Michigan revisited

And now, married and wanting to buy a home, I am looking at this "city" in a whole new light. I spent my childhood looking disdainfully upon it, because it was a "city" and not nearly as picturesque as our lake. I guess this was my parents' doing; we avoided it unless we absolutely had to go to the grocery store or the laundromat, which was once a week. Now that I live in a real city, I realize that Traverse City is a great middle ground, and GOOD LORD are those houses huge and cheap. My oldest brother and his wife and 2 girls are moving to Traverse, having just made a killing on their house in Fairfax, VA.

So these are the appealing attributes of Traverse:
(1) the lake house is 45 minutes away,
(2) we would have family literally a stone's throw from home,
(3) it would be guaranteed that we would see my whole family for at least a week each year,
(4) my parents live at the lake 4 months out of the year now,
(5) Loving Husband can probably telecommute and I could freelance or work for one of several publishing houses or magazines in town that I found online today,
(6) we would still have basic city conveniences, like being able to walk to restaurants and shops, which are getting to be rather cute in the shopping district,
(7) the house prices would allow us so much room (meaning room to grow...),
(8) there's a synagogue that even offers hebrew school,
(9) LH says the in-laws would probably really enjoy spending time up there.

There are other implied benefits in this list, like future built-in babysitters, no-cost travel to vacation home, and hopefully a hometown that would attract our friends to visit. I am just thinking this thing out here in my head.

Drawbacks:

(1)Leaving our friends,
(2) leaving DC and all of its culture and food and nightlife,
(3) leaving the sights and sounds of the city...

OK so I can't think of another. LH and I drove around the neighborhoods where we would potentially shop for houses up there, and just kept giddily wowing over houses. We went to www.taar.com and checked out homes in the price range we're looking for in DC, and those homes are too big for us there. Too big! I mean, literally, 7 bedrooms and 5 baths on 100 feet of lakefront property.

My question is this; who are these people buying homes here in DC? Granted we are not rich, but we're an average DINK family, pretty common in DC, and can't afford a home in an area that LH will let me walk around alone in. Who are those people buying the $700,000 homes? Why are there so many of them? And why do they all want to live where I want to buy a house for cheap??

In Traverse, there AREN'T any areas to feel unsafe in. There would be no almost getting shot outside a hotel on embassy row while coming home from a French class... but then again there would be no embassy row, and no French class to be coming home from.