P.S. Most nurses out here make $30 per hour minimum.
Actually, I think the term now is
medical assistant instead of
nurses aide. Unlike just a few years ago, registered nurses are paid pretty well. So are teachers. But the pay scales for RN's and teachers are still near the bottom, compared to other professions that require the same level of education.
Medical assistants are often right out of high school with maybe a few months of vocational training, and start out just above minimum wage.
But even at $60K/year, real estate prices like that would be hard to handle. No wonder so many people took out mortgages they couldn't afford. In some areas, that would include just about everybody. The house of cards inevitably collapsed.
There are some advantages to living way back in the hinterlands. Move some of those $1 million estates here, and the whole thing would go for about $250K or even less. Typical real estate
taxes in CA are probably more than what you would pay to rent decent living quarters here.
I own 100 acres and a 3000 ft² house, plus outbuildings. When we first moved here in 1979, the annual tax bill was a whopping $99/year! It's now about $1500/year (no 15-fold increase in county services, however), still far less than what my in-laws are gouged for, for their tiny cottage and postage stamp size lot on Cape Cod.
But if we didn't have that damned summer humidity, I'd bet this place would be like California.
