what do you people think of the boom and bust with home prices? how bad has it affected your area? I've seen some homes
in crappy neighborhoods spike up two to three times in value about a year or so ago...

Home prices in WNC are out of sight.

A small 2/2 (1200 sq. feet...maybe) on less than an acre of land will be snatched up by the nouveau rich and those with old money coming out of Florida or points north of the Mason Dixon Line for $250,000+. Mostly, they're vacation homes for these people. They like to talk about their "cabin in the mountains" when they're among their friends. If the 2/2 has a creek or an attractive view, it'll add another $25-$50,000 to the asking price.

I understand the housing boom has slowed in some places, but it's not happening here.

Here in Ohio it is a byer's market. Home aren't moving yet thousands are for sale. Many are in foreclosure. Yet they are building new neighborhoods all over! The new ones are selling at three times their worth. It is crazy and sad.

about the same here across the river in Kentucky. It's really quite sad, there are farms here that have been family farms for more than a hundred years being sold and subdivided cause they just can't hold on anymore. And then once they subdivide it and build the homes they just sit there for sale with no one buying cause no one can afford these huge extravagent houses they put on tiny little lots in the former pasture or field. It's like they never realized the market to support such numbers of expensive homes doesn't exist here.

Prices are rising in my area...and land, especially if it's got a lake view, is out of sight!

1.5 acre lake lot recently sold for $530,000! AND the lake isn't that pretty!

It doesn't help that bankers and developers have a strangle-hold on our governments, federal, state and local.

You can say that again Dori. Guess what their favorite thing is? .. Answer - Communism. Not a pretty picture! Just look at Russian history.

Well, SI, I would have guessed money and power, but that is pretty much the same thing...

ALL the money and ALL the power!