20 Most Affordable Big Cities in the U.S.
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- Опубликовано: 8 июн 2024
- Examining the 20 least expensive big cities in the US. I look at median house values for the metro areas in the US with a population of over 2 million and compare that to the median income of the areas.
0:00 Intro and Methodology
1:44 Countdown begins
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New Riders of the Purple Sage - "New Riders of the Purple Sage" (1973)
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Would’ve been nice to see rent in addition to housing prices as another factor for affordability, since (especially for young people looking for a place to move to after high school or college) rent is a pretty relevant factor that doesn’t always align perfectly with housing prices
I’m don’t fully disagree, but rent correlates with home prices
@@dirtymike3329 maybe generally but not always. For example, median 3BD2BA house in Tucson is about $453k and about $$460k in Phoenix (1.5% more) yet median 2BD rent goes from about $1300 to $2000 (54%)
@@dirtymike3329 Where do you get that silly idea? Rents are tied to whatever the corporations that own the properties think they can get away with.
@@do9138 economics. More specifically, the law of supply and demand. Also, the data is out there. If you were to plot the median home price against the median monthly rent for a every city in America, I bet you you would get a r value greater than .75. Thus, correlation
Don’t let the “Rust Belt” fool you…a lot of these cities are doing great things and attracting high tech, corporate jobs. They are fun, easy places to live. I’ve got 99 problems, but cost of living ain’t one.
I hear you, but fuck snow, lol.. It snows 2-3 times a year where I live.. Just enough to be novel and cool.
Edit: and fuck NY taxes, lol
@@dre32pitt nah I live in Buffalo and love it. Sure we get snow but it isn't as bad as they make it seem. Besides, people are great here and crime is relatively low
@@whppnpost1 I visited a friend there once.. Love Duff's, lol.. Does it snow 2 or more months out of the year? If so, hard pass, lol.. I'd rather do the humidity of the south again (lived in the FL panhandle, aka LA or Lower Alabama for 10 years) than deal with snow like that..
@@whppnpost1 Crime still isn't great... not in a lot of neighborhoods. Definitely on the upswing though. I lived in Rochester until relatively recently and while I did like it, there are parts of downtown that are pretty scary. Other parts are just starting to revitalize. Buffalo is much the same way.
@@whppnpost1 I love snow! Retired to Madison WI from California in part because I wanted four seasons (and the snow season is quite generously long here, haha)
I'm a plumber and I've done a similar analysis, except that I used average plumber wages instead of overall wages. California cities & Hawaii are the least affordable for plumbers. Then the South and Southwest are largely pretty bad places to be a plumber. Then you have the east coast cities, they are generally better than the south/ southwest,. Surprisingly Seattle and Portland are pretty high up there. But Midwest cities beat everyone out by a long shot. The only problem with the Midwest is that projected job growth is really slow.
Job growth might be slow, but even poor people need to poop in their toilet have good water in their kitchen, regardless of what is happening otherwise. IMHO - doing a job in a place with slow anything… would’t affect you being called upon to fix a toilet or helping people to have potable water to drink. Both of which is obviously job security if you have the skill to do so often when one “can’t drink, or poop”. I wish I had your skills!!!
Haha I do the same as a contract painter. Southeast hubs like Atlanta and Nashville bring in BANK for us. Remote locations or mosts Western states... not so much.
Maybe that's why midwest is often claimed as bad for small businesses because it's already oversaturated. Supermajorities states that had lasted a decade is often the worse.
The best thing about being a plumber is that you are always needed wherever you go. No matter how bad the job market for most industries may be, where there are people there will be a need for a plumber.
I spent 9 years in college, and about $200k of loans in today’s money to get 3 degrees in civil engineering. I was dead broke when I was 30 years old…. NEGATIVE net worth. Went into teaching.
While I managed to retire early, I wish I had a skill to keep doing something using my learned skills. Nobody cares about my ability to teach properties of physics….
I’m financially comfortable… but not at all wealthy. I just got to where I have no debt. Not much past that. Other than volunteer work, there is very little I can do which utilizes my education and/or experience.
If I could talk to myself 50 years ago, I’d try and convince my young ambitions to learn a vocational trade. Probably welding, even if I was just welding circles on a steel pipeline while I’m still healthy and over 65 years old.
I really respect the fact that you share your information sources and that you don't just denigrate all of the large US cities in the same way that others do.
I agree, I saw a video yesterday that ranked the richest cities in the world and they cited no sources and it was completely inaccurate based off every google search that I did.
