31–40 of 154 posts
They're skewing the data to fit their narrative by only looking at medium rent for a 2 bedroom apartment.
Do you see skew in some other way?
I think Minneapolis is an interesting data point on there, since I've been told (and the data here reflects) that housing in Minneapolis is on par with Chicago right now, but the salaries haven't caught up. Minneapolis ranks as one of the worst Annual Salary After Rent cities, even behind LA and Seattle, which comes as a surprise. Also one thing I've found as I work through a move from an expensive city (SF) to a les…
Just to throw some anecdotal data on the pile - when I was looking for an apartment in Minneapolis (South MPLS and ~two years ago) I was able to find decent one-bedrooms for around $1000 and currently rent a two bedroom in a triplex for $1100.
Really surprised to see Detroit that high on the list. I kind of wonder what the relative availability of jobs in Detroit is vs, say, Dallas or Chicago (which offer some significant lifestyle advantages over Detroit). It would also have been a much better comparison if some approximation of state and local income taxes were factored in.
Yes, Texas's lack of income tax (and Detroit's city income tax) would certainly catapult Dallas ahead of Detroit on this list if taxes were properly factored in.
Detroit is sort of a well-known "sleeper" city that "might be nice to live in someday", but I think word will get out sooner than later that it's got a lot of livability advantages right now. Great arts/food/drink scenes, 4 major sports teams, a surplus of cheap, high quality housing, a first class research university in close proximity, and mild traffic that's about what you'd expect in a city with a AAA baseball team. It has it's flaws, but I'm really not familiar with anywhere else that offers a lot of those amenities without hell traffic or impossibly expensive housing (usually both).
Unless global warming radically reverses, I'd even make the argument that Detroit's weather is becoming a draw - a mild winter is a small price to pay for breezy summers with highs in the low 80's.
I'd like to see the 10%, 50% (median), and 90% quantiles for (after-tax salary - housing cost). I bet the rankings would be quite different depending on which of these you chose.
Where the heck do they get $2800 for a 2BR in Seattle from? That seems high to me. A year ago I was renting a 3BR for $2100. Well, ok, "average" across all 2BR in the city. That doesn't really tell the full story and will be drawn up by high outliers. There are a lot of methodology problems here.
They're skewing the data to fit their narrative by only looking at medium rent for a 2 bedroom apartment.
Furthermore, those looking for a 2br are very likely to be dual-income, at which point high cost areas begin to make a lot of sense even if the rent is insane.
Are all the charts loading for most people? I could only get the first one to show up.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty high, I'll grant you - but 1/3 that of San Francisco. And the rent is correspondingly lower. Chico etc are significantly lower than that, of course, but they're a longer drive away - Santa Rosa is just an hour on the 101 from SF.
I'm not convinced it's really just an hour during commute hours.
I think Minneapolis is an interesting data point on there, since I've been told (and the data here reflects) that housing in Minneapolis is on par with Chicago right now, but the salaries haven't caught up. Minneapolis ranks as one of the worst Annual Salary After Rent cities, even behind LA and Seattle, which comes as a surprise. Also one thing I've found as I work through a move from an expensive city (SF) to a les…
Expand that to the entire Twin Cities area and prices fall even more. I bought a two bedroom condo in a suburb 20 minutes from downtown Minneapolis for $80k last year. When I was renting a three bedroom two bathroom house house in a nice area of South Minneapolis was $1500 a month. And developer salaries here are pretty good. Not Bay Area levels, obviously, but mid-level developers should be making over $100k in base…
Really surprised to see Detroit that high on the list. I kind of wonder what the relative availability of jobs in Detroit is vs, say, Dallas or Chicago (which offer some significant lifestyle advantages over Detroit). It would also have been a much better comparison if some approximation of state and local income taxes were factored in.
A booster's 2 cents: Yes, Texas's lack of income tax (and Detroit's city income tax) would certainly catapult Dallas ahead of Detroit on this list if taxes were properly factored in. Detroit is sort of a well-known "sleeper" city that "might be nice to live in someday", but I think word will get out sooner than later that it's got a lot of livability advantages right now. Great arts/food/drink scenes, 4 major sports…
I can't really comment much on the current culture and food scene in Detroit, but I don't recall it being all that great when I was there.
The weather must be significantly different now than when I was there. Michigan was hot and extremely humid in the summers (which makes sense for a state that literally has 11,000 lakes, not to mention the Great Lakes), and the winters bitter cold and snowy for the most part.