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Its easy for the house to go from 114,000 to 185,000..its called the Sedgwick county appraisers office...its called local option budget taxes. I live in Wichita, I am an aircraft worker, writing this. I bought a modest home 5 years ago for a neat sum of 35,000 dollars--then the county reappraises it and jacks it up to 38,000 for tax purposes I fought that and got it knocked back to 37,100. The next year ..needing more money to feed failing public programs and a poor performing administration heavy school district, they jacked up the appraisal value on my house to 41,500...I fought that and got it knocked back to 37,100 where it sat for 2 years. This year i got my tax notice and bang it went up to 41,500 AGAIN (it is slated to go up again I got a peek at its "pre-determined" value for the next years hike.)
This town is messed up. The state is looking at hiking taxes again, because all the folks out of work have helped to erode the tax base. Not working = not paying taxes and that hurts the state--Unfortunately we now have a Democrat governor (who is against concealed carry--gotta wait another 8 for any hope on that issue)

Anyway, I have problems with keeping coherent and before I meander anymore, my overall take on whats going on here is that thanks to all the laws that favor big businesses shipping out their production work, we aircraft workers are now in a bad position. Its not that we are all fat lazy pigs stuffing ourselves with money. 20.00 an hour may seem like a lot, but stores around here price products according to a "Boeing standard" which means that a Boeing workers wages determine what we pay for a loaf bread or jug of milk.
I am one of the lucky folks who has a job and was able to find one--hard getting hired anywhere if you are a laid off aircraft worker, It took me 9 months to find a new job after I got laid off (worked for Raytheon aircraft) I was flat out told in some places "We are not hiring any laid off (insert company here) workers".
This "free trade" stuff has hurt American workers like nothing else and I wish I could get it to stop. Put such a high Tariff on manufatured stuff coming into the country that it doesn't pay to ship it out for manufacturing in the first place.
Another neat item of note is that manufactured parts for airplanes made else where--Mexico specifically--seem to have quality control problems just a thought the next time you fly.

I hear you. We in the flying end of the business are fairing no better right now. The only salvation I see in the building-and-flying-the-damn-things business are the regionals picking up the slack. That and the public needs to have their level of confidence elevated so that they'll start flying again. Also, we have to start treating them like people and not cattle. (Insert nasty comment about TSA here).

In 1984, my husband and I bought a house in Wichita for $77,750. We sold the same house (1400 sf plus that again in the basement, full brick, oak woodwork, every nice) in 2001 for $115,000. If their house went from $114,000 to $187,000, they owned it for quite awhile. Unfortunately for you, your less expensive house will actually appreciate at a higher rate (you will be glad when you sell it).

You are right about the appraisal game. Our house valuation stayed exactly the same for years; all of a sudden, it icreased like crazy. Never does anyone acknowledge that increased valuations result in increased revenue either.