Houston more expensive than New York? (Galveston, Spring: apartments, to rent, insurance)

[kidd_funkadelic]

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/ho...rtation-costs/

[elnina]

Well, more math should be done on that topic. But simple google results are still reassuring that the cost of living in Houston is way lower than in NY.

"The cost of living in Houston, TX is -53.8% lower than in New York, NY." (salary.com)
"Overall, New York, New York is 94.0% more expensive than Houston, Texas - Median Home Cost is the biggest factor in the cost of living difference." (per competitor website)

[kidd_funkadelic]

Just interesting when you think about it

[elnina]

Originally Posted by kidd_funkadelic

Just interesting when you think about it

Yes, but I would like to see the real numbers that are compared.

[Chrisrock]

"Monthly median housing costs in Houston in 2016 (the most recent year data was available) were $1,379, nearly $400 less than New York City"

I would like to know where one can live in NYC for $1,779. TM should stick to BBQ lists.

[gwarnecke]

I don't know the particulars of this study, but I've noticed that similar studies tend to overestimate transportation costs in car-centric cities.

If you choose to do so, it's a lot easier to dramatically reduce your transportation costs in a city like Houston (ie drive a 10-year-old compact sedan with liability-only insurance) than to dramatically reduce your housing costs in a city like New York.

Also, while it's true that living inside the loop is expensive, Houston has a highly decentralized employment base, with business districts all over the city. Plenty of these business districts are surrounded by reasonably-priced housing.

Also agree that something seems way off with the NY housing costs figure.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by Chrisrock

"Monthly median housing costs in Houston in 2016 (the most recent year data was available) were $1,379, nearly $400 less than New York City"

I would like to know where one can live in NYC for $1,779. TM should stick to BBQ lists.

https://www.apartments.com/new-york-...-l4hryHkkw4srb





You're not going to get a whole lot of space, but studios/1br seem to start around that price point in the north of Manhattan.

Just noticed one thing for 1750 around East 82nd/Fifth, can only imagine what's wrong with it. Madonna's dance studio is on the floor right above, or it's where they shot Joe's Apartment or something like that.

Originally Posted by QUOTE

but I've noticed that similar studies tend to overestimate transportation costs in car-centric cities.

There's probably some value of truth to the studies overestimating your transportation costs, as well as to the people in those cities not realizing that they're spending a lot of money just to get to and from work.

Of course, everyone's needs/wants/goals/priorities etc. are different. I don't know about NYC, but I'll buy this study 100 percent if we're talking Chicago and not NYC. To rent the same space for the same price in Houston, I'd be, at closest, somewhere around the fringe of 610 like I used to be, still driving everywhere. still paying insurance which is not cheap in Texas, as insurance goes, compared to some other states. Then there's gas, there's maintenance, there's what amounts to a rent payment dropped at the car shop sometimes. I had to drop a new motor in a car at Thunderbolt once, goodbye $1,500. Just so I could get to work and back. My CTA card over here doesn't have any moving parts that fail.

And if I'm doing the car-centric life on the outer loop, I could just as soon do that in a place like Indianapolis or wherever and pay less in rent, because the world is bigger than a comparison between any two cities. For that matter, Indy actually has some urbanity in the core and it's not that expensive to live in/around their downtown where you might actually get by without a car if you have work around there.

I could have taken the alternate option that presented itself to me, that would have moved me to Colorado Springs instead, with one of my newsroom OGs who now builds pages at a rag out there. But I took this because I would have to buy a car.



There's another factor that's not here - you're more likely to die on the road in Houston than doing anything else there. You know, if you get shot in the street, it's a news story and it's this horrible, sad deal. When you get killed in a car accident, it's not news, you're lucky if your obituary makes the paper nowadays, and nobody hears about it besides your family and your employer reposting your job online. Dead people don't work.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Yes, Houston is more expensive than New York. People have been leaving Houston lately to move to New York with the hopes of lower cost of living.

[LocalPlanner]

Lots of folks working in NYC commute from far-away suburbs that might be cheap relatively to the 5 boroughs, but aren't cheap by U.S. standards - plus they are paying for whatever transportation they are using to commute, which is also not cheap.

I have to think that the average suburban commuter in Houston is probably paying less for housing (definitely) and transportation (in many cases) than NYC commuters.

Nevertheless, we shouldn't be ignorant of the costs that transportation places on low and moderate income workers here, especially as the places they can afford to live have moved mostly to the inner and middle suburbs where public transit is either unavailable or has much lower quality service. So they have to get a beater that has a high risk of needing lots of expensive maintenance, not to mention all the standard costs of ownership.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

Lots of folks working in NYC commute from far-away suburbs that might be cheap relatively to the 5 boroughs, but aren't cheap by U.S. standards - plus they are paying for whatever transportation they are using to commute, which is also not cheap.

I have to think that the average suburban commuter in Houston is probably paying less for housing (definitely) and transportation (in many cases) than NYC commuters.

Nevertheless, we shouldn't be ignorant of the costs that transportation places on low and moderate income workers here, especially as the places they can afford to live have moved mostly to the inner and middle suburbs where public transit is either unavailable or has much lower quality service. So they have to get a beater that has a high risk of needing lots of expensive maintenance, not to mention all the standard costs of ownership.

If the fares on the commuter lines over there are anything like Metra, riding that's not too bad. Out there, though, I'd still drive a car, if not as regularly. Then you can get insurance where you pay according to how much you actually drive. I paid over 200 a month in the early aughts for liability before I turned 25, and I was living in Alvin then. Not Houston, not Harris County. Alvin. I moved out there in part because I got a discount on the insurance for moving out of Galveston. Sometimes I couldn't afford it and just rode dirty, like a lot of kids driving around there were, and are. And of course, being Texas, that ended up having me forking over money to that "driver responsibility" program whose primary function was to make as many poor people 110 percent unemployable as humanly possible.

Plus you have actual walkable, downtown cores in the older suburbs, such that it's no less urbane than inner-loop Houston for the most part. Someplace like Nassau County, Long Island here, at some 5-6k/square mile density, with the LIRR. Not exactly the suburbia in the style of Perry Homes that Houston knows.

Some Chicago burbs like Evanston, Oak Park and even Aurora and Naperville to a lesser extent even have portions more like this, where they grew up around the rail lines that never shut down and became the Metra system. Evanston and Oak Park are on the El system, and are urban places as Texas would reckon it. As such, it's a bit apples/oranges comparing Houston suburbs with these places. Different PLU codes, different prices.

The people moving there to Texas generally make the tradeoff of full auto dependence to gain more square feet in their house, which is far from my own number one priority, but it matters to others with kids, more stuff etc.