Not as much as the cities, obviously, but I know dozens of rural multi-millionaires that didn’t work for a major company in a “big” city. They’re mostly self made but there’s generational wealth too. Business owners in every industry - finance, tourism, retail, dining, and definitely agriculture, all can be VERY successful in towns of 50-100k or even less and buy multi million dollar homes.
BelligerentWyvern@reddit
Rural and suburban places still have wealthy people and jobs/services they provide.
So either they inherited it or they are the same as in a big city, a lawyer, a doctor etc.
Confident-Sector2660@reddit
Business owners make more money thank you think. Sometimes car dealers who live in small cities, can have net worths above 30 million.
SlamClick@reddit
Our local paver in my city of 75k is worth over 100M
FLOHTX@reddit
What is a paver? Like someone who owns a road construction business?
SlamClick@reddit
Yes.
BoysenberryUnhappy29@reddit
People who commute, or own/manage local businesses.
It's not uncommon to commue 30 minutes each way in America, and not unheard of to commute an hour or more.
BloodwineSupernova@reddit
You still make the assumption that wealth requires an urban center. It really doesn’t. I know plenty of many-millionaire farmers and contractors.
LiqdPT@reddit
My commute is frequently an hour and it's only 18 miles...
CupBeEmpty@reddit
Heh. This is like me and my sister. She lived in Atlanta and I lived in Maine. Both of us commuted for about an hour to work. She’d call me or I’d call her when we were commuting. Both of us were usually getting to work/home most days. She was going 15 miles or so I was going around 55 miles.
Julesagain@reddit
I was gonna say, an hour commute is pretty standard here in Atlanta. After decades of that I got a job 4 miles away. Before covid it would often take me 30-40 minutes to go that 4 miles.
Teahouse_Fox@reddit
Sounds like northern VA.
Individual_Check_442@reddit
Last time I drove down the I-95 through Northern Virginia and took an hour to go five miles ot sure didn’t seem like the middle of nowhere
Teahouse_Fox@reddit
Working in northern VA is an exercise in masochism. It took me 30 minutes to get to work, and three hours to drive home. Unless you really like audiobooks, it was a horrible grind.
stuck_behind_a_truck@reddit
Los Angeles would like to have a word…
LiqdPT@reddit
I used to live in the Valley. I think it took me 30 min to get home 3 or 4 miles.
Realslimshady7@reddit
I thought “the I-95”? Hmm and then checked your flair. Yep, that tracks.
Individual_Check_442@reddit
lol yup probably the most fool proof way to identify us.
YourGuyK@reddit
I'm surprised you put the "I" in there.
triple-dog-dar3@reddit
Do you live in a small town in the middle of no where like OP is talking about?
SexBucketListProject@reddit
30 minutes. Lol.
When I lived in Pasadena I once commuted to Santa Monica for a (paid) internship. 1 hour minimum. I usually stopped halfway to meet a friend at the gym, cause it cut the in car time drastically but I still got home at the same time.
When I worked in San Jose there were several people in the office who lived in san Francisco. Then I got assigned to a San Francisco office project and I found myself doing the opposite for a few weeks. Nightmares.
OceanPoet87@reddit
Why not take CalTrain?
SexBucketListProject@reddit
For the SF? I did a couple times. It's still a long time.
308_shooter@reddit
My wife's uncle lives in Riverside and commutes to DTLA
stuck_behind_a_truck@reddit
Holy cow. I just moved from that area and that’s a 2/2.5 hour drive one way.
I moved to a town in the middle of the country that’s a bit of a commuter town and the commute to the city is…30 minutes. And rush hour doesn’t start at 11 -m and last until 8 pm.
My number one reason for leaving the area was traffic.
redwolf1219@reddit
My uncle used to own a company in San Jose, and he would commute from Hollister every morning, with my grandpa commuting from Gilroy. San Francisco would be so much worse than that😭
Drunktraveler99@reddit
By me an hour commute would get you about 15 miles into the city so nowhere near middle of nowhere. Middle of nowhere would take about 2 hours during rush hour
iowaman79@reddit
I drive about 20 miles in less than a half hour to get to work, an hour on the highway would get me two counties away
buefordwilson@reddit
Same.
CupBeEmpty@reddit
One of my favorite examples is one of my best friends and his wife.
They own this beautiful, house, horse barn, horses, fields, etc. It pretty far out in the country.
He’s a very well paid long distance commercial pilot for a major company.
He chose to live out there because he just likes the country life.
His wife is a nurse locally who I know makes decent but not jaw dropping money. He makes more than you think because he’s also an entrepreneur that sells big ticket items that country folks enjoy. His wife also does horse sales and apparently that’s kind of lucrative.
So he lives like 4 hours from work in the boonies up a half mile gravel road.
But his work is flying big commercial planes for a company that gives you a schedule well in advance.
He will drive to work fly all over the world for 3-5 days not staying at home and then get home and have several days off before it happens again. She just works 9-5 locally. Not far from home. He manages his business while traveling and his business partner is the day to day guy.
So nothing about what they do is weird at all and I don’t know what their house farm structures and property is worth in that low cost of living area but I guarantee it’s enough to buy a really really nice house anywhere in the US.
JimBones31@reddit
And if you're commuting 30 minutes in the countryside, that's 20-30 miles.
308_shooter@reddit
I commute 43 miles. It takes about 45 - 50 minutes.
JimBones31@reddit
Sounds about right.
Excellent_Economy762@reddit
I worked about a 30 to 45 minute commute for 25 years going from 40 to 60 a year. I live in a small town outside of a big city. My husband also commuted about an hour each way for most of his life making a little more than me. We lived within our means and now he is retired and I will be retiring soon. We are not rich but travel a bit and are happy
AlanStanwick1986@reddit
There are people who have done well in life everywhere. Most small towns have a person or two that is a millionaire. My wife is from a small town in Kansas. The next town over is even smaller with about 600 people. There is a family that lives there that is one of the largest landowners in Kansas and Colorado. This guy is worth millions, I went to college with his daughter. Yet they live in a tiny town where there isn't shit to do but get drunk.
Auntie_Venom@reddit
I just referenced in another comment, the Kansas City suburb has a lot of multimillion dollar homes… One belonging to the co-founder and CEO of Garmin worth $4.4 billion. Kansas and KC has more to offer than most people realize, there’s quite a few corporate HQs here… Hallmark Cards, H&R Block, AMC Theaters, (formerly Sprint) 2nd TMobile HQ, Russell Stover, JE Dunn, Black & Veatch, RallyHouse, and more… There’s a LOT of OLD money. There’s more to offer here than most people realize, besides what they show of the city during commercial breaks for Chiefs football games. Oh and we’re a World Cup host city so that says something…
Alert-Painting1164@reddit
Yeah my wife went to high school in KC with all the kids of these families. But KC is a decent sized city.
Auntie_Venom@reddit
You and I know it’s a decent-sized city, but most people who’ve never been here think it’s simply a flyover place, because on Chiefs games or whatever they only talk about the population of KCMO rather the entire metro, as a way to give broad strokes to the scale of the area which is widely misleading. Most people think KC is a small town. Although, I’m curious how the media will refer to it once the Chiefs move to KCK and the HQ and training facilities in Olathe with the organization spread out between two different counties.
Positive-Avocado-881@reddit
The truth is that there’s a lot more rich people in the world than you think there is.
Gecko23@reddit
And they don't all live in large cities.
Positive-Avocado-881@reddit
Yeah like, why would they? Usually the taxes in the city are higher. That matters to the truly rich lol
QuietObserver75@reddit
Because the cities offer things rural areas don't. If you make a lot of money, even with the higher taxes it doesn't cramp your lifestyle at all. They all bitch about taxes, but in the end, it never stops them from spending how they want.
SenseAndSaruman@reddit
It matters to everyone how much the government is taking out of your pocket.
poopiebutt505@reddit
More services needed and infrastructure costs more money. Duh.
stuck_behind_a_truck@reddit
The truly rich have tax havens. The truly poor don’t have the incomes to owe taxes. It really is the working and middle classes paying the majority of taxes.
OO_Ben@reddit
Man I see all these wildly expensive apartments and homes in like NYC. If I had money for something like that, I'd buy 100+ acres of country in the Northwoods and live like a hermit.
PetriDishCocktail@reddit
I just saw a statistic that 11% of American families are now millionaires. But, that's mainly due to the rapid escalation in home prices. If you look at families that have $1,000,000 or more in investable assets it's only 3 to 4% of Americans. But, that's still a significant number when you consider there's 340 million people.
VeronicaMarsupial@reddit
A lot of millionaires are people who are close to retirement age, who have been saving and investing for decades but not yet drawn down their retirement funds much. They're not necessarily the people with outwardly affluent lifestyles, just people with more financial security built up than most people, often helped by being thrifty.
Minute-Frame-8060@reddit
That's me. I live well below my means and drive an 11-year-old car. It's a modest car at that, so it's been paid off for 10 years. 10 years til retirement and I don't plan on living much past 75 if I even get there, so it's nice to know I'll at least be able to retire.
froggz01@reddit
I hope you’re making car payments to yourself so you can pay cash when the time comes to get rid of the old car. Last thing you need is a car note when you retire.
Glad-Watch3506@reddit
They say they're living well below their means, so they're actively saving.