@@jskelly1979 And even with 2023 best states in the world and others they tend to agree with some states and cities but gets others wildly off. North Dakota and Alaska is such example they couldnt agree on.
What I like about Kyle is he’s also well-traveled and has been to many of these places personally. Really walks the walk.
8:17 "Not only is Cleveland not the hell-hole people think it is" perfect way to describe it. My family lives in the town of Brecksville, located 15 miles south of Cleveland in Cuyahoga County and to me that is the best suburb town in America since it has access to both a big city and a nature reserve right in its own backyard. I really love all the metro-parks that surround Cleveland.
I go to school at CWRU and love escaping to Brecksville! It’s such a cute town
Lakewood, Rocky River, Fairview, Berea, and Strongsville say hi... 😊 Brecksville is really nice but the Emerald Necklace makes "big city/nature" pretty common in Cle area. Makes Cleveland awesome.
Cleveland is quite a popular area for Orthodox Jewish families from the New York-New Jersey area to move to - large and well-established Orthodox Jewish community with robust infrastructure as well as much cheaper housing.
I grew up in the DC suburbs where a 1 bdrm apt in a rat-infested, roach-infested complex for $1400 (utilities not included, no washer/dryer) was the norm. Moving to Baltimore City (not County) was the best decision I ever made. I now live in Mount Vernon (north of downtown) in an amazing 2 bdrm apt in a historic brownstone. Great walkable historic neighborhood with great restaurants, great amenities, water included, and washer/dryer in-unit and I pay $1150/month. A lot of ppl allow sensationalist news to keep them suffering when they don't have to. This Baltimore neighborhood I've been living in for 3 yrs has hands down been the best independent living experience of my life. All because I decided to give this great city a chance.
Where did you live Arlington? A new one bedroom a bit further out can run you 1500 which is reasonable if your making 100K (quite common here) people that complain about the cost always want to live in DC or Bethesda, Arlington, or Silver Spring. Go to Woodbridge, PG county or even further out in Fairfax and you’re fine.
Baltimore is seriously the most underrated city in the country
@@pjflynn5978 You are correct - I love Baltimore.
OOf, I feel your pain. I grew up in Georgetown. I seriously considered Baltimore when house hunting since you can hop the train and be in DC in no time for work. This was at a time when a lot of people from DC were commuting. I found houses I really liked and strongly considered, but ultimately I let the crime statistics scare me off.
I lived in Mt Vernon for 5 years. My rent was $650 for a studio and then $950 for a 1 bedroom. Beautiful neighborhood. Then I bought a rowhouse in Patterson Park and my mortgage is only $1350. Everyone told me don’t buy north of the park because it’s the “bad side” and that my house wouldn’t increase in value. But 8 years later houses on my block are selling for over $80k+ more than what I paid.
The best US geography channel and one of the best channels on RUclips. Keep going your thing Kyle.
Thank you!
I watch from here in Australia and love learning about US states and cities 👍
Nick Johnson and Briggs : hold our TACOs 🌮
I agree about Cleveland. The abundance of interesting green space really shocked me the first time I spent any real time there....
House prices in Pittsburgh are cheap because there used to be 800,000 people and now there are only 300,000. That's a lot of excess supply.
Nice to hear you acknowledge Cincinnati's glory. It's underrated across the board and is pretty legit. Keep up the good videos my man.
Over the Rhine is near-perfect urbanism for the united states.
@@NamelessProducts Growing up we used to call it "Over-the-Crime" and it hasn't quite shaken that reputation but man that area is so peak. What a just perfect historical urban experience.
Everybody I've ever met from Cincinnati loves their city
I’m from Nashville and moved to Cincinnati back in 2015. Cincinnati feels more like home to me than Nashville will ever be.
Cincy is legit as hell for its size, four professional sports teams, good urbanism, and a great location to boot. If I-75 ran a little closer to the rail yard, and they actually saw the subway to completion, it would surely have a better reputation.
The Rust Belt is coming back.
Love the thumbnail!! The painted ladies of Charles Village in Baltimore are stunning. So incredibly underrepresented and beautiful.
Recent transplant to Pittsburgh, here. Cost of living wasn't the primary consideration, but it really is hard to argue with the bang you get for your buck in some of the rust belt cities. Pittsburgh offers so much for far less than any of the major east coast metros. There are definitely drawbacks, but the region is loaded with character and the vibe is unique.
Any particular drawbacks you have personally experienced in Pittsburgh ?
@@TheLordmewtwo So far, mostly the unintuitiveness of the road network and the congestion of main arteries; it's mostly due to the topography, so there's not much to be done about it. Also the Pittsburgh Left.
@@Towboatin Thanks.
