Seattle now among top 25 most expensive cities in the world. (rental, houses)

[mhays25]

Even $55k would be a decent wage for a 20-something with no kids/car/debt. No roommate required.

[Finance2Tech]

Seattle is expensive but offers very few of the amenities and advantages of true global cities. It's just a weird hippie village with Amazon and Microsoft thrown in for good measure.

[Botev1912]

Yes it's a small village.

[sacite]

Originally Posted by thatguy950

Seattle’s more expensive than LA and San Diego per this list, that’s going to rustle some cheerleader jimmies in here

I've spent a lot of time in both cities (Seattle more than San Diego) and Seattle is not more expensive than SD. I see condos in good areas of Seattle going for $300K range, which will get you a studio closet in Fashion Valley in SD with no view of anything but a crowded freeway. I see affordable 1 BR apartments in Seattle in $1,500 range - a lot of them - in good areas or suberbs such as Kirkland (in fact, I checked on one blocks from the lake). The equivalent in SD is La Jolla, which is going to run you over $2,000 easily. There's also no state income tax in WA. I pay an average of $250 per month in state taxes in CA.

Seattle is getting very expensive but in terms of major west coast metros it is still very affordable comparatively.

[87112]

The only thing good about Seattle is the cheap Asian food and lots of taco trucks. Other than that its a overpopulated greasepit.

[homesinseattle]

Really 87112, that's all? I know you don't like it but you ought to be able to find a few more good things about it.

[Flightoficarus87]

Originally Posted by Finance2Tech

Seattle is expensive but offers very few of the amenities and advantages of true global cities. It's just a weird hippie village with Amazon and Microsoft thrown in for good measure.

The cost of living to amenities ratio has definitely been thrown out of balance in recent years, but it's the cost of living to salary ratio (at least for those in well paying fields) that pans out well enough to keep attracting more people in - for now, at least.

Either way, #25 on a list like this one isn't exactly something to be proud of.

[Finance2Tech]

Originally Posted by 87112

The only thing good about Seattle is the cheap Asian food and lots of taco trucks. Other than that its a overpopulated greasepit.

The only things I like about Seattle are no state/city tax (this may change with liberals now in full charge of the WA government), and some cool outdoor water stuff.

[homelessinseattle]

Seattle gives out lots of free stuff

[Xanathos]

Originally Posted by thatguy950

Seattle’s more expensive than LA and San Diego per this list, that’s going to rustle some cheerleader jimmies in here

It happens to be absolutely true. I can just copy-pastah a post I did about the COL differences we've experienced since moving earlier this year - it's still holding completely true.

Our move away from the area (Seattle-to-Los Angeles) is far enough in the rear view mirror at this point that we can start actually doing some statistical analysis and cost comparison. The cost of living increase I was given to relo basically just pays the income tax I'm incurring in Cali now, so that was a wash. I'm not really sure what this means for my federal taxes, as I'm not savvy to how much of a write-off state taxes on federal taxes will translate to. We haven't really changed anything about our style of living, dining habits, etc. and we appear to be saving at a 3.7% higher clip than we were in Seattle, so for us, our cost of living actually went down even though our quality of life (nicer home, my commute is to work is shorter, sun, beaches, more desirable location, wife has been able to stop having to see a therapist about her depression, etc.) has gone up. We were prepared to take as much as a 15% hit to our wealth accumulation in exchange for getting away from the grey and the militant SJW activism that dominates that city, but it's actually going the exact opposite direction.

I'm one of those "data is beautiful" types, so I actually did a deeper dive on some of our costs to try and locate where those extra savings were coming from.

1) We still eat out at restaurants with the same frequency. However, our average monthly spend is almost 10% less.

2) Our utility bills - in spite of the more significant size of the home - are significantly lower (I don't want to give a percentage on this until I see what happens during the winter months - which I anticipate will only make the gap even wider)

3) We seem to be paying about 11% less in groceries

4) The cost of "doing stuff" is somehow lower here. Our expenses for musicals, sporting events, activities, etc. has gone down on a per-event basis, even though our spending overall has gone up because we find ourselves doing more things. This is hard to apples-to-apples because we're doing some different things here, but we've found activities to be much more price competitive here than in Seattle due to there being more competition due to a wider array of activities.

5) Travel is cheaper. I'm not a big fan of LAX, but flying out of here, particularly international flights, is lower than SEA.

6) We're paying less for goods in general. The sales tax is a point or two lower, but the cost of goods in general just seems to be lower here. This too is hard to apples-to-apples, but clothing has definitely been cheaper here and when we bought new furniture, we noticed immediately that our costs were significantly lower than what we had come to expect to pay up there.

When you factor in that the big rocks like housing costs are roughly equivalent, and that things like insurance rates and parking are roughly similar, it comes out as a win. We're paying more for some things, but they're being far outweighed by the lesser costs in other areas.