HOUSING: The way it is

“No affordable housing” is not entirely true. There’s just very little affordable housing here. To borrow a Barney Frank cliche, “these people didn’t suddenly parachute in.”

My wife ended up with a house in Waterville, Kan., that we couldn’t give away. After five years, the county took it for back taxes owed. Even Habitat didn’t want it. Late father-in-law gutted it before he passed. Paid under $20k for it.

My old ’80s stomping grounds of south central Oklahoma still has homes under $100,000.

McLain, Garvin, Murray and Carter counties on I-35 between OKC and Dallas no less. Google it. Red state too. Work remotely there?

Could it be our “everything’s gotta be perfect expectations” are part of the crisis? I bought half a dozen cash-only dumpy homes in Spokane County between 2014 and 2018, all $80k or less. Now it’s barely a down payment? Not mortgage worthy? Or commission worthy?

Why didn’t government mortgage borrowers bid-war those prices up, I wonder? And we want more government involvement in our “housing crisis?”

Our cure may actually be the culprit. As long as the real estate lobby is happy…

MIKE RENO

Newman Lake