As usual in WA, only works with that exact input. Give it any international city - silent fail.
Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison
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Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison
#52I'd like to put in a good word for Portland (no sales tax, great food): http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+san+franc...
Fantastic beer too.
Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison
#53The largest reduction is in housing (45% less in Seattle). However, unless your goal in moving IS to save money, I bet that most people would pay the same -- either upgrade to a larger place or move to a more desirable part of town.
Also, note that housing costs are based on housing sale prices. Rent is definitely higher in San Francisco, but it does not always follow housing sale prices.
Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison
#54As usual in WA, only works with that exact input. Give it any international city - silent fail.
It works for some of the bigger cities in the US though. I was comparing where I live now to where I lived before and it seemed pretty accurate.
Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison
#55Weather. I'm a Californian who grew up in a "sunny" California city, and I've been living in Seattle for the last year. I've also spent a lot of time in San Francisco in my lifetime. I, miss, the, sun. Every time I go back to California and visit family/friends, I start to realize how depressed I am up in the Pacific North West. I've had more that one person recommend that I take Vitamin D supplements, which is suppo…
For me, it's the opposite. Moving down to the Bay Area from Washington/Idaho, the amount of sun here is maddening. Seems like an unending summer of days exactly like the previous.
Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison
#56Weather. I'm a Californian who grew up in a "sunny" California city, and I've been living in Seattle for the last year. I've also spent a lot of time in San Francisco in my lifetime. I, miss, the, sun. Every time I go back to California and visit family/friends, I start to realize how depressed I am up in the Pacific North West. I've had more that one person recommend that I take Vitamin D supplements, which is suppo…
As a transplant from Seattle to LA, give me sunshine any day! LA gets 283 sunny days/year, and now I tend to forget what rain and clouds even look and feel like. So what if the total cost of living is higher by a solid percentage. You can be a helluva lot more productive if you don't want to jump off the Aurora bridge every day because the darkness is triggering major depression around whatever else is going on in your life. Paying for sunshine is absolutely essential for some people(like me), it's not even a personal choice.
If you've ever lived through the awful annual Seattle blackout between November and May, where you might see 20 minutes of sunshine per day(they even have a word for it: "sunbreaks"), then you'll have directly experienced what I'm talking about.
Curiously, I would point out this entire SF vs Seattle debate reveals a great example of how we disproportionally compare risk vs. reward in human psychology. Given two equivalent choices, the one that cause us to lose more in order to gain more is perceived as being the "bad choice"—our brains want to gain more immediately. Taking the big risk in Manhattan, SF or LA means you have a shot to get paid far, far higher than anywhere else, just because of how capital pools in urban cores.
Conventional wisdom says to go to a smaller city and enjoy a lower cost of living. That is the optimal choice if you have certainty that you won't be getting those high paying jobs in dense urban cores. But if you think you might? I would say it makes more sense, both economically and in terms of overall well-being, to "go big"—go to the biggest place you can and aim as high as you can.
Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been thinking about moving to Houston. Imaging the difference if you had been in NYC: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+new+yor...
But then you'd be in Houston. NYC is expensive because people want to live there.
Houston has many pluses. Relatively cheap living is just one of them.
On the other hand, NYC is not for everyone and cost is only one reason.
Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison
#58Weather. I'm a Californian who grew up in a "sunny" California city, and I've been living in Seattle for the last year. I've also spent a lot of time in San Francisco in my lifetime. I, miss, the, sun. Every time I go back to California and visit family/friends, I start to realize how depressed I am up in the Pacific North West. I've had more that one person recommend that I take Vitamin D supplements, which is suppo…
For me, it's the opposite. Moving down to the Bay Area from Washington/Idaho, the amount of sun here is maddening. Seems like an unending summer of days exactly like the previous.
Where do you live? Portola Valley, for example, is pretty bleak. Expensive though.
Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison
#59I'd like to put in a good word for Portland (no sales tax, great food): http://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+san+franc...
I originally wanted to move there but there doesn't seem to be many jobs. :( Correct me if I'm wrong.
Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison
#60Weather. I'm a Californian who grew up in a "sunny" California city, and I've been living in Seattle for the last year. I've also spent a lot of time in San Francisco in my lifetime. I, miss, the, sun. Every time I go back to California and visit family/friends, I start to realize how depressed I am up in the Pacific North West. I've had more that one person recommend that I take Vitamin D supplements, which is suppo…
May I suggest Colorado? Cost of living in SF is 30% more than even the most expensive city (Boulder, ignoring resort towns).
Yeah, it can get cold, but the winters are orders of magnitude nicer than the midwest or northeast.