I already knew Boston was expensive. After all, Jen and I have been quietly house hunting but have found it difficult to find anything in a reasonable price range. So it only came as somewhat of a surpirse when I read today on Boston.com: Boston is the most expensive city to live in in the USA.
Some highlights for those of you who don’t want to bother with the BS of signing up to Boston.com to read the article:
- A family of four needs on average, $64,656 to live in Boston (jury’s out on whether this is before or after taxes)
- This is $6,000 more than NYC
- This is $7,000 more than San Fran
- It costs $44,000 or less to live in Austin, Chicago, Miami and Raleigh
- There are only 27 Boston communities (down from 148 in ‘98) in which the median income can afford the median price home
- Massachusetts is the only state that LOST population in 2004 — wonder why (I added the wonder why part)
- The median price of a single-family home in the Boston area was $376,000 in 2004
- We’re totally screwed (ok, so not part of the article, but true anyway)
Lovely. So, there you have it. Maybe we should move to Texas and learn to love hot and humid days and Brooks and Dunn. (Lots of “and”s in that last sentence.) Ain’t that what we’s s’posed ta do nowadays?
Txmom says:
September 8th, 2005 at 12:23 pm
Lurker here…Texas is a great place to move to for a number of reasons. But, if you’re going to move the correct terminology is “fixin’to.” Although Brooks & Dunn are nice, Willie and Jerry Jeff are our real cowboys. See ya’ll real soon!
Matthew says:
September 8th, 2005 at 4:37 pm
My wife lived in the SF Bay Area when we got married in 2000. At the time the median house prices were $450,000. We moved to San Diego to buy a house in a rapidly growing bedroom community and got a bargain at $418,000. Now, my house goes for $650,000, the only thing you can get for $418K is a condo and I couldn’t afford to move even if I want to.
Before you know it, we’ll all be fixin’ to move to Texas or Iowa, or North Dakota.
Kristen says:
September 8th, 2005 at 7:24 pm
I have friends that bought a house (well, half a house) in Arlington this summer and if it weren’t for the fact that they make truckloads of money and no children to spend it on, they could never have afforded it. It’s likely the market is about to turn in your favor, though…Good luck!
Kristen Frost says:
September 8th, 2005 at 8:11 pm
Things are less expensive here in Enfield.
We’d love to have you guys head down this way! Cut & paste this link– Link
Guero says:
September 9th, 2005 at 3:34 am
Boston doesn’t look cheap but your figure MUST be before taxes. A family of four living on around 60 k in NYC. Hahahahahhahahah.
If you make 75k in NYC you are at or below the poverty line. You are single, live in a non-doorman shitty ratinfested microscopic studio apartment, and eat nothing but cheap crap. Anything under a 100 k in NYC means living like shit (Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Staten Island) or way out in some shit suburb). And trust me, that is not a high quality life.
It sounds very strange that Boston would be the most expensive place to live. I can think of many cities I would put ahead (or is it behind?) Boston.. I’m a lurker at your site but didn’t know you were thinking of Boston. I’ve been there and pardon me for saying I was not impressed…..
Anyway, good luck with the househunting
H
Eric Sagalyn says:
September 9th, 2005 at 9:38 am
Oh, Guero… We already do live in Beantown. Like it but don’t love it. Must admit though, when I was a bit younger I really enjoyed it. As far as I’m concerned, NYC is nice to visit, but not for me. That being said, both my brother and sister live there.
As for the study, it takes into account the surrounding metropolitan areas, as well as the city, so under that guise it makes sense. Boston as a whole is not cheap either (our upstairs neighbors just sold their 1150 square foot condo for 920k and the other neighbor is putting theirs on the market for 980k this weekend). While perhaps not NYC prices, it’s still absurd.
Mr. Big Dubya says:
September 9th, 2005 at 10:37 am
Obviously my way of doing things is not the way most people would do them, but….my wife I now live in CT (we’re both orginally from Weymouth) - we bought a great house, brand-spankin’ new for relatively short $$. Our house is slightly bigger than the one I grew up in, but I couldn’t afford to buy my childhood home now in the neighborhood it’s in. My ‘rents paid app. $63k and, if they were to put it on the market today, could easily fetch $450k+. We paid 1/2 that.
Get out while you still can.
tpon says:
September 9th, 2005 at 8:19 pm
don’t knock ’till you try it… as a transplant, Austin has been good to me. And, there is something to be said for having a little extra walking money.
but you simply can’t beat Boston in the fall.
Brandi says:
September 11th, 2005 at 3:05 pm
Spokane’s the place to move. Houses appreciated an average of 11% last year here. Average cost for a house is around $125,000. If you love the outdoors, there are mountains, lakes, and rivers a short drive away. The weather is gorgeous year-round. It only gets down to the 30s-40s in the winter, and it does snow, but we don’t get any huge blizzards. This summer, we had maybe 2 weeks total that were in the low 90s, but with no humidity it wasn’t that bad at all. Seattle’s close enough to visit on weekends without having to deal with their cost of living.
Nabeel from Start-Up Dad says:
September 14th, 2005 at 9:09 am
Ah, there is a bright side though. You are already IN the Boston market, and as long as you simply are moving around inside this vortex of pricing hell then your buying/selling should be in balance. The really hard part is moving to Boston and biting the bullet the first time.
Plus, I always think about how much more house I am going to get in virtually every other city when if/when I finally sell the house and move out of Boston. Instead of having to move to the burbs of Boston to get a decent sized place, you can just move to another urban area when the housing bubble bursts and we all freak out.
Eric Sagalyn says:
September 14th, 2005 at 10:02 am
Oh, well, that would be great.
Problem is, we rent…
Nabeel from Start-Up Dad says:
September 29th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
oh, crap. well, please look back at this comment a year from now then.
eeka says:
October 20th, 2005 at 9:26 pm
Hey, random lurker/Univeral Hubber here.
YOU might think it’s obvious why MA lost population in 2004. And *I* might think it’s obvious.
But apparently other people could stand to read your blog. Focus on the Family and other similar lovely publications say that same-sex couples marrying threatened heterosexual marriages so much that a lot of people couldn’t bear to stay in the state anymore. Fred Phelps says people are fleeing the state because they can’t live somewhere where people enslave children in gay bondage.
;o)