Let's say someone makes 100K in houston. Has a 600-700 dollar car payment. Lives in a 1500 dollar 1 bed apt in midtown. What would they need to make in San Diego to afford a similar lifestyle? California has 13.3% state income tax.
The car payment probably wouldn't change. Your insurance might go up. Housing will be a huge increase. The state income tax will add on as well. My guess is that you would need about 185K a year. I'm just guestimating. It isn't based on research and firm numbers.
Man, if you're already paying $1500 for a one bedroom in Houston, it's probably not going to be that much worse. I'd guess that houses are going to cost approximately 3 times more in San Diego, but that is a generalization that simplifies a lot of factors. I don't think that same disparity exists for renting. Probably hard to accurately map locations between San Diego and Houston, but I can't imagine paying much more than $2500 for one bedroom in San Diego, unless you're talking about a prime, downtown San Diego location. Then again, I'm not very familiar with Houston real estate, or where "midtown" would map to a similar location in San Diego. And while Texas lacks state income taxes, the property taxes are worse than California's by some degree (and those property taxes are reflected in your rent). If you assume you'll spend an extra $12k in housing costs, which would require roughly 20K in more in salary after taxes. Plus just generally stuff costing more in California, I'd probably say somewhere between $130 and $150 would be similar.
I think that's probably accurate for home buying. But I just looked up 1 bedrooms in downtown San Diego, and found some nice ones that only go for $2800. And even if we say midtown is the nicest area of Houston, it still wouldn't map to a location in downtown San Diego that is within walking distance to the ocean. You can go on apartments.com and enter $2500 max for a 1BR in San Diego and there are results everywhere. According to that link the equivalent rent would be $3700. Objectively, there is no way you would need to spend $3700 for a 1BR in San Diego just to be as happy with your location as in midtown Houston.
If you commit to CA, the property taxes totally work in your favor over the long term. CA's property taxes are quite a bit lower and your assessed value can only increase by up to 2%. If you manage to buy a house and live there for decades, you'll be paying absurdly low property taxes relative to the value of your house (assuming your house is appreciating). You'll easily recoup the increased income taxes over time. There are people with 5 million dollar houses with an assessed value of $750,000 because they just sit on property with capped property taxes and assessment values. But in the short term, it'll be more expensive. Although if you're paying $1500 for an apartment in Houston, you can find something similar in San Diego, especially if you're willing to live away from the beach. Also $700 for a car payment?
Buying a home vs renting is different. You don't need as big a salary increase to maintain a comparable apartment as you'd need for a comparable home. That's what most of these cost of living calculators don't factor for, renting vs buying.
Have you walked through a real life example of this?? I'm just curious. If a person makes $x, what a person making $x SHOULD be spending on a mortgage and what that implies for the $ value of the house they bought, then taxes paid per year in property tax and income tax, etc, etc. Again, I'm just curious. Also, do the values reset upon sale. Eg. in your example above one would assume that's multiple decades living in the same residence, correct, and once that property is eventually sold its tax value bumps to the new sales amount?
I certainly can't afford a house there. I wouldn't need to be that close to the beach other...not like we have that here. I just mentioned midtown because I didn't want to someone to think I meant $1500 in the San Diego version of Greenspoint. lol Is 700 for a car payment that high?? x 60 months..that's a 42K loan. That's in the price range of a used GS, A6, 3 series..You are telling me someone has to to make 200K to buy a 3 series?? what?
Honestly aside from the tax situation which sucks, cost of living gets greatly overstated by a lot of people. I live in south beach but Im originally from houston. You can still live somewhere for $2000/mo in south beach but instead of a 1200 sq ft condo it might be 650 sq ft. Gas is literally 20-30 cents more than what ive seen here in houston this week. Groceries are pretty much the same. Where stuff starts to get expensive is a steak at a great place in Miami might be $65 vs $48 in houston and valet parking is $20-40 in miami vs free in houston. Otherwise if you're just the type who cooks at home, you'll live in a smaller place and food will be about the same price.
A certified used 3 series is like 25k. It's not that you can't afford 700, it's just it tightens your money flow at 100k income.
Don't forget to factor in partying costs, night life and most importantly Tijuana trips. btw 100k in Houston ain't taking you far these days either...ijs....
Unless you are buying a lexus once that car is off warranty its a money pit. BMW, Mercedez are terrible. Audi is a little better, but still not designed to be repaired. Infinity is pretty bad too.
Only if they're smart. Car payments are the biggest expenditure for American's that 99% of the time will go DOWN in value. Car payments are terrible deals for consumers. It's what helps keep the middle class and poor from moving up.
According to this site, you'd have to earn $152,000 in San Diego. Yet employers only pay 5% more for the same job, so you'd likely earn $105,000 for the same career position. http://swz.salary.com/CostOfLivingWizard/Layoutscripts/Coll_Result.aspx
