Altoona, Pennsyvania still had dozens of homes for sale for less than $30,000 as I write this (2005). I just saw one listed for $7,500! This is a cute little town, yet still big enough to have everything you need.

Hot Springs, Arkansas has low cost houses. The cheapest right now is $13,500. My wife and I like Alamogordo, New Mexico a lot, and it still has homes under $50,000. Independence, Kansas has homes starting under $10,000!

How To Find Low Cost Houses

You can look up various local newspapers online, and check out the classifieds. This also assures you that it's a town large enough for a newspaper. If there are at least a dozen houses for sale, you'll have an idea about home prices there.

You can find real estate agents online, or in local paper classifieds. Call one and ask if there are any low cost houses for sale. If not maybe he'll know which nearby towns have some.

You can go to www.Realtor.com, where you can search any town for homes listed by price, number of bedrooms, and many other criteria. This tool is a lot of fun. Set the criteria to select only homes under fifty thousand or whatever you want, and you'll quickly see if you're wasting your time on a town.

Of course, if you don't see many low cost houses, you still might be able to get one. When we lived in Anaconda, Montana, where we bought our own beautiful house for $17,500, we watched as a house listed for $18,000 eventually sold for $6,000! Towns that have had some economic troubles often have house selling for far under their listed price. The lesson is clear: make low offers to get low cost houses.