I do the same. The mindset is more just don't spend money, rather than put x amount in savings that would have gone to payments/etc. Savings is the default.
Glad-Watch3506@reddit
My mom is one of those. Semi-retired, doesn't touch their funds, and lives off what she makes and the portion of dad's pension (he died) that she gets. House is paid off, and has doubled in value since they built it nearly 20 years ago, she drives a 10 year old car.
CanaKitty@reddit
Even a starter home in my area goes for a million now 💔
No_Profession1935@reddit
Another solid piece of advice my folks told me was "that $250,000 car you see them driving? "They put it all on credit and haven't paid it in 6 months."
Positive-Public-2620@reddit
That’s actually pretty unlikely. Not a lot of banks giving 250k loans to people that can’t pay.
Dull-Geologist-8204@reddit
Yes they will. I will never forget my late fiancé went to try and get a loan for a car he could afford. They wouldn't give t to hm but offered him one for a car he couldn't afford. They do it on purpose because they want the interest they can get from you being late and the other hidden costs. We just went without a car instead.
Positive-Public-2620@reddit
That is a story of someone that they expected to pay, not a rich person that they just shrugged off for running off with 250k. I didn’t say banks were moral. I said they do no not go unpaid.
shelwood46@reddit
Heh, having lived in an area with a lot of rich people, banks are way more likely to give huge loans to rich people who somehow never pay them back. They can pay. They simply do not.
Positive-Public-2620@reddit
This is absolutely not how banks work.
SlamClick@reddit
I don't believe that.
Teahouse_Fox@reddit
But in the middle of small town U$A rich can be relative.
My mother in law lived in a large, beautiful, house, in ground pool, beautiful views, on acres of land in the middle of nowhere WV.
The house sold for about what an average middle class house would go for here. But, if you could pick up that house and transplant it here it would be in the low 7 digits.
Positive-Avocado-881@reddit
No, there are people who own homes much nicer than that in WV and that’s their second or third home lol. Those are the rich people I’m talking about.
Teahouse_Fox@reddit
If they have estate sized properties that youre talking about, then they may not have made their money in the area. And there's no accounting for generational wealth.
AutofluorescentPuku@reddit
This is dependent on your concept of “rich”. There are a lot of people who have built up some wealth, but can’t
Positive-Avocado-881@reddit
No, I’m talking about objectively rich people lol. There’s way more of those people than the average person realizes. Obviously people who are objectively poor will think even the middle of the middle class is rich, but I’m not talking about that.
LeeVMG@reddit
It's not objective. It is a matter of perspective.
I don't hate all millionaires for their life choices, hell I'd love to be one some day.
Hating billionaires (especially the 100bil plus crowd) is basic math and a civic service.
However much you hate (really seriously) rich people, you physically can't hate them enough.
Positive-Avocado-881@reddit
You people really want to make this into a whole other conversation when it’s not that deep of a statement. OP asked who could buy those homes, and I said there’s more rich people in society than they realize. That’s it.
LeeVMG@reddit
Sorry, the phrase "objectively rich" kinda bothered me. Because anyone without tens of millions really is feeling the pinch right now.
Not deleting my comment as a testament to my stupidity.
SlamClick@reddit
That's a tiny, tiny group compared to the 1, 10, 20 million crowd.
AutofluorescentPuku@reddit
That’s kinda my point. When you hear “rich” what is meant? To me that the mega-millionaires. They’re a rarified group.
SlamClick@reddit
Those aren't even billionaires. They're like a group of 20 people on the planet.
Spongedog5@reddit
The rich people that you know the names of are actually a different group much above normal rich people, which is a goliath body comparatively.
MamaMidgePidge@reddit
I'm from a town of 1200. When I was growing up, I was friends with the daughters of the town doctor, the town lawyer, a man who owned his own roofing company. My uncle owned a jewelry store in a small city about 20 miles away that did very well. Several other family members were (are) very prosperous farmers. I babysat for neighbors and the husband was doing extremely well as as a stock broker. Friends of the family owned a local hardware store. The owners of the local pharmacy (pharmacists themselves) did well. My dad's best friend's father was a judge. The restaurant/ bar owner, where I worked as a teen (only two restaurants in town) was quite well off.
Plenty of people with money in rural areas.
Admiral_AKTAR@reddit
You know all those apartments in NYC that Mamdani started taxing. Where did you think a lot of those people actually lived? A lot of them live in large estates out in the middle of the woods.
Megalocerus@reddit
I worked in rural Connecticut for the owner of Crabtree & Evelyn, which also owned operations in Wales and rural France. They sold out to a wealthy Asian family for less than they hoped, but they still received 60 million when a million was worth a lot more. They enjoyed good times in Europe, but they liked their big gardens on their large country estate as well.
I left to work for other privately held companies worth 50 to 200 million owned by single people (and can testify to the risks of private enterprise.) But these were all people who enjoyed time in major cities but spent most of their time in large estates outside any major city. They started and grew these companies (sometimes, it was their father) and did not especially prefer moving away.
hobokobo1028@reddit
Have you heard of working from home?
TheSniperBoy0210@reddit
Some people use them as 2nd homes from away from larger cities. Some people work remotely.
ExtensionMoose1863@reddit
Geoarbitrage... make your money in the HCOL city and then live/spend it in a LCOL area. Easiest way to make your $$ go further
MrTralfaz@reddit
I live in a small tourist town. Half the population is wealthy people who have built vacation homes, half is people living in run down apartments and houses working service jobs.
ninja9351@reddit
On the east coast especially, there’s a fair bit of old money that lives out in the country. Of course all the other answers about rural doctors and business owners are right as well, but the old money is a factor.
Njaala@reddit
They don't. If tourism is big they just leave the cities they were born and raised in, that their families were born and raised in and quietly disappear. Or if they're lucky enough to make juuust enough they rent some ridiculously inflated house that said tourists/private equity company snatched up.
If it isn't a touristy area the town just slowly dies. People who commute that make good money try to make it work for as long as possible, then it becomes a kind of ghost vacation town, then it just becomes a ghost town.
Twitche1@reddit
I work for a large corporation in another state and work from home. A lot of people do that and choose to life in a small town.
Triscuitmeniscus@reddit
Houses that are truly “in the middle of nowhere” by and large *are* cheap, it’s just that most of what you think of as “middle of nowhere” is actually “middle of 200,000 people within a 45 minute drive who all need doctors, dentists, lawyers, contractors, car dealers, restaurants, etc.”
Commercial-Catch-615@reddit
We have what most on here would probably consider a large ranch (1000+ acres) that has been in the family since 1831. I work part time from home and my husband is involved in local government, we also own a couple businesses in the nearest town (which is considerably smaller than any of you are thinking when I say town - if you’re thinking 4 digit numbers in population you’re way too high). We built a new 4200 sq ft house just before Covid that would cost double to build now. A lot of the larger places around me have similar stories about being in the family for a long time and families continue to pass it down. Sure the taxes suck, but not having a mortgage obviously makes up for that.
WhatABeautifulMess@reddit
Even with Jersey being the most densely populated state and Long Island etc being similarly dense you’d probably be shocked by how quickly you could get to a place you’d consider “the middle of nowhere” from Manhattan and how many people commute from there to NYC. Many of them are hybrid now so they might not be in everyday. But there some area of Jersey that are spread out and people have commuted from Pennsylvania to NYC or West Virginia to DC for as long as I’ve been alive (almost 40).
TheJokersChild@reddit
Yes. West Jersey is a thing and life beyond Rt. 287 is vastly underrated. Only problem is, NJTransit doesn't have full-schedule stations until Dover or Raritan, so a lot of people who live out in Warren or Hunterdon Counties still need to drive to their train.
Bstallio@reddit
Business owners, and rich retirees, and people who left to make money and came back
Ok_Buy_9703@reddit
Yje same people that have a million dollar home in the country have 6 million dollar homes in the city.
TheJokersChild@reddit
Wait, was there a secession we didn't hear about?
007Munimaven@reddit
Adore my exquisite small town 30 miles from two small cities! And this is after 28 years in NYC and a suburban childhood. Prices are a lot cheaper than the over-rated city.
Vito_The_Magnificent@reddit
The small town i spent my teen years in had many wealthy familys.
Gravel pits, a large tree trimming contractor, landscape supply, a metal casting company, a paving company, a string of car dealerships, community bank owner, a few farmers, horse breeder/boarder.
There was a small private food manufacturing company owned by a husband and wife there that was earning $15 million a year.
aeternumvaga@reddit
Farmers. Don't listen to hype in the media, the farmers are rolling in it.
On_my_last_spoon@reddit
Even just over the bridge in Jersey there’s towns with places to live that aren’t $2 million. It’s more expensive than some places, but there’s still $300k homes to be had.
Cowboywizard12@reddit
To add in another thing, remote work is huge these days
Imaginary-Cherry-119@reddit
I am surprised I'm not seeing farming noted anywhere here, either. Whether they farm the land or rent it out, people in my neighboring small towns make a lot of money with their farmland.
Ok-Walk-8040@reddit
Lots of those people are doctors, dentists, or successful small business owners who make a lot of money and can afford to live there. Even small towns can have rich people living there. Some people can also work from home so they don't have to be as close to a city.
lwaxanawayoflife@reddit
My friend is a doctor. She could make much more money in a small town in real dollars. Then, the price of real estate is less. She doesn’t feel it’s worth it.
