Business Week, asking where are the affordable homes?:

The cheapest metro area in the Realtors' report was Danville, Ill., where the median price in the third quarter was $72,800 -- a level that's scarcely imaginable to people house-hunting in, say, San Diego, Miami, or Boston.

I grew up in Danville, IL. It's a grimy little industrial town in the middle of the corn belt. We're buying there, not because I think it's a good investment but because I want to be able to provide for my mother, who won't leave the place. You can buy a decent rental house for $40,000-$50,000 that will throw off cash with nothing down. The market is about one-third rentals, so the tenant pool is no problem. The only trouble is that appreciation is negligible in the good years, negative in the bad.

Rain, snow, grime and cheap houses. Funny how they go together...