Hey! I’m considering Pittsburgh to move to, however, is it sunny or cloudy throughout the year? Google says cloudy for most of the year, but idk. What say you?
@@miguelcabanillas8539 "Cloudy" includes days of broken cloud cover, where you still see blue sky and intermittent sun. There are, however, stretches where it's overcast for days on end and you'll feel like you haven't seen the sun for a week or more, especially during the winter months. I grew up with that, but if you're coming from the sun belt you will definitely notice the difference.
I live in western PA. The reason housing costs are so low is that the people here never bought into "housing mania". People buy houses to live in, not to gamble with. We don't have a lot of bidding war nonsense. Ask a fair price and you get something in that vicinity. Prices have risen over the years, but no astronomical leaps.
Fine research, Kyle. But I would like to say a word about "average incomes." Particularly in the Sun Belt, when high paying jobs have quickly come into a city and county, it's usually because corporations have been drawn there because unions are weak, and there is no local or state addendum to federal Minimum Wage levels. This means precisely that wages are basically low. Those techy people with degrees in science and management moving in push the average wage up rapidly, but they are sometimes 10 or 20 percent of the population. The remaining 80 to 90 are generally some of the poorest people in the nation. We need to value having a small income gap, rather than average wages. That makes for a vastly better place to live.
On the flip side, the taxes are much much lower so everyone's bang for their buck goes further
I imagine the massive tech layoffs that are happening are remote workers that moved to lower CoL areas. Now doubt when they get rehired, they'll be zipcoded and have their salary adjusted accordingly. You won't find many tech companies that are gonna pay you a SF/NYC salary to work in St. Louis.
@@peterroberts4415 Well, in the '90s and 2000s Minnesota, alone among Great Lakes states, raised taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals, and put the money into schools and universities. In the last dozen years, Minnesota has had the only growing economy in the Great Lakes region. In recent surveys, Minnesota has had the highest economic confidence of all 50 states.
@@peterroberts4415 High tax areas have higher minimum wages on average, so the truth is more fuzzy than low tax = more money.
which is why median is better
I moved to Cleveland from Florida about 3 years ago and I could immediately feel the difference in my finances.
This list doesn't surprise me at all.
Can't wait to get a bunch of transplants in the coming years for our water.
Cleveland needs to grow. Not Shrink.
No Cleveland doesn’t need to grow. That’s what keeps it affordable
@@amikagahbo2487 Lol. I'm gonna love showing you this message when you are desperate for water and to get out of your firey hellscape. Also, I have an engineering degree. Not hurting for money lmao.
@@RobShutt357 What Keeps it affordable is surplus housing. Every city regardless of growth can be affordable with surplus housing.
I'm planning on moving there from Texas since I'm getting very fed up with the summers down here. I have family that lives in the Cleveland area so it's an area I know very well, and I know that it is a great place to live as long as you don't mind the winters, which I don't.
Your post is unclear. Are you saying that Floridians will be moving to Cleveland due to water shortages? From FLORIDA? Where one can practically set one's watch by the daily afternoon thunderstorms?
Nice job on this one Kyle! Thanks.
Really good video. I grew up in Cleveland and have lived in the Kansas City area for 50 years. Ohio and Missouri have some great people and cities, unfortunately some of the areas deserve their reputations, but they are concentrated and easy to avoid. All big cities seem to have them.
If you stay out of the bad areas in KC you never know they exist. I can't imagine any bad area being more than 5% of the total. St. Louis is a different story. My read is its all bad. I lived in North County by Ferguson. Polyglot.
@@rogersmith7396Saint Louis gets a bad rep. It’s actually a really nice city.
@@seanevans3272 I lived there. Not impressed. North County.
@@rogersmith7396 I’ve lived in 12 major cities and STL is by far the most underrated but that’s just me
@@seanevans3272 It depends on what you have seen and what your priorites are. If you could exclude cost I would go with London based upon what I have seen. I could deal with NYC under those conditions. I would have formerly said San Diego but it is becoming another Portland. Denver is just mediocre.
My favorite lo-fi you tube channel (that's a compliment). Always a good day when you come across a new GK video. Thanks!
As a life long Baltimorean, finding a place to live near the city that is mostly safe but not more than 200k hasn’t been the easiest.
Great video! Nice seeing the 3 Ohio cities on the list! I enjoyed watching!
Just adding one comment to the pile here; great video, as always! I’ve never set foot in the US yet I find great enjoyment from your content.
Exactly what we did.. Moved back to rust belt!
Love seeing these data-driven videos!
love this kyle, thanks for another banger!
