Dealing with high prices for homes

I feel that the housing boom has done some serious harm. Prices have inflated so greatly that first-time home buyers (like me) are doomed. I'm in my late twenties, I make an honest $43,000 a year and I have excellent credit. But buying a home seems completely out of reach. What is the future for first-time home buyers?Answer: There might be no future — at least where you live today. Sometimes the only answer is to move, either farther from the urban center where you live now or away from expensive cities entirely.Of course, you may have other options. There are federal, state and local programs that encourage first-time home buyers, offering low-interest loans and other subsidies. A visit to the National Council of State Housing Agencies at http://www.ncsha.org can get you started looking for programs that might help you.But if homeownership is important to you and you can't swing it where you are now, then you need to explore other options. There are still plenty of areas, particularly in the Midwest and the South, where you can buy a decent home for $125,000 or less. The National Assn. of Realtors' median home price survey, available at http://www.realtor.org , can help you narrow down the possibilities.