this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
287 points (96.7% liked)
Personal Finance
3861 readers
1 users here now
Learn about budgeting, saving, getting out of debt, credit, investing, and retirement planning. Join our community, read the PF Wiki, and get on top of your finances!
Note: This community is not region centric, so if you are posting anything specific to a certain region, kindly specify that in the title (something like [USA], [EU], [AUS] etc.)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Because the title of the post is "Salary Needed To Buy a Home In The US"
"The US" is a very large country with more rural area than large cities, and there is opportunity for a much lower cost of living out there that people should know about.
I agree there should be a second dataset, but rural areas have their own issues that people might not want to deal with. Like a lack of entertainment and other services.
That all depends on the kind of entertainment and services you want. If you want nightclubs and prostitutes, you need to go to a big city.
If you want freedom, clean air, nature, and the ability to own a home then you need to get out of the big city. For most general goods and services, you can order it online if you don't have it available. That's the same everywhere though.
Roughly 80% of the population in the US live in urban areas. This graphic is already definitely taking the entire metro area into account, which can include fairly rural areas depending on the city.
People are very aware that rural areas are significantly cheaper. They are cheaper precisely because the demand is low. People either do not want to live there, or they cannot live there given the industry that they work in.
You also need to realize that with a more expensive metro area comes higher median wages, so you’re not necessarily even coming out on top living in a rural area.
Regardless of any of the above assumptions, the title of the post makes what I said relevant and accurate. Refer to the title of the post.
It's simply not true that good jobs are not available outside of the big cities. How do you think rural people survive? On my road, in a town of far less than 10k residents, there are easily 20-30 houses that are nice as fuck, big brick houses with large yards and well maintained everything. Those people have serious money. Places like that can be found all over the place if you drive through rural America. Likewise you can find shantytowns of poor people in rural areas and cities.
Basically if you have marketable skills, there are jobs all over the place. Taking your skills to where your money goes farther makes life a lot easier. I'm making more than double the amount of money I need to support my family at the moment.
Refer to the title of the info-graphic. Salary required to buy a home in the 50 largest cities in the US.
Obviously people with money exist in rural areas. I never claimed that there were no good jobs. I said if your industry does not exist outside of large cities then you are basically forced to live and work there. Take for example a hardware engineer for a tech company. They absolutely have marketable skills, but the work cannot be done remote thus without changing industries how are they supposed to move to a rural area?
If you have those same marketable skills you can make a ton of money in large cities. Senior software engineers can realistically make $300K or more in nyc. If they go into fintech then they can make absolutely absurd amounts of money. Even in traditionally wealthy neighborhoods like the uws or ues the median household income is $130k. They are not hurting for cash or sacrificing any sort of lifestyle to be there.
Sure but if you live in the city, you have to deal with all the city bullshit, and that's not worth the potentially higher pay and vastly higher cost of living. I would never live in an apartment again personally unless my financial situation went to shit and that's all I could afford. City traffic is total ass garbage to deal with, and the crowding of people everywhere, having to wait to get through crowded lines for stuff, the stench of dumpsters in the summer.... all that stuff that I never have to deal with here is the value I prefer.
You and I have vastly different experiences of cities. I grew up in the middle of nowhere in a town of 5,000 and I would never even consider moving back to a rural area, or even a suburb. I own a house in a city that is on the list above, but I’d prefer to have an apartment in nyc. As for traffic, live in the right place and you don’t have to drive. I’ve been car free for years. I recognize that is not an option in a lot of US cities, but it should be. I also don’t really have any issue with crowds and I think the trash problem is very exaggerated.
I’m not saying that cities are better for everyone, but a lot of people genuinely prefer them.
No I don't, I already know that most people live in big cities. It's super obvious to everyone with a tiny bit of education or awareness.
You seem to have missed the point that I'm letting you know about the options that are out there. People assume that it costs $3000 a month to own a house, and it definitely does not. There are houses all over rural America for $100k ballpark price.
People in rural areas usually commute to work to a larger town. When I was doing that it took me about 30 minutes to commute to work.
I gradually leveled up my career and now I work remote in my home office, and it's the best possible scenario with my good pay and low cost of living.
Why? Almost no one lives in the rural areas. (Oh look, it's another electoral college joke.)