I’m about to graduate college and don’t know where to look for jobs. This video is a huge help.
medium cities next?
great vid btw. I love that you have the experience and wherewithal to know that the fear mongering around city crime is overblown.
The rust belt. Very cold 🥶 but at least we have plenty of water!!! 💧 💧 💧
Perfect video. And so so informative. Thanks for making this
Thank you Mr. Kyle... love your channel
The property taxes in TX are insane, somewhat offset by no state income tax, but it needs to be factored in.
Can't you just live in an apartment and pay less taxes?
@@sm3675 Normally I'd say, "and what, miss out on price appreciation?" But in Texas (outside of Austin), what price appreciation? They still have nearly infinite buildable land, which helps keeps prices low. But yeah, those taxes are fierce. Not as bad as the Northeast, but still a big deterrent for anyone looking for a nice/expensive house.
@@OurBelovedBungo Texas need a brake on growth for a few years until things settle down. Your Governor Abbott cut 211 million in mental health just to fight the waves of illegals last may.
@@sm3675 You're paying the taxes one way or another. The landlord would include it in the rent.
Laughs in Wisconsin.... tell me again about your high property tax....
You should do one for small cities. Tulsa comes to mind. Bought a house there last year for 1/3 of what it would have cost in PHX or DEN. Gas is also below $3 😊
If he’s gonna do that we may as well get one for medium sized cities as well
@@Not_Sal 😂
@@Not_Sal same here
Tulsa is not a small city.
@@dvferyance Population of Tulsa County is only 672,000. a quarter the size of the minimum in the video.
I love you, Kyle. Keep up the great work!
Really appreciate your insight and efforts
Love your videos! You should do one on the geography of rivers in the US. Maybe like their watersheds, and the cities on them etc.
Great methodology and great video!
Great episode. This Detroiter thinks Cleveland is very underrated and after I just visited there for a weekend I found myself looking at prices on line. Some real nice neighborhoods for an arthouse goon like me. Oh I always loved Pittsburgh too and that will be the next stop.
Thanks Kyle. Great video. I like Cincinnati and Pittsburg and think they are great places to invest. I live in St. Louis and although we have a bad rap it is really beautiful and has so many cultural and fun things to do. Many are free as we support a lot of museums and the zoo with our taxes and make it free for everyone. I bought a huge historic house in an improving neighborhood and found my neighbors to be the best I have ever had.
Good to see a kind word about St. Louis and totally agree about its wonderful cultural assets. Perhaps the crime situation improves with the departure of the incompetent and corrupt prosecutor.
I think you got it right when you combined St. Louis City with St. Louis County. The City makes up only one tenth the population of the metro area, from what I have heard. That makes it different from a lot of other places. My house in the suburbs is in a semi-upscale area but it is only valued at around 300K.
I was not impressed by St. Charles.
@@rogersmith7396 St. Charles has a nice historic Main Street but St. Charles County in general is a good example of suburban sprawl. People who live there are apparently not ones who like more urban districts.
@@MrDEWaters My impression is crooks from the inner city have moved there because there is more to steal.
@@rogersmith7396 Why not? St. Charles County is one of the, if not the, best areas in the St. Louis metro area.
@@Compucles you can get pretty isolated from diversity by just living in St Charles
Property taxes in the Chicago area are the 2nd highest in the country, you'll pay 6k-7k per year on that 300k median home
However, taxes in the Chicago city limits are significantly lower than most Crook county suburbs.
This is a very well put together video given the information used and readily available. However, I think the county method is a little flawed for some cities. The US is with few exceptions a suburban/urban sprawl paradise, and a lot of the areas in these cities that are experiencing the bulk of the growth (where people are moving to) are in totally different counties. Atlanta and Dallas are the two that come to me off the top of my head where the county’s population that the city proper is located is stagnant or even in slight decline, meanwhile the populations of suburban counties surrounding the city are rapidly increasing. With that being said, gathering information that takes into account this factor would be much more time-consuming and difficult to accurately measure, so I digress. Great content, keep it up!
Clevelander here! Wife and I moved back after living in NYC and then Austin for a decade and we could not be happier. I always say that, while Cleveland is demonstrably not the “best” city in the country, it is certainly my favorite.
Love the show!
I love the Cleveland area. I moved back to Ohio from South Florida about 20yrs ago. Cost of living is low and there is so much to do.
You know you watch too many geography videos when you know Cleveland is gonna be on top even though you live in the Canadian PNW.
Yeah Cleveland has a great bang for your buck. Granted Ohio is a bit too red for my taste and there are some legitimate concerns about moving to Ohio if you care about Reproductive healthcare and LGBT rights. However there are several other Midwestern cities in blue/purple states that are worth checking out.