Imaginary_Ladder_917@reddit
Isn’t that the point though? The wages are high because it is not seen as desirable, but I know there are people from small towns who are becoming doctors whowould prefer to stay in a small town. I have a friend who’s just starting her residency this summer and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if she stayed in this area, which is rural, but there are three hospitals within about 20 minutes from here. Some people prefer that.
lwaxanawayoflife@reddit
Yes, that was the whole idea behind my post.
superx308@reddit
Don't let reddit fool you, there are millions of Americans that have plenty of money. And many of them live in the middle of nowhere.
hacksong@reddit
Even if you're not filthy, greasy rich, moving to BFE can stretch a modest passive income much further than a big city.
Somewhere not developed in Idaho is going to be much, much cheaper than Miami.
Bananapopcicle@reddit
My aunt and uncle have a big house with ~10 acres in the middle of nowhere Oregon. He works for LifeFlight as a helicopter nurse and she retired as one. She was also a teaching nurse.
Their town has 600 people, the next one over has ~13,000.
mlo9109@reddit
Remote work, if you're lucky enough to get a high paying remote job. I live in a rural area where remote work is my only option to make a living wage, so took whatever I could get.
Our housing market was wrecked by wealthy remote workers from major cities moving here during the pandemic. As a result, I, and most locals, can't afford to buy a house.
I joke that I did remote work wrong. I should've struggled a few years in Boston after college and come back to Maine to buy a house with my FU money from my big girl job that went remote during the pandemic.
ComprehensiveFun6875@reddit
A lot of people will live in a small town and then commute to work to the nearest “city”, typically 45mins-1 hour away. If anything, it’s a prime location for a rich person. They get a large house with privacy with quietness while still remaining relatively close to their job.
DeekanKwaz@reddit
Lots of good jobs to be had in many places. Trade workers make bank. Also, there are lots of people in lots of debt.
ramblinjd@reddit
My grandpa lived on a ranch with about 10,000 acres and had a 5,000 sqft house with multiple master suites.
He ran the only bank in the county and land cost about $10/acre.
bluepanic21@reddit
Where are there multimillion dollar properties in the middle of nowhere
helloitsmejenkem@reddit
Everywhere. All over the country.
topsicle11@reddit
Lots of places, but especially places with a lot of natural beauty. Get on Zillow and go look at little random towns in Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, etc. Or, for that matter, even rural Texas. People like big houses on big tracts of land in beautiful settings in areas that offer a particular lifestyle.
JointAccount24601@reddit
Quite common. I live in a LCOL area of rural GA. There's a $3mil 120 acre estate a few miles away
SlamClick@reddit
A lot in here in small town Tennessee.
Historical-Gap-9417@reddit
Definitely! I’m in a town of less than 1,000 people in the middle of nowhere and we still have millionaires who have lived here their whole lives (they own large businesses) and new builds that are being constructed by wealthy folks who can either work remotely or are retired moving here from Nashville.
William_Maguire@reddit
Yeah, my town has less than 1000 also and the company I work for averages about $6 Million in sales a month, I'm not sure how much of that is profit, but the owner is doing very well and just built a new house across the street from the house he grew up in. He owns 3 businesses too.
BlueFuzzyCrocs@reddit
All over the place. Check out your local lakes and you'll find some
William_Maguire@reddit
Lake houses typically aren't lived in full time. They are usually second homes for rich people that live in cities
BlueFuzzyCrocs@reddit
We have so many lakes here that it's pretty split. Yes, a good chunk of them are owned by people from Minneapolis or Chicago, but our locals occupy many of them all year too. Some lakes are also more locally owned than others
Hudson100@reddit
Like this one. Upper Michigan. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/19960-Thousand-Island-Lake-Rd-Watersmeet-MI-49969/2112558091_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare
Auntie_Venom@reddit
There’s quite a few in the suburbs around Kansas City. The guy that owns Garmin, Min Kao’s net worth is $4.4 BILLION
sneeds_feednseed@reddit
Lakes, mountains, coastlines, hilly prairies, or sometimes there’s just a plot of land with a huge ass house on it 🤷♂️
PossibilityOk782@reddit
I live in a town of under 5k and there are a few over 1m, I don't understand who buys them or why but they exist
Pale_Row1166@reddit
I live in South Dakota and we’re swimming in them. It’s an undercover rich playground here.
wastedpixls@reddit
Absolutely everywhere - we have them in Kansas, usually with acreage in the 80-900+ acre levels.
I have a buddy that sells hunting land. The owner of Yeti has a ranch in western Kansas for deer hunting and it's worth millions.
EnvironmentalRun4107@reddit
its all over them in my town in ohio
Dorsai56@reddit
There are places where a property which would cost multimillions in NY or California go for 300-400k.
Dave_A480@reddit
The West Coast is full of them....
texanbychoice106@reddit
Houses are cheaper. Location location. If you have a WFH job where you work from is your choice.
Ziegelmarkt@reddit
Not exactly "middle of nowhere" but this is why I chose to stay in Cincinnati instead of move to NYC or Chicago. With my job I had to fly everywhere so living near an airport was really the only criteria. Why pay $2800 (at the time) for a tiny apartment in manhattan when I could have a 1500 sq/ft home on a 1/2 acre wooded lot for an $800 mortgage? Saving $250,000 over 10 years means I was debt free and better able to afford that that "multimillion dollar" home when we later moved and upgraded.
Still debt free and retired at 42.
KamtzaBarKamtza@reddit
I've known wealthy people who lived in the middle of nowhere. Some worked high paying jobs remotely or hybrid. And some were business owners of manufacturing companies. It worked to their advantage to be in the middle of nowhere because the cost of labor was lower.
cardinalmidnight@reddit
I agree, I understand how they can afford it, but when I look at those job markets it seems like you get more bang for your buck in nyc
Bear_necessities96@reddit
Old money exists in small towns too maybe thru real estate business or cattle and farming or maybe a cover up for illicit businesses but still there’s rich people in the countryside
ConcentrateNo7268@reddit
Also not uncommon for an American to drive 100 miles to work. It’s not most but many do
bryslittlelady@reddit
I don't live in the middle of nowhere but I do work from home.
Robviously-duh@reddit
Warren Buffett lives in Omaha... rich people are all across America..
Jub1982@reddit
You don’t think there are high paying jobs in small towns? Ignorant
Julesagain@reddit
Yeah the "middle of nowhere" is so fucking rude. We bought in what was almost rural in the 80s, and the city has grown around us like kudzu, and it sucks. Can't wait to get out of here.
Due-Garage4146@reddit
We could never move to a small town. We don’t have any education or skills. I never finished high school, my wife doesn’t have a formal education either and has been in the US for 15 years now. We do own a couple properties. I do light blue collar work and she works at a factory plant. Together, we take home around $14k a month. But we would never make this kind of money outside of the metro area we live in. I know it’s not a lot compared to what people with degrees and people with education make, but we’re able to pay our bills, our mortgage and the extra income from our tenants.
reddock4490@reddit
I read a really interesting article years ago about how the real political power in America doesn’t really lie in the hands of the Epstein class (the term wasn’t coined yet at this point), but more so in the diffuse network of people with enough money to hold a kind of local fiefdom in their industry and region that gives them a lot of sway in county and state politics.
One of the examples they gave was for instance a peanut farmer in Dothan, Alabama with a net worth of like 40 million that just has every single public servant for twenty miles tied up in favors and networking.
Point being, there’s millions of people like that guy all over the United States, with varying levels of actual wealth and influence, but their entire way of life is tied up in hyper local power structures that they could never maintain if they moved to the nearest “big” city like Charlotte or Birmingham or Sacramento or Denver or wherever. They thrive in small towns and rural communities
SpiritedBug6942@reddit
My small rural town is currently full of rich people from the cities. It’s dead quiet in the winter, but everyone starts showing up to their second homes here in March. It will be quiet again by October though. I live for those nice winter days where no one is on the roads.
Shadow_of_wwar@reddit
The very rich part of my tiny town included a lot of doctors, lawyers, etc. who operated business mainly in a nearby city.
Some people just like living out here, and have the financial means to do it so they just do.
bryku@reddit
Many people retire in small towns, so they made their money in other areas.
That being said, job still exist in small towns. You would be surprised just how important some of these towns can be. Many big cites have smaller water/waste plants in smaller surrounding towns. There are also massive power lines, internet cables, and highways running all over... these have to be repaired and maitained despite being in odd locations.
I'll give you an example. I met a guy in montana who was basically a glorified landscaper. He cut trees, leveled the gravel roads, snow blowed, dug up grass, and stuff like that. He made 100k a year... you want to know why? Because this was where all the internet and power cables ran across a mountain from 1 city to another. If those cables were destroyed... those companies would lose thousands of dollars a day. A whole city of people relied on those powerlines and it is worth it to keep that area safe from natural disasters and easily to access for repairs.
There are tons of these odd jobs you might not expect.
Technical_Rich_3080@reddit
Second homes for the wealthy.
Satsuki7104@reddit
Sometimes they make a lot of money first and move to get away from the big cities.
