How's the housing market in Indiana? Do you think it's affordable to live there while earning somewhere around 40k ~ 50k? (which is what high school teachers in the area seem to earn, at least from my initial research).

>How's the housing market in Indiana?

Well... ya know. Things have been weird lately.

My wife and I bought 20 months ago with me making 39k and her making upper 40k. We bought this house with zero down at 170k and it's now estimated at 240-250k per the mortgage company and Zillow. We have about 1200sqft on the ground floor then about 1200 in the basement with a little over half of an acre, we're 30 minutes outside of Indy. House is 1960s.

A new construction house in Plainfield, immediately adjacent to Indy, you get 2 bed, 2 bath, 2 car garage, basically no yard with the house at 1504 sqft is starting at 290k right now and can get a 3 bed with similar sqft for closer to 300k. If you picked the neighborhood well, and were ok with not having the latest and greatest features, a single person could still probably pull a mortgage in a safer neighborhood without issue.

>somewhere around 40k ~ 50k? (which is what high school teachers in the area seem to earn

So this varies wildly. My wife was getting the higher end of that at the rural school she was teaching at, she's moved one school district over and took a considerable pay bump - mind you she has like 12~ years of experience, and once she finishes her masters she'll get a 4-5k pay bump at her next (annual) contract renewal automatically.