Contemporary Houses: Madison, WI Edition

I've been looking at applying to graduate school at various different places, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison is home to one of the places that I think is a good fit. Now, the program I'd be applying to is a PhD program, so I could be spending 4+ years of my post-college life there. It's not entirely impossible that I'd end up staying in the area. So I figured I'd do a round up of houses in the area.

Madison is actually extremely cheap. Like, originally I thought that the Roanoke area was probably cheaper, but I find that actually in terms of quality, it isn't. [The house to the right is, at 300k, more expensive than most things because it's actually in the city proper. The inside is not as nice as some of the Madison examples but at 300k it'd be legitimately a "starter home".] The houses I found that are the nicest are in the 300-400k range, which is really amazing. Plus points to the University of Wisconsin.

The first house I like the best is a really modern home in Madison proper. At 389k, I could buy it pretty much as soon as I got a job and saved up a down payment. It's custom and pretty much EXACTLY what I'd personally want. Of course, not everyone agrees on my style tastes so the disadvantage could be that it'd be harder to convince a significant other to go with it as well (as compared to a more hybrid, normal contemporary home) and at 26/27, a S.O. might be a relevant concern. Also, since I don't know anything about Madison, who knows about the area that it's in, and the lot is pretty small. But you know, since I doubt this exact house will be available in 6 or 7 years, it doesn't really matter.

Another really nice house comes in at 319k... that's 15o0 a month with a really insubstantial down payment. So, the moment I save up a down payment, that could definitely be bought. It's on more than 5 acres, and the lot looks really beautiful, so the big windows and what not will look really nice. It seems pretty far out of Madison proper, about 20mi, but that might be close enough to get good value for the land.

The point here is that there's an insane number of awesome houses for sale in the Madison area. Additionally, while these houses aren't that great, there're a lot of acceptable 2br+, 1200 sq ft + places on decent lots in not bad areas for 100k or less. That's $500 or less a month if I could come up with 10k in a year. That's much less than the cheapest rent in the DC area near schools I want to go to. Plus, I'd get some of it back when I resold the place 4+ years later. Originally, I really didn't want to get stuck somewhere like WI, but you know... it would definitely be a better experience, monetarily and house speaking. I could own a place in less than a year and a half! Wow. Anyway, a few more 300-400k places.


Okay... this last one is a house I designed in the Sims 3. (There is actually a roof on top of that window'd layer.) It probably would not cost 400k or less. But then, I don't really know about that in Madison, WI.