Where to move ? (2015, apartment, renting)

[new traveller pm]

Currently living in Charlotte, NC & planning to take up a new job which has option to work out of either NY or Buffalo office. Salary expected would be Buffalo- $125K while NY - $135K.

Though would be working in NY however plan to stay in suburbs like Jersey city or other. Same goes for Buffalo, working in there however planning to stay in suburbs like East Amherst, NY (14051).

Family includes Wife, 5 year old daughter & I. Daughter will join Kindergarten in Aug/Sept 2015.

Need advice to help which location to chose --
1) Cost of living (based on estimated salary given)
2) Quality of life / Family life with Kid
3) Schools for my daughter
4) Renting a house Vs Apartment
5) Areas to stay since quality of life is most important

Its a big decision friends thus please provide as much insight & help as possible.
Thanks

[46H]

If you can take the cold and potential snow the answer is Buffalo. The $10k difference is not enough to choose the NYC area.

[davenj08]

On all 5 factors, 125k in Buffalo is far far far far far better than 135k in NYC. Hoenstly, there is no comparison. It is apples vs. grapes.

[captne76]

You'd have to compare living in Upstate NY Buffalo area vs suburban NJ. Costs would be different I think but environment and activities too. That should be plenty of salary I think. I mean most middle income people don't make half that even around NYC/NJ.

[Goldendoodle1969]

Agreed if you can tolerate the miserable winter weather than you should definitely choose buffalo. You can live like a king on that salary! Here you'll just be getting by.

[HalfFull]

$125K Buffalo is very good. I think you'd have to get $200K+ for NYC to beat that.

[PDD]

Originally Posted by new traveller pm

Currently living in Charlotte, NC & planning to take up a new job which has option to work out of either NY or Buffalo office. Salary expected would be Buffalo- $125K while NY - $135K.

Though would be working in NY however plan to stay in suburbs like Jersey city or other. Same goes for Buffalo, working in there however planning to stay in suburbs like East Amherst, NY (14051).

Family includes Wife, 5 year old daughter & I. Daughter will join Kindergarten in Aug/Sept 2015.

Need advice to help which location to chose --
1) Cost of living (based on estimated salary given)
2) Quality of life / Family life with Kid
3) Schools for my daughter
4) Renting a house Vs Apartment
5) Areas to stay since quality of life is most important

Its a big decision friends thus please provide as much insight & help as possible.
Thanks

A Nice NJ suburb home will cost you 2-3 times the same NC house.
2,500 NC property tax will be 10,000+ in NJ
Take all the traffic of Charlote, W-S, Raleigh and put them in one city and you have NJ traffic.
NJ auto insurance will be 1.5 times NC
The nicest quality of life affordable places to live outside NYC are 1.25-2hr commute
Here is where NJ tops NC and Bufalo, the quality of schools which follows the money, low taxes equals low quality schools except for the inner cities where taxes are high and the schools are bad because of who attends those schools. Generally the better schools are in the more expensive neighborhoods.

Winter snowfalls in Buffalo just plain suck,plus it's much colder in western NY than NJ.

To some people having more cash and a nicer home trumps a quality education. Most people living in NJ would disagree with that.

[C8N]

Buffalo
East Amherst is pretty nice and you might also want to look into Williamsville.
You will have a bigger house with a lower cost of living and you will most likely always have a white Christmas.
City of Buffalo itself is pretty worn down from what I remember but if need be, Toronto is only about 2hrs away.

[OysterCatcher]

Is there a third option to stay in NC. Honestly that would be the one I choose.

[new traveller pm]

Unfortunately NC is not even an option. After reading through the comments I think almost all feel Buffalo would be better option in my salary range ?