Well, to be honest, it would be out of our price range now, also. The price of houses in our part of town has almost doubled since we bought our house 9 years ago. Seems that there are a lot of people hereabouts who don't really want to live in the suburbs....
Sounds like you bought in the right place at the right time.
When we moved last year we went from living in a city of about 40,000 to a county of about 40,000. We are expecting property values to start exploding around here in the next few years because the amount of developable land is shrinking.
For example the 80 acre farm across the road from us is currently for sale because the person that bought it last year didn't do his homework - unless he wants to build a waste and water system, it can not be subdivided as the land will not perk for new wells.
the school system is terrific, the people are very conservative and while I do tend to put more miles on the car to get where I need to go I actually spend less time than when living in the city. All in all, I'm happy.
In the case of my family - this study is BUNK!!!! about the only good thing I can say about it is that it was funded by a government grant.