Today’s real estate market pins The Simpsons house at $450,000
American decline continues to be accurately measured via The Simpsons
TV Features The Simpsons
Earlier this year economists came to the sad, somehow not-at-all-shocking conclusion that The Simpsons’ depiction of an average, single-income suburban life populated by celebrity guest cameos and annual, non-canonical Halloween vignettes was essentially a damn pipe dream nowadays. Sure, maybe you could get by on a nuclear plant safety inspector’s salary in a rental apartment right now, but it’s hard to see how one could easily afford a once-humble abode like 742 Evergreen Terrace.
To drive the point further home (no pun intended), a group of real estate agents appraised what could be gleaned from numerous showings of the iconic pink house over the years, and found that Homer and Marge could net a healthy profit, were they to put their place on the market today: $449,900, to be more exact.
“Beautiful two-story home with basement. Through the arched, front door you are welcomed into the foyer,” reads a cheeky faux-listing from Garretts Real Estate Group via Newsweek earlier this week. “To the left is a cozy sitting room with a bay window, and to the right, is the dining room that also features a nice bay window. Towards the back of the home, is the living room and kitchen.”
Garretts goes on to describe additional amenities including an ensuite bathroom for the master bedroom, wooden picket backyard fence, low box hedge, as well as a patio and “custom treehouse.” Sounds pretty nice.
Nearby attractions like the Springfield Wax Museum and the Springfield Knowledgeum only further bolster the initial asking price, which was also influenced by similarly-sized homes in Springfield, Oregon—one of Matt Groening’s early inspirations for the town.
So yeah…good luck achieving the solidly middle-of-the-road success of Homer J. Simpson. Perhaps we’d all have a better chance simply Airbnb-ing the place.
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33 Comments
Nahhhhh. Not in a small town like Springfield. In a midsize metro area, sure, $450k sounds reasonable.But they have a small lot and they’re in a fairly small town. $300k tops.
Well, the size and significance of Springfield is elastic in response to the requirements of a given story/gag, so…
Yeah, sometimes Springfield is a small town with a centralized population, and sometimes they have a Russian district and thriving squidport.
Yeah. Put this house on the market in the nicest neighborhood in Toledo or Ft. Wayne or wherever and you’d be lucky to get half of their estimate.
Probably considering its value was based on Springfield OR with its proximity to the “nicer” Eugene $450 doesn’t seem that far off. 2200 or so sqft home. Doubt they ever upgraded anything though.
Springfield is usually coded as being in the midwest my dude.
the initial asking price, which was also influenced by similarly-sized homes in Springfield, Oregon—one of Matt Groening’s early inspirations for the town…From the article…Also, Springfield is often shown as being on the ocean as well.
It’s fine if it was an early inspiration, but it doesn’t change the fact that Springfield’s location has frequently shifted based on story requirements, but is most frequently coded as being somewhere in the midwest.
It’s basically somewhere loosely west of Appalachia but within a day’s drive of NY, it’s generally coded as somewhere in Ohio in practical geographic terms, maybe a smaller city in NW PA and a house that big in a smaller city like Meadville or Sharon or even Zanesville would definitely been a 200-250K house all day. The more intriguing issue is how Springfield thrives as a nuclear plant is definitely reason for a small town to survive but to have a large metro hospital as the tallest non-elastic building in town is still pretty crazy.
It’s coded as being in upstate NY.
Springfield’s ever-shifting geographic features is a source of never-ending fun. Ocean, major river, the Murderhorn…list goes on.But don’t forget city hall is a small building on a little town square and there doesn’t appear to be a high-rise building in town. Meanwhile here’s Eugene (complete with Murderhorn, I’ll give you that).
And Groening has stated many times its greatly influenced by his growing up in Eugene in interviews for decades. Of course its no real one place.
Probably considering its value was based on Springfield OR with its proximity to the “nicer” Eugene $450 doesn’t seem that far off. 2200 or so sqft home.
And the average nuclear plant safety inspector makes over $70K, so they could surely afford a mortgage on such a house.
Monthly payment on a $449,000 home at 4% is $2,143. I believe the recommendation is a borrower doesn’t allocate more than 28% of pre-tax income to a mortgage, so if that’s where the 2021 homebuying Simpsons are then it implies a needed salary of around $92,000.BUT1. Springfield still comes off as a smaller than than Eugene so I expect the house would cost less than $449k, and
2. Even if the current price is correct they’ve lived there since Bart was a baby, so the home would have been purchased sometime between 2011 and 2013 at a much lower number.ETA: CORRECTIONForgot the down payment. Assuming 20%, the mortgage is $359k, payment is $1,715 and required salary $73,495.
I dunno man, mi hermano just bought a house for 300 and it’s less than half the size of theirs, as well is the yard. And this is in a SMALL town. Like, technically a village.Buuut it is BC and the housing crisis here is insane.
No reference in the article to the Grimes episode making this point? I really hope someone got fired for that blunder.
A wizard did it.
Please refer to him as Grimey, as he liked to be called.
All the Canadians reading this like “Hmmm didnt Grandma’s 1100sq foot, single car bungalow sell for $999k”
sad upvote.
It does look nice from the outside.
Whatever the price for the house was originally, Homer had to borrow money from his dad to afford it and spent years paying off the mortgage. Of course, when Homer bought the house, he was only a technical supervisor who are notoriously impoverished.
Which he then lost by using home equity loans to pay for big parties (I love that “No Loan Again” ends with him and Marge basically being tenants in their own former home, albeit with Ned as the landlord).
Pfft, in my area of Canada, that’s over a million dollars, easily.
This is a decent price considering the location. As we know, the bordering states are Ohio, Nevada, Maine and Kentucky.
I live in Calgary, Canada and that’s a little on the low side. I’d say their place would bring about $550-600K here, depending on the neighbourhood.
Your money is loony, so the conversion rate bites 😉
It would be well to remember that when the people who created The Simpsons were kids, that was a $25,000 house in LOS ANGELES.
The joke is that even Homer can’t actually afford his house. He got it because his dad sold the family farm (at least in one episode) and gave him the proceeds to use as a down payment.
That’s a 1.2 million dollar home in SoCal.
I turned 38 this year, the same age as Homer Simpson. I do not need this sort of news article in my life right now.
My house is less than half the size and worth more than twice as much.