Is Baltimore's Cost of Living Skewed? (best cities, transplants, for sale)

[CDJD]

When the prospect of moving to Baltimore for work came up, two thoughts crossed my mind. 1) Can the city really be as bad as The Wire made it out to be, and 2) How's the cost of living?

Since researching a bit, I've seen many COL calculators and websites claim that Baltimore is about average as far as housing costs, but I'm just not seeing it. I'm not complaining, because Baltimore's cost of living is certainly within reason, but do all of the neighborhoods that are worse-for-the-wear skew the cost of living down to an almost misleading level? For example, CNN Money's Cost of Living Calculator suggests that housing in Baltimore only averages 1% more than what I'm paying here in Florida, and perhaps, on average, that's true, but to get into a comparable-type neighborhood, I'm looking at considerably more than a 1% increase in housing costs... more like a 50% bump. I know that they are totally different cities, but that 50% bump includes concessions in living space, parking, and safety. To me, that increase deserves a bit more attention than these cost of living calculators would lead people to believe.

Again, not a complaint, just wondering if I'm off in my perceptions as an outsider possibly coming in, or if this is something you residents have observed as well.

As an aside, from everything I've gathered about Charm City, The Wire really appears to have a done number on how people perceive Baltimore. But, the type of neighborhoods featured in this tv show are the ones I'm wondering about possibly skewing cost of living calculations. Where I live in Florida, we don't really have any blighted areas that could be included in COL averages.

[North Beach Person]

Actually The Wire pulled some punches and wasn't realistic enough.

The COL in the Washington/Baltimore region is, if I remember correctly, the 3rd highest in the US behind NYC/NJ and CA so your perceptions aren't far off.

[L in sobo]

You are correct in your analysis.

To live in a safe neighborhood downtown with 1200-1500 sq feet you will need to spend 250-400k.
To live in a nice single family in the county - 300k +. Nice county townhouse start at 250k. Rough estimates.

I have friends from Florida that can't believe what we spend on housing.

[CDJD]

^ Those numbers seem in line with what I've observed when looking at purchase prices, and then I've seen some pretty costly property tax assessments on Trulia; in the neighborhood of ~$600/month for a $250k home within the city. Those high property taxes must suppress the home prices quite a bit.

The property tax actually threw me at first because I couldn't figure out why there was such a gap between prospective mortgage costs and high rents, and then I saw the property tax!

[KLynch10]

Cost of living boils down pretty much to supply and demand in the real estate market. Baltimore has its rough parts, but as a whole the metro area economy is very strong. The reason rents are so high in areas like Federal Hill, Canton, Fells, Harbor East, North Baltimore is because people can afford it. Not only are things priced at a certain range, but we are getting to a point where bidding wars are arising for quality rentals or new rehabs or construction.

Baltimore is less expensive than most of the Northeast and major west coast cities, but more expensive than pretty much the rest of the country outside of a few spots. At least we are at a point were 22 year olds can still afford to live in decent parts of the city. You don't see 22 years olds in San Fran because they can't afford it.

As far as going out to eat, getting drinks and groceries and stuff. DC and NY are by far the worst I've seen. Things in San Fran are a little more expensive than here, things are probably cheaper in Chicago.

Property taxes need to be lowered, but I think the prices in certain areas of the city show you that the market is very strong and a great indicator that this city isn't the hell hole everyone makes it out to be. People wouldn't get in bidding wars for apartments and rehabbed homes if people were actually getting shot and mugged left and right in those areas.

[james777]

I don't quite understand what "The Wire" and Baltimore's crime rate has to do with the cost of living in Baltimore. You tried to make a connection, but it went over my head. Baltimore has a terrible crime problem and public perception problem, but it has nothing to do with the cost of living.

The cost of living in the Baltimore area is quite reasonable, actually a bargain, when compared with other like areas. One must compare apples to apples, not apples to oranges, so let's not even think of comparing the cost of living in Baltimore to the rural south. A poster above says "I have friends from Florida that can't believe what we spend on housing." Where in Florida? It is all supply and demand. In less populated areas, one can buy a house down there for a fraction of what one would pay here, even in the Baltimore ghetto. But in populated areas such as Miami, the housing is very high. If I compare the cost of living in the suburbs of Baltimore to the cost of living in the suburbs of DC, Philadelphia, NY, Boston, San Diego, LA, San Fran, or Chicago, Baltimore is a bargain!! If you are comparing the cost of living in the Baltimore to cities or suburbs other than those that I mentioned above, there is no valid comparison. Why? Because only those cities offer what Baltimore has, such as employment and higher education opportunities and an almost unlimited array of things to do from professional sports to culture, art, music, theatre, etc. Other than the cities I mentioned above, there is only one big city in the US that offers what Baltimore has and that is the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, and yes, the cost of living there is much lower than in the Baltimore area.

