Are the prices more reasonable? What is your area´s housing opportunity index, or HOI? This is a statistic calculated by The National Association of Home Builders. A home is labeled affordable if no more then 28% of the median family income for the area in question, is needed to pay for the home. Check the index for your area or similar areas to get an idea: http://www.nahb.org/page.aspx/category/sectionID=135. Another good site to check out before buying a home, is one with an affordability calculator, such as the one on the following page:
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/Loan/HomeAffordabilityCalculator.aspx.

More then half of homes recently purchased, were considered affordable. It is a good idea when checking your area´s index, to note how it is doing month by month; is it rising? St. Louis´s index rose from 77% (last year´s stats) to 80%.

Any communities with a lack of affordable homes, may notice that this affects other areas of the community as well. If there are not many affordable homes, there are less low cost jobs, more congestion and demand for faster transportation as workers have to travel longer between where they work and where they found an affordable home.

According to Wikipedia, to be deemed reasonably affordable, the housing cost would have to be at or less then 30% of a household´s gross income. They also mention that a key factor to consider when calculating affordability is travel time. Depending on where you buy, will your travel time to go to work be longer and more expensive, thus bringing down your home´s affordability in the long run, then if you initially paid more for another home with less commute time?