I'm incredulous.
I paid $228,000 for The Dump and I considered myself lucky to find it and get it. I think you have just descibed the difference in cost of living from there to here.
I bought this house for three reasons: it had an attached garage, a level yard, and it was 15 minutes from work. Being closer to work was the main reason I moved. I commuted for 8 years and I just couldn't take it anymore.
$130,000 and two and half years later I'm still living in half a dump. The new, back part of the house, is nice. The three front rooms are still a dump. But I'll pay for all that as I go. At one point during the renovations I owed $60,000 on credit cards. Never again.
Cosmetic stuff is nothing. But any house you buy that requires any kind of major renovations? Keep looking. My situation did finally work out. But the permits, and the variances, and the construction. It was all hell. I would never do it again. Yeah. This place had major wiring issues and potential plumbing and roof issues. But the seller didn't want to deal.
What's left to do on this house is all basically cosmetic. No more structual changes. No more plumbing involved. The rest will be a piece of cake.
But I love my kitchen and it was worth every penny and every minute of hell it took to get it done.
For my area 110K gets you a new three bedrooom house on a normal sized lot or an older house on a huge lot. If the issues had been cosmetic we'd be closing in a week. Now we are taking the fall/winter off and will begin again after the new year.