Why Is Philly Cheaper Than Other East Coast Cities? (Philadelphia: condo, townhouse)

[pman]

Some of the depressed areas have wonderful housing stock so.i doubt thats the answer. Besides those old rowhomes are a lot nicer than some rat traps people in ny live in. Only certain sections of philly are cheap.

[drive carephilly]

Originally Posted by OleSchoolFool

i don kno what happened in nyc in the last 20 yrs, but nyc ghettos still look atrocious, half of the city looks filthy and trashy as hell, but i guess nyc gets a pass cuz its nyc its been rated as america's dirtiest city, repeatedly
philly mite look bad too, but lets cut the bs and stop pretendin nyc is all peaches and cream
dont believe the hype

I know NYC has terrible 'hoods - and plenty more just outside the city limits.

We're talking about real estate prices though - and that goes back to my point about vacant land and vacant buildings.

NYC started to turn its ship around in the early 90s.

Boston started to turn it around 10 years earlier. Philly just got started 10 years ago.

[OleSchoolFool]

Originally Posted by drive carephilly

I know NYC has terrible 'hoods - and plenty more just outside the city limits.

We're talking about real estate prices though - and that goes back to my point about vacant land and vacant buildings.

NYC started to turn its ship around in the early 90s.

Boston started to turn it around 10 years earlier. Philly just got started 10 years ago.

so then philly's like nyc of 2000?
by that logic philly shud be on current nyc hood development level in 10 yrs? thats an interesting point, im not sure bout philly development tho cuz way more people are tryin to move to nyc so nyc will be somewhere else in 10 yrs, havin said that philly is much smaller so it mite catch up cuz physically theres way less to gentrify (nyc is 302 sq miles, philly is 135 sq miles)

[drive carephilly]

Originally Posted by OleSchoolFool

so then philly's like nyc of 2000?
by that logic philly shud be on current nyc hood development level in 10 yrs? thats an interesting point, im not sure bout philly development tho cuz way more people are tryin to move to nyc so nyc will be somewhere else in 10 yrs, havin said that philly is much smaller so it mite catch up cuz physically theres way less to gentrify (nyc is 302 sq miles, philly is 135 sq miles)

it's one thing to compare Philly, Boston, DC, SF, etc. but there's no real point in trying to draw parallels to NYC. It just works differently.

but yes . . . the more things change the faster they change. Anyone who has been in Philly over the last decade can tell you that the pace of change has been accelerating. I think the next decade will bring significantly more development than the decade before it.

[BajanYankee]

Boston: Way more schools than Philly (i.e., "the City that Learns"). It's also strong in finance, law and tech and has a lot of old money.

NYC: Russian heiresses are buying $66 million condos in Manhattan, so it should be pretty obvious why it's more expensive than Philly. Six-figure salary is standard issue.

DC: Much stronger economy. Six-figure salaries are standard issue. There's also a lot of independent wealth and foreign investment in the city. You will see more Sothebys real estate signs there than you will in Philly.

[OleSchoolFool]

Originally Posted by BajanYankee

Boston: Way more schools than Philly (i.e., "the City that Learns"). It's also strong in finance, law and tech and has a lot of old money.

NYC: Russian heiresses are buying $66 million condos in Manhattan, so it should be pretty obvious why it's more expensive than Philly. Six-figure salary is standard issue.

DC: Much stronger economy. Six-figure salaries are standard issue. There's also a lot of independent wealth and foreign investment in the city. You will see more Sothebys real estate signs there than you will in Philly.

Hell Nah http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36000.html
NYC Median household income, 2007-2011-$56,951
DC Median household income, 2007-2011 $61,835

And these are median household incomes, not even median individual ones.

Now DC got good jobs so you can have a better chance of making it there, but to say 6 fig is standard is false. Saying 6 fig is standard in NYC is even more false.

[FindingZen]

Originally Posted by OleSchoolFool

Hell Nah New York QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau
NYC Median household income, 2007-2011-$56,951
DC Median household income, 2007-2011 $61,835

And these are median household incomes, not even median individual ones.

Now DC got good jobs so you can have a better chance of making it there, but to say 6 fig is standard is false. Saying 6 fig is standard in NYC is even more false.

I would guess that the outer boroughs bring down the average income. Manhattan proper may be closer to a six-figure average, especially "lower" Manhattan. Certainly in both NYC (particularly Manhattan and increasingly Brooklyn) and DC (save east of the Anacostia River), it would be difficult to buy housing in reasonable condition without a six-figure income.

Tying this back to Philly, the good news is that there are a number of areas one can live comfortably for less than those median household incomes.

[OleSchoolFool]

I get why NYC is expensive, but dont really get why Boston and DC are expensive too like do they really offer that much more than phillly, i doubt
they got good economies and are more gentrified, maybe thats why

[OleSchoolFool]

Originally Posted by Tone509

I would guess that the outer boroughs bring down the average income. Manhattan proper may be closer to a six-figure average, especially "lower" Manhattan. Certainly in both NYC (particularly Manhattan and increasingly Brooklyn) and DC (save east of the Anacostia River), it would be difficult to buy housing in reasonable condition without a six-figure income.

Tying this back to Philly, the good news is that there are a number of areas one can live comfortably for less than those median household incomes.

Manhattan Median household income, 2007-2011 $67,204 http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36/36061.html
Not even close to six fig and again thats not even an individual income
6 fig is only common in some manhattan nhoods, but most people dont even live in manhattan so to say its standard is not accurate, standard implies common, when it effects like 5% of the population,thats not common
people need to stop believing the nyc hype

[drive carephilly]

Originally Posted by OleSchoolFool

I get why NYC is expensive, but dont really get why Boston and DC are expensive too like do they really offer that much more than phillly, i doubt
they got good economies and are more gentrified, maybe thats why

DC is still building housing to catch up with demand. People are moving to Baltimore and commuting to DC in search of cheaper housing.

Boston's supply of housing is similarly below what demand is. In the DC area developers just plow under farm fields and forests when they want to build new housing. Of course, going further and further out isn't much of an option any more. Boston is a much older city and that abundance of land just doesn't exist within a reasonable commute of where the jobs are. The only way for metro Boston to add more housing would be for them to increase density around train stations (where now you just have single family houses on 1/4 acre lots and giant parking lots) but NIMBYs keep blocking those attempts.

DC has a similar problem. It was never a very big city and the supply of vacant housing in the city is quickly disappearing. Places like Arlington, VA have done a really good job at building really high density development around the Metro stations but most areas don't have that kind of rail access and the typical suburban development you see in Northern VA just isn't dense enough to keep up with demand.

Philadelphia was a city of 2.1 million that only has 1.5 million. We can absorb a lot of people before we start to run out of room. Across the metro we could probably absorb an additional 1 million people without having to build a single house on a farm field. Big sections of Delaware County and Camden County used to be far more densely populated than they are now. The same goes for places like Wilmington and Trenton.