Many youngsters calculate that to buy a house in the parents' suburb now will cost 50 X the average income. Perhaps the message should be that whinging about suburb is like whinging about that Ferrari you really want. Lower your sights to what you can afford. Especially in 2015 when you don't necessarily need to be in an office in a particular town.

Call Ripley. We agree. As a matter of fact Andy and I just moved to Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. We know that we will be retiring (well, at least semi-retiring - we both like what we do but won't want to be doing it 8 hours a day :)) in a few years, so we started researching retirement options last winter. We knew that we wanted a community of like-mined people with a golf course or 2. We looked at the usual places: The Villages, Del Webb, Tellico Lake and The Cove. To live in a home on a golf course, you'd have to be a government employee retiring on a cushy pension ;) It would cost about $350,000 and their association dues are over $200 a month. Who can afford that on a fixed income? Then we found Hot Springs Village. It is not really a retirement community but the median age of the residents is 67 :). We are building a new home on a golf course and it is costing us under $200,000. People say things to me like "Oh, how wonderful! So you are building the house of your dreams.". To which I respond "No. I can't afford to build the house of my dreams. But it is the house I want while staying within my budget."