Cost of living question/poll

[SD67]

2 br 2 floor town house with aircon & Austar (PayTV) connected. Shower, bath and 2 toilets (1 up 1 down stairs), lock up garage, 100m from centre of town and walk to some of Australia's most popular surfing beaches. $250/week.

[rpm]

North Texas is having a boom right now with the Barnett Shale. Untrained workers can make $15+ an hour to start with quick promotions. If you get out of the D/FW metro area you can rent a 3 bedroom house for $800 a month or buy one for less.

You can pick up an acre of land for $3000 and a repo'ed doublewide for $20K or less. Yeah, you might be a redneck... but you would also be a property owner.

[Dowding]

Your house prices are too low in the States. If you want to see a really expensive housing market, try buying in Britain.

I bought my flat about 5 years ago for $150,000 your money. Really stretched myself for that one. Met my now fiancee and sold the flat for $230,000, 3 years later. Obviously exchange rates have moved around alot in that time, but you get the picture. It was a brand new ground floor, 2 bed apartment - and this is in a cheaper area of the country.

Bought my current house for $340,000. 3 bedroom semi-detached, 3 bathroom but a really small garden. It is in a decent area on the border of a National Park over here, however.

Basically, if I had not got on the ladder before the housing boom, I'd struggle to afford anything as good as I have now. And I'm a qualified accountant and my fiancee is senior nurse.

[E25280]

Dowding, a lot depends on where you live in the states.  In the suburbs of most metropolitan areas, housing prices were going up at a similar rate as you describe.  Part of the reason was that interest rates were very low, and banks started lending money to people who would never have qualified in the past, causing increased demand for housing (and resulting in the current "Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis").

But, like I said, it depends on where you live . . . rural areas and small towns have less demand, and prices have stayed relatively low.  Areas near big cities have prices going through the roof.  The linked map is by state, but as you can see, several states (let alone the metro areas in them) had housing prices increase more than 80% between 1998 and 2006.  The states that are still fairly rural have had much lower increases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:USA_home_appreciation_1998_2006.png

[Boroda]

Originally posted by Speed55
I want to leave ny.  The cost of living here is ridiculous.  1 bedroom apartments in any decent area go for around $1200 a month.

In Moscow $1200 a month will be a one-room (bedroom, small kitchen and a bathroom) in a hmm, "indecent" area.

If you want an idea of salaries here - I earn about $150 a month officially. Most of the people are quite satisfied with $1000 a month, if they own a flat as I do,  thanks to Bloody Communist Regime (tm) when everybody had a right for habitation.

Edit: my small 3-room flat, 54 square meters total, at the last metro stop, costs about $200K now...

[Dowding]

I understand your point, but I was responding the original poster, really. £600 a month for a 1 bed flat in New York sounds pretty good to me. That wouldn't get you much in London, for instance.

The US is so big it will have vastly different housing markets. Over here, anything around London is generally expensive, becoming cheaper as you move north or start looking at nice villages.

[DiabloTX]

Originally posted by Boroda
If you want an idea of salaries here - I earn about $150 a month officially.

Holycrap do I suddenly feel a lot better about my situation.  I hope you have other "unofficial" income, Boroda.

[wooley]

Originally posted by Dowding
I understand your point, but I was responding the original poster, really. £600 a month for a 1 bed flat in New York sounds pretty good to me. That wouldn't get you much in London, for instance.

The US is so big it will have vastly different housing markets. Over here, anything around London is generally expensive, becoming cheaper as you move north or start looking at nice villages.

Only New York and possibly the San Francisco bay area come anywhere close to London. THe UK in general is significantly more expensive for housing (and just about everything else) than the US.

For $2000pm in Orange County, I rent a brand new 2 bed apartment with garage, off-street parking, 2 swmming pools, 2 hot tubs a gym and an on-site staff who will respond in minutes to any problems. Oh - and the weather rocks.

By comparison, when I last lived in London in 2001, I was paying $2600 for a 20 year old two bed apartment with dodgy plumbing and an absentee landlord. Parking outside required purchasing a permit from Fulham council. No swimming pool, hot tub, gym or 300 days of sunshine.

I'd probably earn a little bit more in London than I do here, but I pay more of it in tax / cost of living.

By the way, back on topic, the OP should stay away from Orange County CA. Its not going to be significantly cheaper than NY.

[rpm]

Originally posted by DiabloTX
I hope you have other "unofficial" income, Boroda.

I hear he's had a substantial drop in income since the KGB  "Crimeagainstthestatestoppers" program went out of business.

Heck Diablo, come north brotha! I can hook you up with $80K a year easy.

[DiabloTX]

Originally posted by rpm
Heck Diablo, come north brotha! I can hook you up with $80K a year easy.

I ain't driving trucks and I ain't doing retail.

Junk bonds and cooking books for Fortune 500 companies are completely ok with me!

[mora]

It seems that no matter where you live the housing is really a big chunk of your income.

How much is a spot in a trailerpark?

[lazs2]

dowding..  where I live the homes go for $500,000 or more..  half a duplex is over $300k    

lazs

[68Wooley]

Lazs - with the current exchange rate, in most of the UK that would be cheap. In London, you could replace that dollar sign with a pound sign and you would still be too low (The pound is currently trading at just over $2).

[Chairboy]

Eugene, OR: Figure $500-700 for the 1 BR appt.  We were renting 3BR townhouse apartments out for $950, for comparison.

[E25280]

Originally posted by 68Wooley
Lazs - with the current exchange rate, in most of the UK that would be cheap. In London, you could replace that dollar sign with a pound sign and you would still be too low (The pound is currently trading at just over $2).

Let's try to take exchange rate out of it, because earnings are affected by it as well.

According to this site, the average income for someone in the UK is less than 30K (I assume that is still pounds sterling).  

According to this site, the average home price in the UK is 230K.

According to this site I linked earlier, the median income in the US is $48K.

According to this site, the median house price is $247K (with an average of $306K).

I know comparing medians and averages are not exactly apples to apples, but in general I would say a person earning less than 30K trying to find an affordable home in a 230K market would have more difficulty than the 48K earner in a 247K market.