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No, I'm not comparing it to the south. My mom owns a teeny tiny home in North Kingstown (I know...NK has higher home prices...but this isn't even a nice area...quiet yes, but certainly not prime by any stretch). Anyways, her home is around 1200 sq ft. It sits on maybe .10 of an acre. Her home value is over 200k, even in this down market.
I've mentioned my own home. A two family with a third floor in-law apartment. The two larger apartments are around 700 sq ft. The 3rd floor is probably half that with slanted ceilings to boot.
Our home is currently valued at around 175k by the town. At the peak of the market, it was worth 300k.
300k! For a 1900 built property not two blocks from Central Falls.
We are renting a 1900 sq ft home here in the Finger Lakes region of NY. We have upwards of an acre of park-like yard. The rent? $850/month. It would easily be over 1000k in RI.
This house is on the market for $112k she's never going to get that much because the house needs quite a bit of work. She'll be lucky to get 80k.
We're buying a beautiful 3500 sq ft home that sits on 3 acres. The asking price was 120k. We're actually only paying 110k though.
The taxes in this particular county are low. Just over 2000 per year. No additional road taxes (we paid almost $500 this year for RI road tax), no additional fire tax (ours in RI will be close to $400 in Sept).
Our weather here in NY is comparable...city-data stats show almost identical averages.
We may not have the ocean at our disposal, but we the beautiful finger lakes and the surrounding hills and valleys. It's absolutely gorgeous here...and mostly unspoiled.
We are absolutely getting more bang for our buck here.
It's not a knock against RI. We miss the many conveniences she had to offer. But the expense of living there was just not worth it. Not when we can live so comfortably here in western NY.
No one is comparing RI to the south ... the comparison is to average cities and towns in the entire country. I posted a link a while ago from CNN Money proving that RI is only 2nd to CA in expensive living. You can go on many cost of living calculators online. Bank Rate Monitor has the most up to date figures and their site is easy to use, to compare cost of living in one area vs. another. These calculators are used by most people when they are studying amenities and costs of housing, income, utilities etc. when relocating. Sperling's Best Places online also has a calculator but I'm not sure how updated it is. These are things that folks have to figure out for themselves. Do a Google search for "cost of living calculators" .... it is very informative.
It would be surprising to me to find out that RIs COL is higher than Hawaii. My husband and I briefly explored that option (his new company has locations all over the country) and Hawaii is freaking expensive.
I would expect RI COL to be in top 5 though. It's kind of ridiculous how expensive RI is.
Look around, even in RI the housing prices are a lot more affordable
than they have been since the mid-90's. I use Trulia website.
It really is getting more affordable to buy, and it must. Except for the ritsy
parts, RI economy is simply unable to sustain anything approaching the levels
seen in suburban NY, NJ, or Boston. As far as retirement goes, drive around
Narragansett this July and tell me how many NY/NJ plates you see, quite a few.
Our prices are far less than theirs, not just for homes, but for everything else,
and the New Yorkers gobble up the oceanfront property all around RI, just like
they have gobbled up southwest Vermont over the last 20 years.
You've got scant pickings if you are looking to spend under <80k
for a house, but there are some. Once you get just over 100k there's way
more available for low 100's than there has been in over a decade. RI is pretty
unique if you really know where to go, it's got countryside, horse riding,
fishing, beaches, the bay, or the urban scenes both here and within 1 hr drive,
entertainment, relative safety, educated people, and so on. I probably wouldn't
even be complaining if Rocky Point was still open, the dogs were still running at
Lincoln, and I could smoke in bars ! lol.
I think the Bay is still one of the real gems of the Northeast, one can affordably
dock a small boat, fish, swim at Goddard, clam, go hoggin', anchor overnight in Potter's Cove,
just cruise under the bridges, race sailboats, or vaunt to Point Judith and Salt Pond, Block Island, scuba dive
Fort Wetherill, take a romantic ride to Beaver Tail, heck you can take your boat
to Montauk Point in Long Island in about 90 minutes. If the salt water's not your thing,
there's plenty of rivers and lakes too. The more you really think about it, little RI is a
multi-faceted place to live.
Last edited by Snowball7; 06-09-2011 at 03:21 PM..
Wow I've lived in RI for 7 mos. People from here where telling me not to move here because of the high taxes. Well I should say it depends where you're coming from.
I moved from Canada because my job was lost and got a job offer here making more money than I did with two jobs. was what I made at home 34,000/year (on two jobs) and paid almost 6,000 in income tax alone, but I still managed to live comfortably.
And my monthly cost of living equals to what I paid total whilst living in Manitoba.
I have to say I absolutely love Rhode Island and would definitely love to make this my lifelong home.
Wow I've lived in RI for 7 mos. People from here where telling me not to move here because of the high taxes. Well I should say it depends where you're coming from.
I moved from Canada because my job was lost and got a job offer here making more money than I did with two jobs. was what I made at home 34,000/year (on two jobs) and paid almost 6,000 in income tax alone, but I still managed to live comfortably.
And my monthly cost of living equals to what I paid total whilst living in Manitoba.
I have to say I absolutely love Rhode Island and would definitely love to make this my lifelong home.
Glad you like it there. :-) It's a beautiful state, for sure.
Now...have you looked at housing prices and property taxes? And associated misc fees like fire tax, vehicle tax, etc? Just be aware...RI's COL is more expensive than it may seem, particularly if you own a home.
Housing prices here will be much lower than Canada- also not every town has fire tax. Today, you can find a decent house in a decent community in RI in the 200K range- this is very reasonable compared to anywhere in the country.
More desirable areas in RI cost more obviously. If you don't have kids, it's an added plus since you don't need to worry about the school district.
Housing prices here will be much lower than Canada- also not every town has fire tax. Today, you can find a decent house in a decent community in RI in the 200K range- this is very reasonable compared to anywhere in the country.
More desirable areas in RI cost more obviously. If you don't have kids, it's an added plus since you don't need to worry about the school district.
Just yesterday, you said this in another RI thread:
"PS Roscoe- have you even tried to sell????
If you're in a low price range- like under 200K- you might find that moving to another state won't mean much financially unless you're looking at mobile home in the Arkansas backwoods."
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Cost of Living