CerberusInExile@reddit
Smaller towns have a smaller cost of living. A house that is 500,000 in an urban city adjacent suburb might only be 200,000 farther away in the countryside.
DontRunReds@reddit
Uh, not always. Signed an Alaskan.
200k might get you a single wide trailer, might. Condos are even going for more them that. Most homes are 500k or more now.
Party_Chance_9124@reddit
But $1m is $1m. And being able to buy a $1m property is not a gimme anywhere. It might get you less/no options in NYC, but you’ll be a high earner in a lucrative industry.
milliemargo@reddit
Yup. Our mortgage is cheaper than the rent was on our apartment. And we didn't even live in a major city, just a shithole mid-sized city.
Next_Sun_2002@reddit
Yeah. My brother just moved from NY (just outside of the city) to Indiana. The mortgage on his new house is a lot less than the rent, and the house has a *lot* more space and rooms
Suppafly@reddit
Doctors and lawyers and people with generational wealth. Not to mention that you are probably over estimating how much those houses cost since you're from somewhere with some of the highest real estate costs in the country.
betterbetterthings@reddit
To add to other people’s comments, many people live in one area but work remotely for a completely different one.
My brother worked for Californian company while living in Michigan for many years. He had Californian salary, which was higher than what he would get paid working for a company in Midwest.
katertot-_-@reddit
10/10 if I made enough to own a 2million dollar home. Why on earth would I spend that to live in some 2000sq ft condo in a big city where I have to worry about crime, traffic, noise, light pollution, etc? When I could instead live on a private piece of land with gorgeous views, a big backyard, and a 4000sq ft house in a smaller town with less crime and traffic. U may prefer the city life but they're are plenty of people who hate cities like nyc. Bruh I don't even like to visit big cities. I'm only 90min from a larger city and I avoid it.
Kayl66@reddit
I don’t think there are really a lot of >$2 million homes in the middle of nowhere. By middle of nowhere, I mean more than 2 hours drive from a town of at least 50k people. Of the ones that do exist, many are owned by people who made/make money in bigger cities - second homes, retirees. And then there are the small town doctors, dentists, lawyers, etc.
Accomplished_Time761@reddit
Generally speaking, if it's in the middle of nowhere it's not unaffordable.
mezolithico@reddit
Make your money in an expensive area, housing appreciates there. Sell house move somewhere and buy all cash
Zephyr_Dragon49@reddit
My house was $55k in 2021 and my down payment was $6400 💀
Anyone with the $500k mansions are usually facility management be it a farm, a factory, a hospital, or the actual physicians. Or it's a multigenerational owned by the parents or grandparents and there's >2 incomes.
LetterheadClassic306@reddit
A lot of those buyers are not relying on a normal local salary, in my experience. They can be remote executives, doctors tied to a regional hospital, business owners, retirees with investment money, people who sold a house in a pricier market, or families with land and generational wealth. Some are also second homes, vacation properties, ranches, lake houses, or houses with enough acreage that the listing is not really comparable to a normal town home. In small markets, one unusual buyer can support a weird-looking price because there are not many similar sales. The local median income often is not what explains the top listings.
Danibear285@reddit
It’s not all cow pasture and 7/11s like you coasters think it
dildozer10@reddit
We commute to cities. We don’t live in an expensive house, but my wife and I have 6 acres of land in a rural area. My wife commutes an hour to one city where she makes good money for our cost of living. I own an auto glass business and service a different city that’s about 45 minutes in the other direction. We tried living in a small city suburb, and we absolutely hated it. We both grew up in rural areas and just prefer having space, peace, and quiet.
efnord@reddit
American Gentry: https://archive.is/UzVs1
Rockerstar33@reddit
Remote work changed this a lot too. You’ve got tech, finance, and business owners earning big city salaries but choosing to live somewhere quieter while still keeping the income
onlyreason4u@reddit
Income doesn't scale in HCOL areas and your standard of living drops compared to those small towns.
I work in tech and live in the midwest in a semi-rural suburban area on the edge of a larger metro area. I moved here from the more central suburbs because I wanted more land, more nature, and a larger house. I still have all the shopping and other things I need close enough by but the trade off was that I have a longer drive to get to anything, and it's not possible to walk or bike anywhere so I'm completely car-dependent. If I want to do that for recreation, there are a ton of trails and parks I can go to, though. Eventually, the area will be more developed because the suburbs keep spreading further out every year. Technically my house is 2500sqft but that doesn't count my finished basement or an outbuilding finished to the same level as the house, which effectively doubles that. It's a nice upper-middle-class home, probably worth $800k right now. A few homes in my little sub are $1m+. There is a sub just north of me with $2m+ homes that have elevators and movie theaters etc... and homes worth $5-10million that are true mansions with the tree-lined road and gates etc exist in the area is decent numbers.
The people where I live... tech/engineering like me, a doctor, la awyer, directors, and C-level people, successful blue collar business owners like contractors and similiar fields, a lawn company owner, etc. The people in the $2m+ homes that I've met, plastic surgeons (husband and wife), mid-sized business owners, etc. I don't know what the people in the mansions are doing but I know some pro athletes, well-known musicians, large company execs live somewhere in that area. If you want a large house you move out to where there is land to build what you want.
I used to manage a global team and I can tell you the people in Seattle, an HCOL major tech hub were only making around 10% more that what people live where I do make. House there is like 3x the cost of what it costs here. They had more options for tech jobs there but there's still a tech market locally here I could commute to. I just work remote these days though.
It's not a bad deal. Wildlife, clean air, lakes, near zero crime, lots of space for my hobbys, low taxes, good schools, some decent restaurants and entertainment in our really nice little downtown, I can buy fresh eggs/produce/meat directly from several local farms or go to Costco, etc. You don't have all the stuff a big city has but that's a 45 minute drive for me to get there when I want to do that stuff.
Current_Poster@reddit
There are companies that buy up properties as they become available, sometimes for resale, often to turn over and rent out.
captaincheem@reddit
Small towns have much cheaper homes. Where i currently live (metro area of ~300k people) a million dollar home here is like a 10-20 million dollar home in some of those cities. My home was 500k but could easily be a few mil if i was close to nyc. Its just cheaper to live here. Most of the peiple who live in 1m+ homes are either successful buisness owners or big into real estate. Also just because its a smaller city, does not mean the job market is trash. We have low costs of living and a plethora of trade and factory jobs that offer up to 100k a year and great benefits.
tonna33@reddit
I bought my house for $135k (almost 9 years ago, though). 2700 sq ft. It is over 100 years old, though. If it were transplanted even only 50 miles away, it’d be around the $500k range. I can’t even imagine if it was in the NYC area, or certain areas of CA.
I make about 100k/yr in a different smaller city that’s about a 20 min drive away. The company started as a small family business and has grown through 3 generations of owners. The town I live in has a population of about 25,000 and has multiple large businesses where I’m sure the C-Suites are making massive amounts of money.
False-Cookie3379@reddit
This. Average home price in the biggest city near me is around $300k. For $300k where I live, 45 minute drive from my driveway to downtown, you could get a 4000 square foot house on around 50 acres. Taxes and insurance is also dirt cheap.
AstroRoverToday@reddit
I worked for many years as a Sales Engineer for a company that manufactured quality control analyzers for numerous industries (e.g., our sensor stopped the Coca-Cola bottling plant's process when it detected their product was out of spec). My sales region was "North America" so I could live anywhere I wanted as long as it was fairly close to an airport since I traveled for 3-4 days every 2-3 weeks to go visit potential customers' sites. My salary and commission was paid based on my sales performance. I worked in my home office. The company provided a set amount for home office setup expenses, a monthly car allowance, and all the tools and travel expense reimbursements that were needed to close sales. It was a nice setup and it allowed me to live in lesser expensive areas and visit every US State, parts of Mexico and Canada. Since I earned the airline miles from all this travel and they gave me 4 weeks of vacation per year (it was a Swiss HQ company), I frequently vacationed in Europe using my miles. I had colleagues who had the same role, but covered different industries, who chose to live in CA or NY. We were all paid the same amount. My COL was far less than theirs, so I had the "extra" money for things like earning a pilot's license and frequently flying a rented Cessna with friends to go get a cheeseburger in a nearby town, or buying a small ski chalet in the Rockies, etc. Although I sometimes missed living in California, and would have enjoyed living in NYC for a few years, I'm extremely happy with what those 7+ years afforded me while I worked for that company.
GraceIsGone@reddit
The 1% actually is a lot of people when you do the math. The town I live in has lots of million plus dollar homes. There are about 250,000 in my suburban area consisting of 3 towns. 1% is 2,500 people, and my area is more affluent than most so we actually have a higher number of 1 percenters living here.
Party_Chance_9124@reddit
It’s wild to me how the answers here are so heavy on people working in professional, corporate type jobs but remotely or now retired or as the only doctor in town.
My peers from my suburban high school who now live further out in podunk counties but in a huge acreage, custom build, $1m home are business owners of: roof construction, custom build homes, property development, fast food franchises, commercial construction, neighbourhood pool management, and then with a hand in more than one of these.
chodeobaggins@reddit
Well for many people those houses aren't their primary home and their income doesn't come from that state. Also once you're very wealthy you aren't working a 9-5 and you can go wherever you want.
