Cost of Living Comparison (Pittsburgh, Youngstown: real estate market, apartment, rentals)

[ur2cdanger]

I live in Canfield,Ohio. My office is opening a new branch in Pittsburgh. I was asked if I would like to move to the new Pittsburgh office in South Side. I am earning $50k per year. What would be a similar salary in Pittsburgh ? I looked at various websites and the kind of the comparison they give is not consistent. They vary from $53k to $67k. Please help me

( P.s.. Please consider that this comparison that I am looking is not dependent on my work and position in the company.I am just looking for an equivalent salary to $50k in Pittsburgh )

[shadowfax]

You already have the job right? Just the opportunity to relocate to a new location. Why not just tell the company that you want to make the same money or more as a condition of your acceptance?

[ur2cdanger]

The same salary would not be sufficient. Canfield is a very low cost of living area. It is very cheap here. It would not be the same in Pittsburgh with an increase in cost of living and other things. That is why I want to get a rough estimate of the cost of living to ask for an equivalent salary in Pittsburgh.

[sskink]

The bigger question is whether you own or rent now. If you rent, that will skew the income you need in Pittsburgh higher as the rental market is more aggressive than the real estate market in general.

Regardless, $50k is doing OK in Pittsburgh and based on a Youngstown/Pittsburgh comparison, you'd probably only need a 6% or so bump to equalize. But you probably need to double that if renting.

[ur2cdanger]

I live in a rented apartment right now.

[Aqua Teen Carl]

What do you do for a living and what are your expectations for quality of life? That's a pretty important part of the discussion.

If you're making the same pay you will likely face a quality of life downgrade since you'll have less money in your pocket (or you can have the same amount of money in your pocket but live in a crap neighborhood).

[Pittsburghpride83]

Do you have to move to pittsburgh to keep your job? If not then I would consider staying where you are. Boardman, canfield and poland are nice youngstown suburbs. If they want to increase your salary by a large amount 10k or more then I would consider coming here. There is more to do here, but the taxes, food costs and gasoline are more here than ohio. Not to mention inflated housing costs and rents.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by Pittsburghpride83

Do you have to move to pittsburgh to keep your job? If not then I would consider staying where you are. Boardman, canfield and poland are nice youngstown suburbs. If they want to increase your salary by a large amount 10k or more then I would consider coming here. There is more to do here, but the taxes, food costs and gasoline are more here than ohio. Not to mention inflated housing costs and rents.

This^^^^. I'd want at least $20k to make the move. Big difference between the 2.

[ur2cdanger]

I am a Software Engineer and I live in a rented apartment of $500. The main thing is here I do not want to downgrade my quality of my life. I want to at least match the quality of life that I live here in Canfield. Since this is not a new job but the same job with a different location, I have the right to ask the amount that I find would give me the same quality of life ( in South side Pittsburgh. ) that I live in Canfield. But I just do not have an idea of how much that would be.

[SteelCityRising]

This ain't yinz grandma's Pittsburgh anymore. As has already been stated the apartment market here is extremely tight, which has led to some rather aggressive pricing for rentals.

It's really a tough call. We personally love Canfield and visit White House Fruit Farms a few times per year for the blueberry donuts. Your town is like a bit of New England plopped right down into suburban Ohio. Pittsburgh is, of course, a much larger city with a lot more excitement. With that being said if you're making good money and live about an hour away from Pittsburgh now, then I'd just stay put and continue to visit for day-trips.