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Don't want to switch gears too swiftly, but I was pretty surprised that you can get a decent looking house 35 miles from NYC for 350k. I know the commute would be horrendous, but if you don't need to be in the city everyday, it may work.
Check the property tax on some of those communities though. My in-laws pay nearly 3x the property tax for a house with a similar value to ours in San Diego. And he never knows what it gonna be year to year, at least ours is pretty much locked in for life. That $350K house could easily equal a $500K+ house payment in California.
With that said, there’s beautiful communities with a reasonable commute to Manhattan on the train for a decent price. I thought the suburbs of NYC would be much higher too.
Check the property tax on some of those communities though. My in-laws pay nearly 3x the property tax for a house with a similar value to ours in San Diego. And he never knows what it gonna be year to year, at least ours is pretty much locked in for life. That $350K house could easily equal a $500K+ house payment in California.
With that said, there’s beautiful communities with a reasonable commute to Manhattan on the train for a decent price. I thought the suburbs of NYC would be much higher too.
As of EOM July 2018 via Realtor.Com analytics, here is the list of metros by median listing prices:
1. San Jose-Sunnyvale: $1.29M
2. Honolulu: $995k
3. San Francisco-Oakland: $977k
4. Los Angeles-Long Beach: $815k
5. San Diego-Carlsbad: $750k
6. Seattle-Tacoma: $587k
7. Boston-Cambridge: $523k
8. New York-Newark: $515k
9. Miami-Fort Lauderdale: $499k
10. Washington-Arlington: $490k
Also, larger cities—such as NYC or LA—will be ranked lower in these studies than much smaller cities as they also have more poverty and because of the basic mathematical principle of a higher average being much harder to maintain the larger the sample size.
Does anyone truly believe Austin, San Diego, Denver, Charlotte, etc has more wealth and greater economic opportunities than NYC and LA??
With median income, all that says is the top half earners make far more than the bottom half, which usually means there is an even wider income disparity between the fewer wealthy earners vs the Subway and bartenders in the bottom half.
Last edited by elchevere; 09-29-2018 at 11:24 AM..
Very real possibility. I'd think NYC, Chicago, LA, Philadelphia, and Boston all fall into that category.
E.g. imagine the median income of the Main Line? Chicago's North Shore? Boston's MetroWest? LA's Orange County?
Lower Merion Township, home to the communities that make up the inner Main Line and the only one of the Main Line townships all of whose territory is considered to lie within it, can stand in as a proxy.
The median household income in Lower Merion Township is $121,483 (2016 ACS data). That's well above the MHI for its county (Montgomery: $81,902) and the Pennsylvania portion of the Philadelphia MSA ($61,064).
The figures for the other four townships that contain parts of the Main Line:
Narberth, Montgomery County:$93,382 (this borough is completely surrounded by Lower Merion Township)
Malvern, Chester County: $74,088
So - leaving out Malvern, which technically lies past the end of the "Main Line" but is now often included with it - the ratio of MHI to the city's is anywhere from 2.5 to 3 to 1.
Quote:
Originally Posted by march2
This is an interesting read, looking at it from a strictly income point of view. But to use average annual income only to measure "wealth" shows a clear lack of understanding economic statistical data. One has to factor average income AND housing costs/expenses/overall cost of living to get the actual picture. Buying Power is the key, not income.
The figures being bandied about here are for median household income. I know you need to use average figures to figure out the COL, but there are differences between the two.
And none of these actually get at wealth, though income minus expenses should produce that figure. But to all households save everything they earn after the basic expenses are met? I think there are lots of households out there that drop a lot of discretionary income on stuff or experiences after taking care of the rest, and these households would be affluent but not necessarily wealthy unless they had considerable assets stashed away.
I know Austin and Texas in general is reasonably priced as far as CoL but $67,000 seems pretty low for Austin when you look at the housing prices there.
Also, Amazon has really taken Seattle to a whole different level, it's interesting.
Location: Miami (prev. NY, Atlanta, SF, OC and San Diego)
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Also, some cities that are retiree destinations and home to wealthy foreigners who contribute to the economy but do not show income have their “wealth” understated. Case in point: wealthy foreigners who paid 100% cash for multimillion dollar condos throughout Miami/Miami Beach—besides the condos, their property taxes, cars, gas, shopping, etc adds to the GDP, some who do not work, nor need to, not showing up as “income”. Ditto NYC, LA, etc etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarketStEl
Lower Merion Township, home to the communities that make up the inner Main Line and the only one of the Main Line townships all of whose territory is considered to lie within it, can stand in as a proxy.
The median household income in Lower Merion Township is $121,483 (2016 ACS data). That's well above the MHI for its county (Montgomery: $81,902) and the Pennsylvania portion of the Philadelphia MSA ($61,064).
The figures for the other four townships that contain parts of the Main Line:
Narberth, Montgomery County:$93,382 (this borough is completely surrounded by Lower Merion Township)
Malvern, Chester County: $74,088
So - leaving out Malvern, which technically lies past the end of the "Main Line" but is now often included with it - the ratio of MHI to the city's is anywhere from 2.5 to 3 to 1.
The figures being bandied about here are for median household income. I know you need to use average figures to figure out the COL, but there are differences between the two.
And none of these actually get at wealth, though income minus expenses should produce that figure. But to all households save everything they earn after the basic expenses are met? I think there are lots of households out there that drop a lot of discretionary income on stuff or experiences after taking care of the rest, and these households would be affluent but not necessarily wealthy unless they had considerable assets stashed away.
Last edited by elchevere; 09-29-2018 at 07:00 PM..
Don't want to switch gears too swiftly, but I was pretty surprised that you can get a decent looking house 35 miles from NYC for 350k. I know the commute would be horrendous, but if you don't need to be in the city everyday, it may work.
I'd have no problem with a 35 minute commute by train in the NYC area. By car? No way!
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