Hey, @galenkp.

Man, if I ever want to buy property in Australia, I know where to go...

So, according to my calculations, $610,000 in AUS comes out to just over $462,000 US, which is about where our house is supposed to be worth, give or take a few thousand.

We had ours built and moved in back in February of 2005. We added a building and a cover for the back porch in 2010, so this new value is not double what we bought the house for, but based on the original price, it would be just over double. Not exactly your $89,500 but certainly much less than right now.

However, we did buy a manufactured home for $42,000 back in 1996 and sat in on then rented land. We moved from it to our current home and since then the land it's on was sold off, so home values in what used to be a manufactured home park have gone up (though not quite as it would be if stick built).

I'd say as far as our current house goes, we've had a pretty good experience. Most of the homes in our area were built by the same general contractor, and they actually had real estate and financial arms depending on the needs. I think we were very fortunate. I'd love to think we could duplicate it, especially since we've been talking for quite a few years now about moving out of state and possibly building again.