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Is it really much cheaper to own a home in DC MSA? Rent is lower but the housing prices are still very high. The condos in the area are reasonable though.
The DC area gets a huge boost from PG County and even border parts of Montgomery County like Tacoma Park, Silver Spring, Wheaton, etc.
PG County is as affordable as almost any place in the US. You can find decent SFHs with yards for $200-300K. While they aren't the greatest quality, you can't find the volume of equivalent cheap housing in any of the wealthier metro regions. You can get very "nice" housing (newer model, full lawn, etc) if you up your budget to the $400/500K range, whereas that will get you bottom of the barrel in any of the wealthy metros.
I tend to look at a place like Chicago, Philadelphia, or Houston as being the best bang for your buck cities in the US. I would have said Phoenix, DFW, and Atlanta too, but they seem to be going through massive COL increases. Detroit is soon going to be one another great bang for your buck city with all the development going on there. I am not as familiar with the goings on in Baltimore but if its on a path similar to Detroit, it would be one too. Not sure about the COL in MSP but if its low, an argument could be made there.
As a person who grew up in DC-Baltimore region and who now lives in SoCal… I can confirm it’s just as expensive as you think and that’s with military tax perks.
I'm on board with the top 4. The numbers seem fair given it's post-tax. 5-10 gets murky for me. Orlando isn't that expensive. Washington seems more expensivethan LA overall. Portland/Denver I don't know much about COL but I'm surprised to see Miami way down the list compared to them.
Not even close. The notion that you can live comfortably on a 5 figure income in NYC or SF is patently ridiculous. Perhaps the writer has a very low bar for what constitutes "comfortable".
Post-tax. If you're single and can't live comfortably off 80K+ after taxes in the Bay Area or NYC you have a ton of debt or a spending problem.
I tend to look at a place like Chicago, Philadelphia, or Houston as being the best bang for your buck cities in the US. I would have said Phoenix, DFW, and Atlanta too, but they seem to be going through massive COL increases. Detroit is soon going to be one another great bang for your buck city with all the development going on there. I am not as familiar with the goings on in Baltimore but if its on a path similar to Detroit, it would be one too. Not sure about the COL in MSP but if its low, an argument could be made there.
Baltimore MSA is a different animal, though...
Howard County and part of AA County is well within DC sphere of influence and the COL there reflects that. For AA County the areas with water access (i.e. Severna Park etc.) is a totally different market than those areas that are close to water in, let say, SE Baltimore County (Dundalk/Essex/Middle River etc.) with the latter being historically more blue-collar.
Western suburbs (Howard County and southern Carroll County) and northern Baltimore County (Towson and up...especially Hereford HS zone) are also way more affluent than, let say, NE suburbs (i.e. White Marsh area). Head further up I-95 to Harford County, that area is cheaper than, let say, Carroll County, as it's further away from where jobs are. The only thing I can think of out that way is APG, compare to the like of Fort Meade, all those businesses near Columbia, BWI, etc. west/southwest of Baltimore.
The cost to buy a house is cheaper. Look at PG County MD, Charles County MD, and Ward 7 and 8 in DC. They aren’t that far off southern metros.
What you get for those prices in those areas isn't all that great though, generally speaking. It's broadly equivalent to the housing you'd get for half that price in the southern parts of Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and the like. There's some very nice neighborhoods in the DC-area neighborhoods/suburbs described, but that's true of those other southern cities as well.
Of course, while its definitely cheaper than equivalent housing in NYC, Boston, LA, and the SFBA, I definitely don't believe overall housing affordability in the DC metro is great overall for a top ten metro. It's middle of the road in that area at best, with a tendency toward the expensive side for what you actually get. If you're going to be in the areas with better schools and amenities (again, generally speaking), you're going to pay prices that are amongst the highest in the country (NW DC, Fairfax/Montgomery County, etc.).
It's been my experience that taxes and benefits eat one-third of one's gross pay.
The benefits part usually consists largely of health insurance premiums, which I assume SmartAsset considers part of the 50% of net pay that goes towards one's needs, so it should be taken out of the formula to determine the gross pay needed to "live comfortably."
At the high end, after taking out the premium, I'd say that taxes eat the remaining one-quarter of one's gross pay.
That would mean a single individual with no children (SmartAsset's yardstick) would have to gross $82,237 in order to live comfortably in Philadelphia, the fourth-cheapest of the 25 metros.
At the low end of the premium spectrum, I'd say taxes take 30% off the top.
That would make the gross figure $88,111.
In the city, either figure is well above the median income of a one-person household. At the metro level, the gap shrinks, but it's still there, and it's still significant. (Based on this city chart listing income thresholds for various city housing assistance programs, the median single-person household in the Philadelphia metropolitan area has gross earnings of $73,812 per year. FWIW, I make somewhere around 65% of AMI.)
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