I'm a trim carpenter, worked on mostly $5-20m homes. Many of them were 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th homes. They only get used for a few weeks or months a year. Those folks will spend $2m remodeling a $10m home that they only spend a month or two per year in. I've removed/thrown away/donated top of the line appliances and furniture that was 30 years old but looked brand new because it never go used. They just throw it away and get the new equivalent. I have a ~$20k stereo setup that I pieces together just from free shit clients gave me.
Copper-Alchemist@reddit
Who's buying 2mill homes? Not me!
RealCarlPanzram@reddit
By “middle of nowhere” do you mean places in skiing towns, lakefront homes, and small beachside places like Martha’s Vineyard? Because those are vacation homes. They’re owned by the same people who live in a big home in NYC or LA.
baybebumblebee@reddit
Yeah rich nepo babies actually do want to live in (a second house in) the middle of nowhere. Major cities have their perks too of course, but the ultra wealthy like having options.
"Middle of nowhere" often affords access to things money can't directly buy. People travel from all over the country to Vermont for ski season. You really like to hike? Well NY has the 46 peaks if you're ready for a serious challenge. You think yaks are cool? Buy a yak farm in Wyoming and have someone else run it for you.
You can have a birkin anywhere but there's only one place you can get your own slice of God's green, untouched Earth and that's the middle of nowhere.
Active_Drawer@reddit
The Internet. Remote work.
Retirement
Most cities/towns have some form of commerce. Someone runs that. While the peons make nothing the owner is still making bank.
Unusual_Form3267@reddit
Houses in small towns are cheaper.
My parent's house is worth $850,000 for a single story, 3 bed 2 bath house in a shitty neighborhood. The house is 1200 sq ft, and the lot is 5000 sq ft.
I bought my two story, 3 bed 2 bath house, w/extra rec room and office, a detached garage, 1,700 sq ft house on a 6,000 sq ft yard for $175,000. My house wasn't jenky either. It has hard wood floors, a smart hvac system, working fireplace, stainless steel appliances, and a new cabinet system.
I'm 34, and I'm not rich but I make a decent living here. Not insane, but good.
Party_Chance_9124@reddit
But OP’s question is not how people buy $175k homes in small towns. It’s what people do to buy multi-million dollar homes in US rural/small towns. And asked as an immigrant who has only experienced city life.
kay_bryberry@reddit
Back woods Tennessee is full to the brim with them.
FemboyEngineer@reddit
Before I moved to NY I was somewhat familiar with Eastern NC, and what I found was that over there it's much more common for households to stay multigenerational + in their hometowns. I knew tons of people who grew up and lived 50-90 miles away from Raleigh, would commute to jobs there, and then would go home to that big ol' house they shared with 10+ family members.
FemboyEngineer@reddit
If you can afford these houses, more than likely you don't have a job; you're self-employed in some way. Before I moved to NYC I was pretty familiar with eastern North Carolina, which is pretty big in agriculture & logging. A lot of money gets made in those sectors, by companies which are very mechanized/have very few actual employees.
breebop83@reddit
High paying remote job, did well and retired youngish - wanted more land/less traffic, inheritance, had/have a decent paying job and invested really well.
Even at higher price tags, you’re usually getting more land and more house for the money in a rural area. Added to that, the local taxes are usually less in rural areas so someone living in a house worth that much is probably paying thousands less a year in taxes than they would in the city or burbs.
My husband and I live in a fairly LCOL area and bought in 2020. We did not buy an expensive house but 200k got us a bigger house (with no major issues), in a nicer area than we could have found in the city/suburbs for that price. We work remote so commuting isn’t an issue and we’re rural but within 15-20 minutes of the outer suburbs, 20 to a small city (~40,000 people) and 40 to a big city (~950k in the city proper, 2.2M if including suburbs). We know it may take a bit longer to sell if/when we do so but right now, a lot of houses are still selling in a day to a week.
LaterTater93@reddit
In addition to what everyone else has already said, bear in mind that what someone who's never left NYC or LA calls the middle of nowhere is probably still decently somewhere to everyone else. As someone who grew up in Idaho, lived in North Dakota, and now lives in Montana, it cracks me up whenever someone who's never left their metropolis refers to some large nearby suburb as the middle of nowhere. Not to mention my relative "middle of nowhere" area is full of those millionaires and billionaires...
undergrad_overthat@reddit
I’m seeing a lot of “x and y occupations exist in rural areas too”. Yes, we still have doctors. But also, celebrities and other “rich enough to have multiple multi-million dollar houses” type-people have houses in weird places. When you’re rich enough for a private jet, it doesn’t really matter where your house is - and you might like it to be somewhere more private where you have some land and no neighbors.
Live-Medium8357@reddit
You already have many answers about how people afford the houses... but has anyone addressed the part where you can't believe people would choose to live in rural areas?!
not everyone wants to live in the city. There are tons of benefits to living rural - clean air, open space, animals, sky, etc.
Excellent-Letter-681@reddit
If you’re in medicine and you accept a position in a small/smallish town many of those places will pay you a lot more because they are in a remote area. That’s the only way places like that can get the specialists they need.
MileHigh_FlyGuy@reddit
I bought my house in Denver for $205K in 2011. I could sell it for $650+ now. If I did that and moved back to my crappy Midwest town, I could buy the biggest nicest house in the county. Now imagine I bought a house in Denver in the 1990s.
dbdiver@reddit
Houses in small towns in the middle of nowhere are cheap relative to Metro areas.
Traveling-Techie@reddit
Real estate developers, car dealership owners, restaurant owners, doctors with a large practices, entrepreneurs who work from home, retired executives, etc.
CupBeEmpty@reddit
Another thing that no one is mentioning is the definition of rural. I live in a rural town. In a 30 minute driving radius I can be to most of the larger population centers in my area. They’re all like 20-60k residents so not crazy small but small and if you add them all up it’s around a million people.
So nothing really feels rural. It feels more like islands of suburbia with little more urban pockets.
triggsmom@reddit
The salvage yard guys have the most money.
milliemargo@reddit
1.) Way more bang for your buck. Same reason why normal folks can own homes in small towns and would only have a studio or one bedroom in NYC.
2.) Taxes are super low. If you live in an unincorporated area there's no city taxes.
3.) It's dope as hell having land.
RichardAboutTown@reddit
These people talking about places with population in the tens of thousands as small towns...
As of the last census, my current home is 1,032. No stoplights. Not even a four-way stop. The grocery store is about the same size as my house. The town closed the police dept because it was too expensive and just contracts with the sheriff's office for law enforcement.
PriorSecurity9784@reddit
Make money in city, take money and retire to scenic hamlet
moemoe8652@reddit
Well, the rich houses in a small towns cost as much as your two bedroom apartment in NYC!! lol. (Probably less!!)
dasHeftinn@reddit
I live in a town of roughly 13,000. There are a *LOT* of multimillion dollar homes here and in the neighboring areas. I live by some of the best lakes and rivers in the country, so people like to retire here. Huge part of it is that it is mostly a retirement area.
Leeoliao@reddit
It's usually people who either work remotely with a city salary, or they bought years ago when prices were still dirt cheap in those areas.
nebraskajone@reddit
Because they're not multi-millionaire houses, I live in rural area and you can get a nice 50 acre land/house for under a million
RichardAboutTown@reddit
They made a lot of money elsewhere and now they want to retire someplace beautiful. Or they sold a house for a butt ton of money and now have enough to afford something bigger if they go somewhere else. If they have a job where they can work over the internet, so much the better.
LettuceInfamous5030@reddit
Medical professionals, lawyers, real estate investors, oil professionals and other random wealthy people?
OceanPoet87@reddit
Smaller communities often, but not always have cheaper housing and cost of living. While many people often commute to the nearest cities, plenty of people might work for the state government, school district, hospital, police, and fire departments which usually don't pay a high amount but enough to get make a living.
If you are talking about a place like Jackson Hole or Sun Valley, yes it is a problem because people have to drive an hour to their place of employment due to the town being for the ultra rich. But many rural places like mine don't have that problem.
Ms-Metal@reddit
Not really a small town, but the smallest town I've ever lived in, under a million. Husband works for California firm and has telecommuted for 20 years, so he makes California money even though we don't work in SmCalifornia. Same for me although my job I actually had local office but I spent all my time on the road, but again it what's a Silicon Valley company.
Ilovefishdix@reddit
In my smaller city (80k) in the middle of nowhere and the surrounding area with another 50k, many made their money elsewhere. Lots of retirees. They made good money on the coasts and paid off homes. They sold their homes and paid cash. Some aren't retired, but they were able to pay cash for their homes. The paid off house helped them survive on the low local wages. Then there's remote workers earning double or triple the typical local wage. They have a lot more purchasing power than locals. Homes are like $550k and most jobs pay between $18-26/hr. In somewhere like SoCal, this is cheap. For many of us, it's almost impossible. It's led to a lot of animosity because locals have been priced out.
There's also a lot of investors here. A pretty large chunk of the total income here isn't from working a 9-5. I think of it as a resort town with a lot of long term guests. We are the help.
