Garth and Kris McCallum-Keeler got twice the house in western Henrico County for $130,000 less than the colonial they lived in outside Boston.  Better yet, she can stay home with their 6-year-old son, a toddler, 10-year-old basset hound and labradoodle puppy.

They came here last year for her husband's job as marketing director at Insmed, a pharmaceutical company.  "We knew we could get something here that would be worth our while," Kris said.  Now, if only she could find a Dunkin' Donuts on every corner, it would be even better. "For the coffee, not the doughnuts," she said.

For people moving to the Richmond area from New England, chances are they will be pleased with house prices here.

"In Stamford, Conn., you can't buy a cottage for less than a half million," said Paul Gee, an agent with Joyner Fine Properties in Richmond.  Here, you can get a spacious house in a good neighborhood for $500,000.

But if you're from, say Dayton, Ohio, or Charleston, S.C. -- and relocating here with MeadWestvaco Corp. -- you might go through sticker shock.  The median price of a house in the Richmond area, with half selling for more and half for less, is $231,000, according to the National Association of Realtors.

In Dayton, it's $120,000.

And Boston? $412,300. In Stamford, the former headquarters of MeadWestvaco, the median is $466,600.  Gee said he has worked with clients who were profoundly disappointed by the prices here.

"They get hit pretty hard when they see what's available," Gee said.  Sticker shock is mitigated when they see what's available online, he said.

Still, "it's a powerful emotion when someone walks into a house that's 300 or 400 square feet smaller and the condition is not as good as what they had in Charleston."

Tera McClorey-Hare, who moved here for her husband's job, said she thought home prices here would be comparable to Charlotte, N.C.  It took six months to find anything close to the 4,000-square-foot home with a brick front and three-car garage that they owned in Charlotte.

"What we saw here for $350,000 was a 2,000-square-foot older home with a gravel driveway," she said.  "We had to bump up our price range," McClorey-Hare said.

They moved last month into a 3,300-square-foot house in Chesterfield County. It doesn't have the hardwood floors like the house in Charlotte. Nor does it have ceramic tiles or a central vacuum.  "It's something I could live with," she said.

Gail Wooten, an agent with Century 21 Old Richmond Realty, worked with clients from Mohnton, Penn., who were used to a large house with a lot of land in the $300,000 range.

"They came here looking in the $250,000 to $300,000 range. They had to go through a reality change of how far out they would have to buy to have privacy."

In the end, the 45-minute drive wasn't worth the acreage. The couple, who started looking in April, bought a house in Chesterfield for nearly $400,000 with about an acre. They moved in this month.

"A lot of people think that just because they move here from up North, they will be able to get a bigger house for less money," Wooten said.

Richmond is considered a corporate gypsy market with people coming and going as companies move here and others pack up and leave.

That keeps the real estate market here in balance and in general healthy -- not too hot and not too cold, real estate experts say.  The area usually has enough supply to satisfy demand, the experts say. Too much inventory would cause prices to drop; too little would send them rising sharply like they did in the once-hot Northern Virginia market.

"People think that good, old Richmond is in the South and they will get a great deal, so a lot of people are surprised by the prices here," said Liz Dorneman, an agent with Long & Foster.  "The prices here aren't going down, but they are not escalating either," she said.

Last year brought an influx of newcomers with about 200 corporate relocations for MeadWestvaco. About 260 people relocated with Phillip Morris USA in 2004 and 2005.

This year, nothing big seems to be out there. But people keep coming.  "Qimonda is leading the troops," Dorneman said. "Circuit City is bringing people in, too, and we're still seeing a trickle from Capital One."

Qimonda, with a semiconductor plant in Henrico County, is one of the area's largest employers. Circuit City Stores Inc., also among the area's largest employers, is a national retailer based here. Capital One Financial Corp., a credit-card and financial-services company, saw exponential growth before employment peaked in 2002.

It's all about location, said Carolyne Hotze, relocation director with Long & Foster. 

"If you're from the Midwest, you might go through sticker shock. If you're coming from Connecticut, you feel like you hit the lottery."

Sometimes, it's not so much about the house, Hotze said. It's the lifestyle. "It's how you can live your life here. Richmond is a fabulous product."

Ian MacEachern, who moved here from Hoboken, N.J., for a job at Wachovia Securities, said he has a hard time thinking of something he doesn't like here.  He and his wife, Daniela, closed on their house off West Cary Street about a month ago.

"It's noticeably more affordable here -- $250 a square foot compared with $1,000 a square foot in the Hoboken area, just across the river from Manhattan," he said.

Sure, Cary Street might be busy, he said. "But it's nothing compared to New York. I know Richmonders don't believe it, but traffic here is nonexistent."