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Elko Nevada. The housing is shockingly expensive for a small town in the middle of nowhere. It's a gold mining town. The miners must make good money and this inflates housing
Plenty of people coming in from California and the east coast lately whining and complaining about how they thought the COL in the Dallas area would be way lower.
Sure. If you buy crappy or in the boonies.
I point out it's still lower than where they came from (in terms of what you get for the money), but they remain disillusioned bc they can't have their 4000 sq ft mansion in a prime location.
Crying to me about $3000 a month for an apartment in West Plano. I didn't build up your fantasies. Plenty of cheaper apartments in less desirable locations.
This is a perception that to be frank...is very irritating.
Those cities are "cheap" by your Boston standards.....it doesn't mean that every metro in the south is super affordable.
The Research Triangle area of NC used be considered "cheap" and still is when compared to the coastal cities of the Northeast.....but with so many people from the suburbs of New York, DC, and Boston getting glimmers in their eye over how new and shiny everything is here and how their money goes further for housing...the COL has gone up pretty significantly over the past 15 years.
Get out of your bubble.
Many years ago when I was living in NC (Chapel Hill), I actually heard a newly transferred employee (from Boston) in my company griping that they had to buy too big a house [meaning if they spent a reasonable amount on a reasonable-sized house they'd get hit with capital gains or other taxes, I suppose]. That was my first exposure to the "First World Problems" meme, although memes and their kin weren't even invented back in the 70's :-)
I moved from Chapel Hill to Philly in 2008. When all was said and done: state/local income taxes, sales taxes, differences in insurance rates, ... Philly was more expensive (by about $1700, I think). Not trivial, but not as much as if we moved to NYC, Boston, or DC. The important aspect of all this is that [a] we could afford the moderate increase in COL and [b] we were (and still are) much happier in Philly.
I was surprised about rental and house prices in Birmingham, AL. A decent 2 br rental off 280 was 1200/mo almost 15 years ago. Friends were in a nice 2 br/2 car garage in Keller, TX (basically part of DFW). When rent went up to 2500/mo they bought a house and that after years of saying they will never be tied down. Small town Oklahoma smack outside of OKC. There is an apartment complex looking somewhat 1980is. Houses start in the 150s per all the usual realtor sites. Good joke!
One city you would think is cheap and it's not, Birmingham Alabama . Another is Charleston SC
The housing prices are some of the most affordable in the nation, and the property taxes generally are some of the most reasonable. But if you're talking about sales tax rates (9-10%, or even higher depending on the municipality), utility bills (B'ham summers tend to be brutal more often than not, so one could easily spend $300+ a month just staying cool), and occasionally food prices, I can see where you're coming from.
That said, it's probably much more cost-effective to live in cities such as Omaha than Birmingham as the paychecks are generally bigger, and more money tends to stay in the wallet anyway when it's all said and done.
Seattle rental prices vary greatly depending on the neighborhood:
Downtown
$2,300-3,300 for a 1-bedroom
$3,400-5,000+ for a 2-bedroom
Capitol Hill
$1,300-1,900 for a 1-bedroom
Queen Anne
$1,300-1,800 for a 1-bedroom
Ballard
$1,400-1,900 for a 1-bedroom
Wow what?? Isn't that a trendy area? I've always heard that Seattle is beyond expensive so I'm genuinely shocked by that. Those prices are cheaper than Santa Monica prices and probably even Venice too.
I'm actually surprised how inexpensive those prices are outside of downtown.
Me too, those are on the low end for some boring suburb 30 miles outside of SF in the Bay Area. Even though the Bay Area is known for being expensive some people might be surprised how expensive it is in the farther out suburbs. Most places get cheaper the farther you go away from the city center but in the case of the Peninsula and some South Bay cities, prices are actually just as or slightly more expensive per square foot in suburbs 20-30+ miles from SF as they are in the actually city.
Wow what?? Isn't that a trendy area? I've always heard that Seattle is beyond expensive so I'm genuinely shocked by that. Those prices are cheaper than Santa Monica prices and probably even Venice too.
A quick search on the Seattle Craigslist page shows most ads for 1-bedrooms in Capitol Hill in the $1,800-2,200 range. Still, because Capitol Hill has a lot of older-style apartment buildings, there is more of a diversity of price ranges, including apartments in the $1,400-1,700 range. Note however that this is the price range for older apartments, so in older buildings the rooms will be 500-600 square feet, no parking for the apartment, and no washer/dryer/dishwasher. Anything below $1,600 in Seattle and especially in Capitol Hill normally signifies that the complex doesn't have these amenities and have smaller units.
Also take note that the rental prices tend to lean towards the upper limits of the ranges I provided.
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