The only reason I'm making it work is because I bought well before covid when homes were much cheaper. A lot of people fled the bigger cities for quieter places with more outdoors activities. The influx of people from elsewhere and lower interest rates quickly drove up prices. The trend was already there. This was bound to happen eventually. Covid stamped on the gas
christona-bike@reddit
The biggest house in my entire home county is owned by one of the only small town pharmacists. They also sell livestock on the side. I've heard it even has a pitching room for their kid thatnplays softball to practice in. The next biggest house is owned by a doctor and has a bowling alley in the basement.
smartie_mcfarty@reddit
We live in a small town in Northeast Ohio, about 22,000 people. The median salary is just over 77,000 and median home prices are 320,000-350,000. That said, there are quite a few million dollar homes/properties here. Locally we are known to be mostly upper middle class.
Our home cost us about double the median. For us, it was specifically my husband being really good with investing and never taking on debt or carrying credit card balances. When he was younger and single, he bought high worth items that he later sold when we married; his condo on a lake, a collectible car, motorcycle, boat, ATV and camper. Those things, plus Covid, believe it or not. The rates dropped so low, we were able to only pay 2.99% on our home. If the universe hadn’t lined up with those rates, we’d never have been able to do it.
As I said, we carry no real debt and my husband is a salesman who makes his living on commission. We are comfortable enough that I don’t have to work. It’s amazing but it was mainly just being very smart about debt and credit and the timing of when we built our house.
The affluent people I know from town are either business owners or from generational wealth.
Viocansia@reddit
I grew up in a very rural town in PA, and my dad was a defense contractor working in network security for the Navy. He’s retired, but he made great money!
ObjectiveElefant@reddit
People like living in small towns for all sorts of reasons. A quiet life, raise children around family or in a house with a big back yard, safety, fresh air, landscapes/atmosphere/weather, privacy, personal beliefs, like minded people, etc. People might make more in NYC, but they have an insane cost of living. It's all relative. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, business owners, online business owners, etc., live all over the country. A giant portion of the population wants nothing to do with the city, no matter how much money they have. I realize it might be attractive to you and you can't imagine the appeal of being anywhere else, but there are millions and millions who can't fathom ever desiring that lifestyle. Maybe you haven't been around the country much to see all that it has to offer outside of a big city, but if you have the means, you should. Not to change your mind by any means, but just to experience it. There are a ridiculous number of beautiful areas in this country and the vast vast majority are not in or near a city.
Spirited-Way2406@reddit
By raiding our retirement fund, and spending 53 percent of our current income on the mortgage. And we didn't buy anything fancy. 2021 expansion on a 1952 prefab bungalow, close to everything, private yard, quiet neighborhood, and thousands of dollars of our own money poured into winterization that never got done--in Alaska of all places. At least the roof is almost new.
BrazilianButtCheeks@reddit
I mean .. in rural Oklahoma.. your multimillion dollar home would cost 100k .. it’d have to be a castle to cost millions
Annual-Budget-1756@reddit
Retirement, generational wealth, telework
Rude-Fortune6583@reddit
Long commute
Puzzleheaded-Bee4698@reddit
"... expensive houses in small towns/the middle of nowhere?"
Take a closer look at those small towns. You may find them are home to manufacturing sites, businesses headquarters, transportation or distribution centers. There are some (not many) very lucrative jobs in small towns.
The49GiantWarriors@reddit
They come from California.
Icy-Beat-8895@reddit
The way I figure it, wherever there are people, there must be a hospital not far off. Medical people rake in huge salaries. And if they marry, well, need I say more?
royhurford@reddit
My city has about 20,000 people. There are definitely doctors here who make over $500k/year. Also business owners, etc. We also have a lot of people who live here and work remotely, because they like the area. There are tiny communities in the area with many homes for sale at over $1m.
Red_Beard_Rising@reddit
To answer your edit: It's often a second home. It's their version of the cabin on the lake. Their permanent home is $6+M and their vacation home is $2M.
mattcmoore@reddit
A lot of people have land thats been in the family for centuries. It's not as expensive to build a huge house if you already own the land. Land is almost always the most expensive part of a peice of residential real estate in a more urban aras. Like if you already owned hundreds of acres you could build a brand new 5,000 square foot home on it for under a million dollars, for example in the middle of nowhere South Carolina or something.
5000 square foot is like, way to big for any normal person, wealthy or otherwise. The median income for a farming household in America is about 110k per year, but with that kind of income you could comfortably afford to build a brand new house for 350-400k. At $125-$175 a square foot that's going to get you something close to 2500 square feet, way bigger than the average homes on the market today (although about average for new construction).
ReadingRainbowie@reddit
I mean every small town still needs a doctor and a lawyer, small businesses can also make a ton of money as well especially contracting. The money goes further too since cost of living is usually lower. Cost of land is generally lower too. So you can get a much bigger house for way less money. And you can still make a ton of money in a small town.
Rittermeister@reddit
You're doing damn good as a genuinely small-town lawyer to take home much more than a hundred thousand a year.
Aquarius_K@reddit
I live in a town that dosen't even have a Walmart. My former pediatrician has a very fancy house with a pool and pool house and huge yard with a pretty fence, out the same road I live out which is very rural. She can afford it because she's the only pediatrician in town and basically has a local monopoly on business.
kodex1717@reddit
Doctor, lawyer, local business owner in town, or VP/C-suite in the nearest big city.
Icy-Try-2063@reddit
Americans can easily commute 1 hour driving each way, for a total of 2 hours roundtrip each day of driving.
So someone may live in a small, but they could easily be a wealthy CEO of a large company and just commute.
Also, if they have even more wealth, they could've built that house and then decided to sell it.
Quenzayne@reddit
It's typically people who own businesses. You'd be surprised at how much a guy who owns, say, the only HVAC repair company for 50 miles makes in the summer.
DishsUp@reddit
We commute
HotSteak@reddit
Doctors, lawyers, engineers, pharmacists, veterinarians, etc. Those are the people that actually create wealth, while the high paying jobs around you are just people laying in the cut and not producing anything.
SockSock81219@reddit
Early retirement from places like NYC or San Francisco, or one at least one person's working a jetset millionaire's job, or successful small business owner (car dealerships, lawyers, restaurant chains, real estate, etc), or they're just James Taylor and they want a fifth vacation home.
Go into any rural town's property records and you might learn a lot!
TheyVanishRidesAgain@reddit
You build up millions in equity on a tiny house/apartment in LA/NYC then take your equity to the middle of nowhere and suddenly you're a big fish.
Lower_Kick268@reddit
Just commute from the suburb to city nbd
SenseAndSaruman@reddit
Farmers are sometimes the richest people. (Also frequently poor). My brother has a friend that as well as a very large farm and massive house owns several private planes, a jet and a helicopter. A relative of a very good friend of mine is part of one of the wealthiest families in Idaho. They own lots of businesses.
Wealthy people are earning a passive income as well as an active income. It’s not just about your job, but all the other things brining you income.
Interesting-Quit-847@reddit
You should reread your post and see if you can figure out why you sound like an elitist idiot.
VMTechOH@reddit
Could be remote workers, too.
Emergency-Economy654@reddit
Lots of random businesses you wouldn’t even think about. I know a family worth over 50 billion in a small town in the Midwest because they’ve kept a very lucrative business in the family and turned down many offers to sell.
Farmers can also make a lot of money as well.
fried_clams@reddit
The United States is the wealthiest country in human history. Some of that wealth exists out in the middle of nowhere. It can be from many ways; inherited, earned through small business, etc etc. It is also possible that someone old paid very little for that 30 or 40 years ago and now it's worth a lot of money, especially if it's in a desirable place
Special-Estimate-165@reddit
Imagine looking at people in the middle of bo where and seeing a 2 million dollar home...and thinking thats the rich folk. My wife's family are farmers in Illinois. 2 million dollars wouldnt buy one of their tractors.
Theres alot of money in rural areas that just isnt flaunted in ways people normally associate with flaunted wealth.
Ok-Ad8998@reddit
I live in a small town that is a bit more than an hour from the big city and an hour the other way to a medium college town. Not really middle of nowhere, but remote. A lot of areas just out of town are filling up with luxury estates. Some are second homes, some wealthy retirees. Some long commuters - the local mini airport even has helicopter service.
FlamingBagOfPoop@reddit
And what are you considering to be a small town? Are we talking like Tonopah Nevada or a small city like Little Rock Arkansas?
Maurice_Foot@reddit
Thee’s a house near us (6000sq ft house, 3000sq ft air conditioned garage, crappy fake windmill in the front yard) and it’s been for sale like 18 years. It started out $1.8M has dropped as low as $850k and is now asking $1.6M.
The owner is some kind of real estate guy who moved here from California maybe 20 years ago so guess that’s where his money comes from.
SlamClick@reddit
There are a lot of rich people all over the place.
The same rich people in NYC are the same rich people everywhere else...bankers, insurance, farmers, entrepreneurs, business owners, etc.
Ok-Ambassador8271@reddit
Most farmers are land/asset rich but cash flow poor.
Interesting-Run-6866@reddit
Doctor, lawyer, owns a successful local business, family money, generational wealth, works remote, retired there, successful stock trading, won the lottery, vacation/second home, literally dozens of reasons.
