House prices in the United States vary tremendously. In my area (large metropolitan area) you are looking at $400k for a 3 bedroom house. Small 2 Bedroom houses or townhouses start at $250k and go up accordingly with the size of the house. If you live in a good area of the city (where you aren't afraid of getting shot or mugged) and you rent, you are looking at $900 a month and up.
I live in the same area as jkeyer14 and bought my house 5 years ago, it's "value" has nearly doubled since I bought it and I definately would not be able to afford it today. So, I got lucky.
I bet that when banks, builders, developers, and real estate agents first saw dual income families they almost pissed themselves with glee. + Both quite true. (Being in Canada I also very much hope the USofA has a soft landing (otherwise we get dragged down too)) I take it you meant "now worth over $200K"? I'm in a similar situation as you and as Cthippo's GF. In three years my small house more than doubled in market value. I feel extremely lucky to have bought when I did. On the original topic: What are the USA's biggest exports? I recall hearing somewhere that it was military hardware then media (TV / movies) but I forget how they had arrived at that conclusion.
It varies from year to year, but the top two are almost always airplanes (Boeing) and nuclear reactors based on total dollar value of the exports.
Same here. I could not afford to live in my street if I tried to buy a house now... Luckily, we saw the curve coming at the time so we moved fast. 100% mortgage, no deposit, because we knew that it would actually turn out cheaper than if we tried to save a deposit first, as house prices were climbing faster. I think that is correct. I will have to check where I read that...
Last time I looked into military exports, the US had by far the highest percentage of it's GDP being provided by miltech, at about 10-11%. I highly doubt any other one export would be up there with military hardware.
