When we were looking a few years ago, the only thing under $250k was a house built in 1897 that shared the property line with a hoarder shed that had a family of raccoons going in and out while we were looking at it in the middle of the day.

It's either that, the $500 fixer-upper, or the $800k new construction. And I'm in the Midwest, not even in a high COL area.