Tankieforever@reddit
Farm owners can do fairly well too. Where I grew up some of the poorest families were farmers, and also some of the wealthiest. As an occupation it has a pretty wide range of success.
elphaba00@reddit
And if you do well enough, you don’t even have to farm the land yourself. You can get farm managers to handle the business side and tenant farmers to work the land and pay you rent
Listen-to-Mom@reddit
Most farmers I know do extremely well but you’d never know it.
arcteryx17@reddit
Work from home has made this easier for a lot of people. Mid level employees are returning to office but upper managers arent as much.
I have noticed this near me as there's a lot of lake homes. These homes have more than quadrupled since 2020.
Fire_Mission@reddit
Costs vary wildly. A 10 million dollar time in the city might only be 500k out in the hinterlands
1AML3G10N@reddit
NYC rich is 100x small town rich. $5m a year in nyc is middle class.
MetalEnthusiast83@reddit
The median household income in NYC is like 80 grand.
Waterlifer@reddit
Around here $2+mil houses belong to people who inherited wealth or who were successful in business and exited.
The rich doctors and lawyers largely stick to places in the high six figures.
Inspi@reddit
Since you are in NYC don't forget the huge softens is housing costs. You can probably pay more in rent for a studio apartment in NYC than many people pay for mortgage on a 3/2 house in most cities, let alone rural areas.
astcell@reddit
Here is the secret. Find a really good town where downtown is dense but there is not much else. Draw a Dot in the middle of Main Street. Measure 20 miles out in one direction. Draw a circle around that mark 20 miles from downtown. Find a piece of land on your pencil line for sale. It's OK if it's in the sticks. Hang on to it. In twenty years it'll be worth a fortune after the town gets big.
My parents bought a house near Los Angeles with an ocean view for $80,000 because back then nobody cared about ocean views. They did not command a premium at all. It was just a house. Today that house is about $1.3 million mostly because of the view.
People complain that they could never afford to buy the house that their parents have. They need to remember that such a house was worth nothing back in the day. Give it 30 years. As for who buys them today at this price? That would be somebody who bought a house for cheap and then the value went up and they are simply rolling that money forward to the next house.
SplitOpenAndMelt420@reddit
Where are you finding multimillion dollar homes in the middle of nowhere?
Hudson100@reddit
Here. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/19960-Thousand-Island-Lake-Rd-Watersmeet-MI-49969/2112558091_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare
Kingsolomanhere@reddit
I had multiple people on my rural mail route worth millions back in the 80's outside a town of 5000 people. One guy had a 50 acre place/house and owned a paper making conglomerate and was worth over 70 million dollars (which would be close to 300 million today).
DrMindbendersMonocle@reddit
they are everywhere, but usually its more about acres than the actual home
iowaman79@reddit
There’s a lot of money in agribusiness, whether it’s land, seed, chemicals, or equipment, and many of the people who founded those companies were from small towns in the middle of nowhere.
Other-Resort-2704@reddit
There are plenty of multi-millionaires that are retired Baby Boomers that sold off their business.
Some rich people would have rather have to their own privacy or a reasonable size plot of land for growing stuff/keeping horses. Some rich people are totally fine with driving an hour to go shopping at a mall.
Head_Razzmatazz7174@reddit
Most of the new luxury developments going up in our town are being purchased by professionals who work in the city. They would be paying about as much for a lot more square footage on a house as they do with a small apartment. The property taxes in our area are about half of what it is in the cities. Affordability is a huge factor.
They are willing to add an extra 20 to 30 minutes to their commute, just to have their own place.
Those with families want a safer environment for their kids than what they have where they are currently living.
DrMindbendersMonocle@reddit
I mean, you can still get rich in small towns
EnvironmentalRun4107@reddit
its much harder though since there are not many opportunities, being a local business owner is like the only way pretty much unless you move to the city
Tricky-Rutabaga4613@reddit
im going to have to agree with this one
OpportunityGold4054@reddit
Inherited wealth and farmers who sold out. When I worked for the state income tax bureau reviewing tax filings, the farm implement dealer had one of the highest incomes around. The doctors who owned the imaging centers, dialysis centers, emergency med centers. One owned a hospital. One very high earner was an excavator who had a junk yard.
Amockdfw89@reddit
They played their cards right and They valued home ownership and worked for that instead of focusing on entertainment or traveling. Saved every penny and really worked hard in college or to start a smart business.
Some people want EVERYTHING and they end of jaded. You gotta pick what you want in life and work toward it
North_Artichoke_6721@reddit
I grew up in the middle of nowhere OK. There were a lot of people who had oil money coming in from land leases or because they owned the mineral rights. They didn’t have to do anything, they just got a check from some oil company for using their land.
RodeoBoss66@reddit
Lotta people in the agriculture industry in this country. It ain't just big corporations getting wealthy from producing the food we all eat. Plus, just look at the prices of farm equipment. You ever priced a tractor, or combine harvester? The people who sell those often make serious bank.
inbigtreble30@reddit
It's in fact much easier to afford them there because they are much cheaper than in cities.
Glittering-Score-258@reddit
Not the middle of nowhere, but I live in a post-war suburb (built in the 1940s and 50s). Houses here are being bought for $500k then torn down and replaced by million dollar homes that seem to be owned by young couples with toddlers playing in the yard. I don’t understand it. I can only assume their parents had a big part to play in paying for the house. Also there’s a new 55+ community near me with mansions that start at 1.2 million. I don’t get it. I’m 62 and happily retired in the house I bought for $100k in 1996.
jetpack_weasel@reddit
The gentry class lives in those houses. America doesn't have hereditary titles, but it has hereditary wealth and property - families who own car dealerships, fast food franchise chains, canning factories, farms, and so on, who are worth tens of millions and hugely influential in their local area.
Here, read this, you'll understand something important about wealth and class in the US that even many Americans don't know. https://patrickwyman.substack.com/p/american-gentry
Tanyian@reddit
Long commutes.
broke_fit_dad@reddit
Locally we blame New Yorkers who retire here for skyrocketing our local real estate prices. I refer to them as people who broke down halfway to Florida
river-running@reddit
My hometown has gotten very expensive to buy in, but it's within 40-60 minutes of several smaller towns that are a lot more affordable. The small towns have been seeing an exodus of people who are willing to spend the same amount of money to get minimum 2-3x the amount of house while working in and commuting to my hometown.
If you're a local with an expensive house, you either work remotely, are independently wealthy, are a well-off retiree, inherited the property, or have one of the few high paying local jobs (doctor, attorney, etc). Most of us local commoners work in trades, manufacturing, agriculture, retail, healthcare, or the service industry.
Pbferg@reddit
You may find those cities desirable places to live. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere near one of them. There are tons of small business owners and trade contractors making a fantastic living in rural America. Plus as others have said, the cost of land and other living costs are lower. I know someone locally who owns an air conditioning company with a massive house in what some might consider the country.
kyungari@reddit (OP)
Sorry, by “desirable” i meant because theres a high demand hence why the high prices make sense, this wasnt meant to mean they are objectively better places to live than others! I agree city life isnt for everyone and has a lot of downsides! and thank you for your reply, what im gathering from the comments is theres a lot more money in owning a business than I thought! As someone from a city almost everyone I know is just an office worker, or if they own a business (restaurant, store) its quite difficult to make a profit due to high costs and slim profit margins
meeeebo@reddit
There are rich people in every town over 2,000 in this country.
Ok-Humot9024@reddit
I live in an area with a lot of natural lakes and some VERY nice lake homes even though we're 45 minutes to an hour from mid-sized cities and two to 2.5 hours from major metro areas. A lot of those fancy lake houses are owned by city people and used as vacation properties, some are owned by the local elite, and some are occupied by middle-class people who are up to their eyeballsni debt. I've heard of several families who have have to rent furniture when they have parties because they can't afford to furnish their lake homes and live with just the bare minimum for day-to-day life.
Far-Drawing-4444@reddit
You realize we are subsistence farming out here, right?
I mean, a lot of us do grow food in gardens, but we still have active economies, and people have the same types of jobs that exist in cities. They typically pay less, but cost of living is lower, too.
As far as why people would choose to live in a small town or rural area, peace and quiet, privacy, scenic surroundings, and essentially non-existent serious crime are some reasons I can think if.
Not everyone wants to live in a city, and not everyone wants to live in the sticks. Neither is wrong, just a different preference.
Brief-Hat-8140@reddit
Not me 🤷♀️
SouthernCancel6117@reddit
As someone from Alabama, it’s not uncommon to meet millionaires in the suburbs here. They just don’t flaunt it so you normally wouldn’t know. My old boss owned two Chick-fil-a’s and knowing what the store’s sales were, he was for sure pulling in a million a year. And that’s just from owning a fast food joint. My great grandfather retired a millionaire working for the power company (not that I ever saw any of that money) from just saving his entire life and trading stocks. So there’s plenty of people in the state who make good salaries, then just look for a nice property out of the city/suburbs to settle down.
Zoroasker@reddit
I remember the guy who owned the Zaxby’s I worked at in college in Alabama was a local farmer. The F-150 driving local elite. Every small town has that.
As someone who grew up in rural poverty, it was weird going back home briefly as a young lawyer and suddenly finding myself peering into that world and mixing with judges and politicians and business owners at their private functions that has theretofore been a total mystery to me and my plebeian world.
