Syracuse among Top 10 affordable cities (Buffalo, Rochester: insurance, crime, home)

[Jeromeville]

This list is probably going to be sneered at because of the inclusion of Detroit and other depressed towns in Michigan (where the auto industry is on the verge of failure), but it's worth a look- I think Syracuse and Scranton are probably the best bets of the two when it comes to crime and proximity to cultural attractions.

Housing: Top 10 Most And Least Affordable Cities

Top 10 Most Affordable Cities

1. Indianapolis, IN
2. Warren, Troy, Farmington Hills, MI
3. Youngstown, Warren, Boardman, OH-PA
4. Detroit, MI
5. Grand Rapids, MI
6. Syracuse, NY
7. Dayton, OH
8. Akron, OH
9. Cleveland, OH
10. Scranton, PA

[ckhthankgod]

What was the criteria, because I'm surprised that Buffalo and Rochester weren't in that list. Good for the 'Cuse though.

[ScranBarre]

Further evidence that Syracuse and Scranton have more in common than the fine folks of "The 'Cuse" would probably like to admit! Let's also not forget that former Orangemen star Gerry McNamara was a native son of Scranton. Let's just blow up Binghamton and Cortland and merge our cities closer together already! LOL!

[Jeromeville]

Dude, you guys have The Office. It doesn't get much cooler than that.

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by Jeromeville

Dude, you guys have The Office. It doesn't get much cooler than that.

Until the sitcom dies its inevitable death, of course. At least we have some movies in the works as well. Who would have thought that a little old coal city in the PA mountains would garner so much attention?

[ki0eh]

It gets even more interesting when you chase the links to the data. The news report culled for size, here's the data including smaller metros ranked: http://www.nahb.org/fileUpload_detai...?contentID=535

So the top 10 really is:

Lansing-East Lansing, MI
Sandusky, OH
Lima, OH
Springfield, OH
Bay City, MI
Indianapolis-Carmel, IN
Battle Creek, MI
Canton-Massillon, OH
Saginaw-Saginaw Township North, MI
Utica-Rome, NY

Binghamton sneaks in at #12 - ahead of both Syracuse and Scranton.

[ki0eh]

OK, here's the Top 50 national entries, including NY and PA and bordering metros with urban areas extending thereto:

(In this table the last two numbers are the national and regional affordability rank.)

Utica-Rome, NY 89.7 52.7 72 10 1
Binghamton, NY 89.4 58.1 90 12 2
Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, OH-PA 89.4 52.0 73 12 11
Cumberland, MD-WV 88.9 50.1 85 16 1
Syracuse, NY 87.8 61.0 88 20 3
Scranton--Wilkes-Barre, PA 85.2 54.7 85 30 4
Buffalo-Niagara Falls, NY 84.1 60.9 100 32 5
Erie, PA 81.6 54.1 95 39 6
Harrisburg-Carlisle, PA 81.6 67.5 146 39 6
Rochester, NY 80.6 63.5 112 41 8
Pittsburgh, PA 79.9 60.0 115 43 9

Ithaca is also ranked: 76th nationally 13th regionally.

[ckhthankgod]

That blows the myth up about the Northeast being more expensive. So, if taxes and jobs weren't such an issue, imagine how many people would be up here? Even those issues are evened out, depending on what your skill set is for jobs and how you live within your budget.

[ki0eh]

I think that most folks across the country think of the "Northeast" as the eponymous corridor - and you can see how "affordable" the cities along I-95 are!

The other thing about this NAHB analysis is that it focuses on home price (P) rather than the PITI driving your financial outlay for home purchase. The first I (interest) might be roughly equivalent nationwide, the second I (insurance) typically breaks deals only in flood zones, but the burden of T (property taxes) is most definitely not equal nationwide, and frankly adds a big negative to the affordability of upstate NY, not reflected in this particular statistical analysis.

[ckhthankgod]

Originally Posted by ki0eh

I think that most folks across the country think of the "Northeast" as the eponymous corridor - and you can see how "affordable" the cities along I-95 are!

The other thing about this NAHB analysis is that it focuses on home price (P) rather than the PITI driving your financial outlay for home purchase. The first I (interest) might be roughly equivalent nationwide, the second I (insurance) typically breaks deals only in flood zones, but the burden of T (property taxes) is most definitely not equal nationwide, and frankly adds a big negative to the affordability of upstate NY, not reflected in this particular statistical analysis.

but what about the risk in terms of weather form many other parts of the country too? Meaning, getting insurance for such "acts of God". Then, when it occurs, it isn't cheap to fix such problems. There isn't much risk here in Upstate, with a few exceptions.