I ran the numbers once...back in the 1950's, which was the last time interest rates were as low as they are now, the average house was 1.9 times the average household income.
Nowadays it's more like 3x. And the average household income nowadays also has a lot more two-income households built into the average. Although usually fewer children.
If you can find a place less than 3x your income I'd say you're doing well.
We owned a place in SC, 3 acres, modest house, and I decided to build my perfect garage. Spent about 20k on it, which was cheap - it's probably a 40,000 dollar building if I'd hired out everything I did myself.
Now we're moving, and the place is up for sale, and the appraiser took a long hard look at the place and told us, meh, it's worth about what you paid for it. !!! Pissed me off something fierce. Anyone looking for a solid deal on a private 3bd/ 3 bath in the Greenville, SC area with a 4 car garage and a 20 x 30 barn to boot? ;-)
Volvoclearinghouse
Where in Greenville is your house?
poopy is right about Zillow being off the mark on values. I have seen their #'s match the county records exactly once.
I bet you already know this and again teh p00p touched on it, but drive through the 'hood after about 7:30 PM. If the 'hood has a bunch of donks bubbles and boxes on twenny fo' spinnaz yO roll up the windows and keep driving.
volvoclearinghouse, in 3 years I'd probably be interested. I know, I know: that doesn't help now. 
In reply to spitfirebill:
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/8510-N-Tigerville-Rd_Travelers-Rest_SC_29690_M67593-70304
volvoclearinghouse wrote:
In reply to spitfirebill:
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/8510-N-Tigerville-Rd_Travelers-Rest_SC_29690_M67593-70304
Nice. Love the outbuildings. Love the area too. It would be a hard sale to the old ball and chain with no attached garage.
spitfirebill wrote:
volvoclearinghouse wrote:
In reply to spitfirebill:
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/8510-N-Tigerville-Rd_Travelers-Rest_SC_29690_M67593-70304
Nice. Love the outbuildings. Love the area too. It would be a hard sale to the old ball and chain with no attached garage.
Would it help if I threw in one of the cars? ;-) Throw up a carport next to the house- there's plenty of room.
The area is great- private, neighbors leave me alone, 30 minutes to Greenville, 15 minutes to Travelers Rest, and 45 minutes to Asheville or Spartanburg. There's a great fire pit area and gardens for planting, if you're into that sort of thing.
check your county websites, most often they have a gis mapper, you can search by address, and view assessment information that is public record unless the owner requests that it be hidden. it often lists the date of the last sale and the sometimes the price. doesnt help you with whats for sale now but you can poke around and view the information.
wife and I easily got pre approved for 2.5x our annual income, and deliberately were shopping for stuff at 2x our annual income. we could have been approved for more I am sure, our credit is great, but we did not want to buy at the limit of what we could afford, we wanted an easily affordable mortgage payment each month. to live within our means and such.