[L in sobo]

The op is from Florida. That is why I mentioned my friends that are from Tampa, specifically.

[CDJD]

Originally Posted by james777

I don't quite understand what "The Wire" and Baltimore's crime rate has to do with the cost of living in Baltimore. You tried to make a connection, but it went over my head. Baltimore has a terrible crime problem and public perception problem, but it has nothing to do with the cost of living.

I used The Wire to help me describe the types of neighborhoods that I am thinking may be suppressing Baltimore's average cost of living because the series was a pop-culture phenomenon, and as someone who isn't very familiar with the city, it's easier to speak in terms that we all can reference... I don't know all of the names or parts of the city, but if I say, "a neighborhood like the one Bodie got shot in," someone on the forum will probably catch my reference, however unschooled it may be.

Either way, a city having a terrible crime and public perception problems is going to experience a lower cost of living than the same city without those issues.

Originally Posted by james777

The cost of living in the Baltimore area is quite reasonable, actually a bargain, when compared with other like areas. One must compare apples to apples, not apples to oranges, so let's not even think of comparing the cost of living in Baltimore to the rural south. A poster above says "I have friends from Florida that can't believe what we spend on housing." Where in Florida? It is all supply and demand. In less populated areas, one can buy a house down there for a fraction of what one would pay here, even in the Baltimore ghetto. But in populated areas such as Miami, the housing is very high. If I compare the cost of living in the suburbs of Baltimore to the cost of living in the suburbs of DC, Philadelphia, NY, Boston, San Diego, LA, San Fran, or Chicago, Baltimore is a bargain!! If you are comparing the cost of living in the Baltimore to cities or suburbs other than those that I mentioned above, there is no valid comparison. Why? Because only those cities offer what Baltimore has, such as employment and higher education opportunities and an almost unlimited array of things to do from professional sports to culture, art, music, theatre, etc. Other than the cities I mentioned above, there is only one big city in the US that offers what Baltimore has and that is the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, and yes, the cost of living there is much lower than in the Baltimore area.

I wasn't trying to suggest that the city's cost of living is unreasonable. I was merely questioning how much the areas of Baltimore with housing stock that is available for purchase under $10k impact the city's overall average cost of living, since I can only presume that most prospective Baltimore transplants aren't looking to move into those neighborhoods. Even if these COL calculators were to use the mean cost of home prices, there is so much housing for sale at the extremely low end of the spectrum, that I would guess that they would still impact the COL calculations.

Also, if I'm looking to compare my current home to a prospective home, then they're both apples to me. Living in a pretty large city and top tourist destination, and within a few hours of another, I've already got culture, art, music, theater, employment, education, and 12 months of beach and surf.

[L in sobo]

The massive amount of houses in the 5k- 50k drag down the col estimators. Nothing debatable about that. Most of the neighborhoods in the city limits you will not want to live in. Some of them are too dangerous to drive through. A few of the gentrified neighborhoods are great. But they are expensive relative to most areas of Florida. Are they over priced ? No. Not necessarily. Tampa is a somewhat comparable city - and Tampa prices are much lower. But that is Florida and this is the mid Atlantic.

[james777]

CDJD, I now see your concern, having read this thread over again along with your subsequent posts, and your response to my post. You believe that Baltimore's cost of living is skewed much lower than it should be by averaging in lower cost housing in very unsafe neighborhoods that you or others moving into the area would never consider. You may have a valid point. I have very little faith in a lot of this research as I have seen many mistakes, particularly in the lists of the best communities and best cities to live in and retire in, and the journalists who write these articles rarely visit these places to see for themselves what they are writing about.

When doing research on where to live in the Baltimore area, I think you need to take a different approach. Tell us what you want, such as the type of housing, number of square feet, size of yard (if you want one), type of community, and what area you will be working in, and forum members can make suggestions as to what suburbs or communities you should look into. You can even point out certain suburbs or communities where you live now and ask if there is anything comparable in the Baltimore area. Several people considering moving to a new city have done this, and it has helped them tremendously. There seems to be a wealth of knowledge on this forum; you may as well make use of it.