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Cars are not cheap, but $400/month is really high. I have an 18-year first time driver with a car on my insurance and I don’t pay that for both of us. And obviously a 2015 Honda Accord is not going to be $400-500/ month. You are probably looking at half that. Certainly a subway pass is cheaper however. It’s always cheaper not to pay for assets.
Yeah the Inexperienced Operator Charge is pretty significant in NC. Very strange. And thats because your child is on your policy. If they got their own, or a family from NYC got a license for the first time or immigrants move over to NC and buy a car... yeah its about $400+ a month. If you insure your 18 year old child it may be half that since an experienced driver is on the policy (I worked in insurance throughout college) Just don't do State Farm or USAA with Inexperienced Operators in NC. Youll get screwed.
Also for NC, they have a weird 'Safe Driver Insurance Plan' of driving points. Effectively, your insurance will more than double (~85%) if you have one at-fault accident (In the event payout less deductible is greater than $2,400) I used to cry when I had to do a policy transfer to NC because they really ramp up the rates after one accident. https://www.ncdoi.gov/consumers/auto...incentive-plan <-- One of the steepest increases/surcharges Ive ever seen. Although great drivers can literally pay $30 a month for full coverage over 3 years at a mutual insurance company.
Seattle, DC, Boston, Denver, Minneapolis, Portland, etc. all seem to be doing quite well in terms of growth. SF, LA, Sacramento, and San Diego have all had growth at 8%+ in the past decade.
Also, let's not pretend that people are fleeing "liberal strongholds" to live in conservative places. Austin, Raleigh, Miami, Atlanta, etc. are pretty dang liberal.
From a city perspective, that's fair, those cities skew just left of center, but otherwise reside in conservative states, which is still important to my point as many taxes and policies are still set at the state level, while all the jobs are located in the cities.
Minneapolis is struggling as of late. It's where I moved from and still have family there. Between the BLM riots and how the state handled COVID, along with the high taxes and the trends are slowly reversing there
Yeah the Inexperienced Operator Charge is pretty significant in NC. Very strange. And thats because your child is on your policy. If they got their own, or a family from NYC got a license for the first time or immigrants move over to NC and buy a car... yeah its about $400+ a month. If you insure your 18 year old child it may be half that since an experienced driver is on the policy (I worked in insurance throughout college) Just don't do State Farm or USAA with Inexperienced Operators in NC. Youll get screwed.
Also for NC, they have a weird 'Safe Driver Insurance Plan' of driving points. Effectively, your insurance will more than double (~85%) if you have one at-fault accident (In the event payout less deductible is greater than $2,400) I used to cry when I had to do a policy transfer to NC because they really ramp up the rates after one accident. https://www.ncdoi.gov/consumers/auto...incentive-plan <-- One of the steepest increases/surcharges Ive ever seen. Although great drivers can literally pay $30 a month for full coverage over 3 years at a mutual insurance company.
Point is, NC can be very expensive to drive in.
I won't argue that the insurance laws/system in NC isn't antiquated and oft high-cost inducing because of that....but that comes nowhere near to making it less affordable than the NYC or Boston metro areas. It barely moves the needle on closing the gap.
It definitely has come down significantly. California and increasingly Boston are more desirable than NYC which is wild. TO think I moved out of the Boston area to the NYC area and saved a lot of money, and am thinking about buying a nice condo under 200k 2 miles outside Manhattan is crazy.
How do people in California who recently moved there actually afford it? Genuine question.
Compared to most of the states in the Northeast, California is relatively inexpensive, aside from real estate prices and, if you are high-income, state income tax rates.
California has a progressive state income tax, whereby higher-earners are charged higher rates, and lower-earners are charged lower rates. Every year, I receive an income tax refund from the California Franchise Tax Board. Now, the IRS - well, that's a different story.
In most apartment and condominium buildings of Southern California that were constructed after 1970, there is no gas, so homeowners and tenants are only responsible to pay for power and light. Thankfully, residents of coastal Southern California heat and cool their homes for relatively brief periods of the year, so light bills are generally low, especially during the period spanning March through July. Depending upon your income, Southern California Edison (SCE) customers may qualify for a 20% discount on their light bill that renews every 24 months. When I was laid off from a previous employer in early 2017, and my personal income was effectively reduced to zero, I applied for that discount program at SCE and was approved.
Personally, I have never rented an apartment or condominium at which I was responsible to pay for refuse, sewer and water. Unlike Rhode Island, which is where I grew up, refuse is privatized in California, but to my understanding, the monthly bill is low (i.e., <$30).
In California, there is no personal property tax on motor vehicles, and annual motor vehicle tag renewal costs vary between $150 and $250 for four-door sedans, depending upon vehicle year, make, model and weight. Surprisingly, the state of California does not require annual or biennial emissions and/or safety inspections, unlike Rhode Island. Gasoline-powered vehicles do not need to be smogged until they are eight model years old. The model year of my car is 2013, and thus far, I have not had to smog my car to renew my tags, but I believe my luck will run out this year. Finally, auto insurance premium rates are much lower in California - and other Western states, for that matter - than some Eastern states, most notably Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Rhode Island and Texas.
There are many Dollar Tree stores and very cheap grocery stores where you can purchase essential food and household items for less than $2.00. Because of the exceptionally large poor population in the Los Angeles area, we have numerous discount supermarket chains in the area, including Food4Less, Grocery Outlet Bargain Market and Northgate Market among others. Produce in particular is much cheaper in California than in many other states, which is largely due to the state being among one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world, as well as the fact that no particular supermarket chain has a monopoly in this region. Seven years ago, I visited a Publix store in West Ashley, South Carolina and observed red bell peppers for sale for $3.99 each. Yikes, you would never see that in California, even at Gelson's.
I'm surprised Texas isn't on the list for top inbound state. A ton of people have been moving there.
What most of those blue states have in common is that they have a combination of low property taxes *AND* good natural scenery. These are about the only 2 areas where Texas doesn't stack up well.
In other words, these are likely people who can now WFH permanently and have the freedom to prioritize lifestyle over proximity.
I won't argue that the insurance laws/system in NC isn't antiquated and oft high-cost inducing because of that....but that comes nowhere near to making it less affordable than the NYC or Boston metro areas. It barely moves the needle on closing the gap.
Were talking transportation specifically. Factoring housing and entertainment, oh yeah, NC is easily 1/3 as much as the Boston and 1/2 as the NYC metro areas.
It definitely has come down significantly. California and increasingly Boston are more desirable than NYC which is wild. TO think I moved out of the Boston area to the NYC area and saved a lot of money, and am thinking about buying a nice condo under 200k 2 miles outside Manhattan is crazy.
How do people in California who recently moved there actually afford it? Genuine question.
There's a reason some people leave home later out there. I know several people in their 30's that basically have a wing or an in-law suite in their parents house.
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