7 On Your Side Goes House Hunting

Nov. 29 (KGO) -- If you're going to get your piece of the American dream in the Bay Area, you better be willing to shell out the dough. A typical house or condo here now sells for more than $700,000. That buys a lot of house in many parts of the country, and that's what 7 On Your Side's has been looking into.

The Bay Area -- everyone has their reasons for loving it. But almost anyone will tell you the thing they hate most is the price of housing -- especially when you consider what you could get for the same money around the country.

ABC7 sent crews out around the country. We compared home prices in the Bay Area to San Diego, Des Moines, Iowa, Chicago, Illinois, Houston, Texas and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.

In each city we asked real estate agents to tell us what your money would buy at three price ranges -- $250,000, $500,000 and $1million dollars.

Believe it or not, you can get a home for around $250,000 in the Bay Area. But what you'll get is a junior one-bedroom in an Alameda condo complex. It's a compact 500-square feet condo. That's almost as big as the master bath and closet in this 2,700 square foot, four-bedroom Houston home for the same price.

If you drop a quarter of a million in North Carolina, you'll get inlaid floors, handsome wainscoting and an open floor plan. And for the same price in the windy city you'll look down on the world. A one-bedroom, one-bath condo in Chicago is nearly twice the size of the property we looked at in Alameda.

If you spend $500,000 in the Bay Area this is what you'll get in San Jose. Remodeled kitchen and low ceilings in the upper bedroom no doubt add to the charm of this home.

"The first floor has nine foot ceilings."

A brand new, four-bedroom home in Des Moines, Iowa also has three fireplaces and a home theater -- if you don't mind shoveling snow off the sidewalks.

You won't get as much room in San Diego. This sunny little house is clean with an inviting backyard.

This million dollar San Francisco retreat is actually located in the back yard of another house. The two-bedroom, two-bath home is in the Castro District. It's been completely remodeled. But it's nothing compared to the luxury the same amount will get you in other parts of the country.

How about five bedrooms on an acre in this 5,700-square foot Houston home with a walk-in closet the size of the average San Francisco bedroom.

For $1 million, this mansion in North Carolina has everything you'd ever want and then some.

And in Des Moines, Iowa, you won't even have to think about parking your car on the street with the garage at this Iowa estate. It's the size of many homes in the Bay Area -- which is great -- but it's not the Bay Area.

Realtors say the median price for a home nationwide was just $218,000. That's up more than 16 percent from the same time last year. Meanwhile, here in the Bay Area, there are signs that the market may be cooling. The number of homes sold has declined for the seventh month in a row.

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