Terrible-Image9368@reddit
Those houses in the middle of nowhere are a lot cheaper than in the cuty
zepboundbabe@reddit
I grew up in a very rich suburb pretty far from the city. My dad was a very successful scientist, who was making six figures in the 90s & early 2000s. He was also commuting an hour to work every day in a different state. So, in my experience, just because someone lives in a "middle of nowhere" place, doesn't mean they work there as well.
DarceysExtensions@reddit
We live in a small town of about 15,000 inhabitants in Colorado. We bought our home for 3 million and are currently about 1,5 million into a remodel.
We can afford it because we started and grew a business that we sold to a large, international corporation. We now live off investments.
Why is it hard to understand that people want to live in these areas?
It’s beautiful here, we can get everything we need, have so many recreational choices, clean air, clean water, wildlife …I would not want to live anywhere else at this time.
Calliope719@reddit
My husband and I bought a 3600 sq ft house in the middle of nowhere because it's cheaper than renting a 1 bedroom apartment in the city. I commute an hour and a half by car every day to work. It works out.
Tankieforever@reddit
Just to work, so 3 hours of commute time everyday? Or an hour and half commute time total?
Calliope719@reddit
An hour and a half total, give or take. About 55 miles round trip.
It's a gorgeous ride through the mountains and I pass six farm stands on the way. I've been doing it for a year now and even dealing with heavy snow in the winter I honestly love it.
southernfirm@reddit
Ever known a family that owned acres of timber or farmland? They make money. Then buy life insurance policies so that the estate taxes are covered, and the land passes to the next generation.
That said, if you drive through many small towns in the South, where I live, the nice homes are a holdover from a time when small towns had larger employers, like factories/mills etc. Almost none of those homes would be built in most small towns in today’s economy. The wealthy I know build estates on acreage.
Roomaroo27@reddit
I live in a smallish city (~40k) and work remotely. I had a chance to move anywhere and I chose here. Partly because the home prices are lower, but I just like the feel. One unexpected benefit is that it’s so small that I never have to drive more than five minutes to get to a doctor, hospital, grocery store, etc. There’s something to be said for lack of sprawl. If I want something that I need a larger city for, that’s a day trip. Just a 1 1/2 hour drive.
Ambitious-Schedule63@reddit
Wow.
ToughFriendly9763@reddit
i know some of them are doctors that can work remotely, like psychiatrists and radiologists.
Subterranean44@reddit
I was born in this small rural Town and I don’t have don’t have a million dollar home. Just a regular one. but the people who live here that DO are mostly transplants from the Bay Area (California) who wanted to telecommute and live in house they built that’s three time the size of what they could afford in they bay. They live here and and work from home.
petitecrivain@reddit
Business owners, remote workers, retirees, and maybe some people with trust funds and inherited wealth. Some of them are also vacation or part time homes for people who work elsewhere. There's a lot of people like that living in my area.
Primary_Excuse_7183@reddit
So i worked small business sales and worked with many people in these small towns. for some of them they are the product of good financial decisions from family. Ie grandad sold the farm and made a boatload and then set the family up.
Those small towns often have local and regional businesses that bring in alot more money than you or I would expect. The owners often have multiple ventures and are tightly connected with eachother and the money keeps flowing just as it does in bigger cities. ie had a grocery chain owner (towns too small for a Walmart) that also had hands in cannabis dispensaries. all kinda stuff.
Then the typical a lot of people are in way over their heads.
limbodog@reddit
The house is cheap. The land is cheap. They made some decent money elsewhere and brought it there and bought a big house with it.
The same money wouldn't get them a 1 bedroom condo in New York, or Boston, or SF. But that's probably why they don't live in those places.
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Mffdoom@reddit
Wealthy professionals and business owners mostly, as well as people with deep roots in the community who have accumulated wealth over several generations. Depending on the area, it could also be a retirement house for a transplant. Scenic places like Idaho, Montana, Colorado, etc., have lots of retired millionaires from elsewhere.
r2k398@reddit
If you work remote, you can live in a LCOL area.
MommyPenguin2@reddit
I live in northern Virginia. There are some pretty amazingly huge houses in this area! They mostly work in DC (often federal workers) or in the many giant businesses in Tysons etc. on the outskirts of DC. Some have long commutes, especially with how bad traffic is.
thedawntreader85@reddit
Well, not all rich people want to live in cities. Some like peace and quiet and to have property and usually they can afford a well maintained car to drive into a city if they would like to.
haragoshi@reddit
People like to live near work. If you live in a ramen small town you probably work there or are a remote worker saving cash in low cost of living place
fuxkle@reddit
I live in the suburbs of Boston and worked at a ritzy daycare. Almost all the parents worked in the city and would take the train to work. The ones who didn't were local doctors or business owners
sneeds_feednseed@reddit
You don’t have to live near Wall St or Silicon Valley to make a ton of money. I grew up in rural/suburban-ish Maine and the wealthiest family in my town owned a gun manufacturing company.
SeaRevolutionary1450@reddit
Yes, those people probably didn’t make their money in town. They either have a long commute, work remotely, or are retired and lived in more of an economic hub before or it’s a vacation home.
Also property values are cheaper out in the sticks
KTeacherWhat@reddit
A lot of people who move to my area were upper middle class in whatever HCOLA they came from, and our houses seem dirt cheap to them in my MCOLA so they will sell their more expensive house from wherever they lived, buy a cheaper house (to them) here, and then do the semi-retirement thing for like 15 years before they actually retire.
So for example say they were living in a $700,000 house, moving here and buying a $400,000 house (which is a very nice house for my area), their savings wasn't great for where they lived but it's excellent here. Then they can do gig work or if they're remote that's fine, or if they just work part time until they qualify for retirement they are set.
sneezhousing@reddit
People will commute as much as an hour to work often and that's not even those with high income jobs
Often People will retire and move to those places from the city
They are a local business owner and live there
It's a 2nd home
Also houses are cheaper middle of no where. A house may look like multimillion dollar property but only be 500,000 or less
FunImprovement166@reddit
Some people just make that much money it isn't hard to understand
One_Violinist_8539@reddit
My husband’s best friend’s family is one of those. A small border town of Oklahoma and Texas and owns a massive million dollar mansion (when the average house is like 150-200k) the dad started a major business based out of there so that’s how. I assume a lot are like that.
JoyfulNoise1964@reddit
Every small town has doctors lawyers and business owners
SmokedPumpkin@reddit
Doctors, lawyers, general contractors, car dealership owners, real estate sales people, to name a few.
Ember_Kensei@reddit
Usually it's another one of their properties. People also realize buying land, and building on it, especially in the Southern U.S is much more cost effective then living in a city. The South has a plethora of millionaires, Louisiana being one of them oddly enough. People move down there because of the lower cost of living, less taxes and they have freedom to not be bothered by people all the time.
Just because their home is near the small town, doesn't necessarily mean they work right there as well.
Gatorae@reddit
Doctors live everywhere and a lot are really rich. My family is originally from a very small rural farm town. One of the local doctors built himself an absolutely insane castle-like mansion that would not look out of place next to Mar-a-Lago.
mantisboxer@reddit
There are high paying professions and business owners all over America, and I wouldn't say that, for the majority of well-off Americans, New York City and other major cities are "desireable" places to live.
Any-Investment5692@reddit
People move from more expensive cities and move to the small towns.. Also that family might have had land or a business and that is how they can afford that big house in a small town. Plus the cost of living is much lower so you can have more house for less.
Sensitive_Phrase_631@reddit
A lot of small towns can be built around Universities, especially where I grew up in the South.
cans-of-swine@reddit
You already have the money.
Historical-Gap-9417@reddit
Definitely true here in Tennessee 😅
Eff-Bee-Exx@reddit
Most likely people with money from out of town. It might be a second/ vacation home. The owner might have inherited money. Whoever built the place might be the local business “tycoon.” A guy in a small town I worked in for a summer owned a couple of tourist businesses, a few rental properties, the town’s only real estate agency, and a part interest in a sawmill. Most of the rest of the locals either had a government job or were on welfare.
RedSolez@reddit
Most towns will have doctors, lawyers, and other similar professions that are well paying regardless of location. Also, you have to be specific about how you define "small town." I live in suburban southeast PA where a 2000 sq ft home will go for over a million these days. I don't find this area to be rural but to my cousin from NYC she thought she was in the middle of nowhere because we have actual farms and nature here. But the reality is we also have plenty of industry and you can have a well paying job without commuting to a major city.
Individual-Gas-5406@reddit
Alot of those massive century homes in smaller towns in flyover country are much less expensive than you realize.
Building_a_life@reddit
Mostly small business owners, the local elite.
Penguin_Life_Now@reddit
A lot of them are bought by retirees from the higher paying cities. I live in a small town in the south, an a circa 2,600 sq ft house with 2 car garage on about .6 acre lot. My neighbor behind our lot has a 3 acre lot, and probably a 3,500+ sq ft house, has a lawn crew doing yard work all day at least 2 days per week and is a retired pharmacist from Chicago.
TheViolaRules@reddit
Oh you know, exploiting other people
MrLongWalk@reddit
They commute or work remotely or at a local job that allows them to afford it, sometimes they move there after saving enough cash working somewhere else. Sometimes a combination of a couple of the above.
Some people like small towns.
xquigs@reddit
There’s still all kinds of professionals in the middle of no where area type towns
EnvironmentalRun4107@reddit
Most of them are generational homes