House hunting

We're now back in Japan, but just wanted to post a bit on our house hunting experience last week in Boston. Actually, it was a bit depressing. The housing market in the US has been out of control for some time - no news there...but the prices have yet to fall back to earth. Boston was one of the first markets to show declines and I was hoping to scoop up some bargains. Unfortunately, there were none to be found. Everything we looked at in the 500k range was awful. The stuff we looked at in the 600k range was more reasonable, but still needed work. I don't know that I'm prepared to shell out that kind of dough for a 'fixer upper' at this point, so we may look to rent. Houses that were 350k just 5 years ago are now 500k - a 40% jump! I was hoping for prices to drop 10-20%, but they have only fallen 3-5%. Perhaps the downward spiral has a ways to go, and now is the time to sit on the sidelines until it all shakes out. In the mean time - we are a bit depressed by this...who would have thought that half a mil couldn't get you into a decent home....