Given the arbitrary 2 Million person cut off, many of these metros didn't make the cut like Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, and Buffalo.
@@jonathanbowers8964 you keep worrying about LGBT and reproductive rights instead of economical impacts. Let me know how that works out for you.
@RobShutt357 if you're gay or a woman that matters a lot. Hence the references to affordable, prosperous small Midwest cities that also protect the rights of women and gay people.
That said, if more people would move to these blue Ohio metros, wouldn't be long until things look more like Minnesota than Alabama.
4:29 To buy a house for $300,000 in Houston, it has to be in the deep burbs. In my neighborhood where I rent, the old tear down houses start at $500,000 - $600,000.
Very nice. Thank you.
For what it’s worth… I’m a primary care doctor and I live in New York City (Brooklyn), with current 5 year post residency training salary of about 250k per year, and I have no plans or financial ability to ever own a 2 bedroom apartment where I practice. I’ll either have to double my income and save for another decade or just be happy being a renter. Fact is I wouldn’t want to raise my family in most of the cities mentioned. It is safe here, no school shootings, massive cultural and educational opportunities, every language and food can be found here. For all of its difficulties and there are many, real big city living is still worth it for us.
You can get all those things in Chicago's north side. The price per square foot is $240 compared to $1200 in Brooklyn.
Love from #2 Pittsburgh! Houses are cheap for a number of reasons but I want to guess that the nice old housing stock from when the city had 700k people is mostly intact with only 300k people is a big reason. Most of the growth of the last century has been in the suburbs. If you are considering an Allegheny county suburb definitely consider well-connected ones on the T or the a busways, or better yet just stick to the city. Avoid the car-infested traps of Monroeville, Robinson, and the north hills 🤮
I had a great vacation there a few years ago, stayed in a VRBO house in Edgewood, slightly east of Frick Park. Nice neighborhood and conveniently located, although it does border some more run-down sections of the city. Hard to tell as a visitor if those sections are getting bigger or smaller - surprisingly from what I understand, Pittsburgh's population continues to slowly decline.
@@OurBelovedBungo run down areas are definitely getting smaller, gentrification is rampant. And while it is slowly declining, tech and skilled workers are flocking to the city for well paying jobs and low housing prices. Meta, Duolingo, Google, Lots of Robotics and Engineering firms, American Eagle
hugely agree with avoiding the car infested areas of Pittsburgh. I live in Oakland for school and my partner lives in Robinson so I drive out there pretty often, the change in walkability and transportation options between the two is like worlds apart. I ride my bike for most errands in the city, but I've literally never seen a person on a bike in Robinson.
@@orrsh2049 Agree. The only place you see people biking in Robinson is on The Montour Trail, but Montour Trail is the longest suburban rails-to-trails in the U.S. so is probably where everyone is biking anyway.
Always great.
Thx.
🇺🇸☮️
Funny thing about Milwaukee is literally 10 miles outside of the city limits houses are in the 400k and up range.
Even in the city limits by the airport , northwest side, Menomonee Valley, etc
@@flyingbanana4179 Yeah its pretty wild.
I’m a flight attendant, and a couple coworkers and good friends just transferred to Cleveland, and moved there. They love it! They got a crash pad, a whole house, for the 4 of them. And it’s beautiful! Brand new appliances, they each have their own bedroom, and the house is big. Really nice neighborhood too.
Cleveland definitely looks promising. Who knows, I may move there myself!
Man I love Detroit. Such a hidden gem. Big city with 4 major sports teams all in one central location. Right across the River from Canada. Right by a big lake in Lake St Clair. Clean and safe downtown with some of the best art, architecture and food in the country. One of the rich and historic cities in the US. Definitely would love to live there one day.
Good video. I’m a Relocation Specialist and Statistical Analyst. The best way to determine what each dollar is worth, Buying Power (overall cost of living [which includes housing] vs. income) is the best metric. Too, the national average housing cost is $555k. Anything at or below the 25%+ national average threshold is considered “affordable”. For instance, metro Charlotte’s Buying Power is 12.5% better than the national average and Raleigh/Durham metro’s is 1.35% worse than the national average. Still, RDU is still affordable. You’ll just get more bang for your buck in CLT. Again, great video with good content.
This is a great video.
Noticed the New Riders of the Purple Stage album immediately! Great band. Loved Jerry Garcia on pedal steel.
Refreshing to see a video talking about cities and crime, traffic, or some other scary talk. Thanks.
Kyle, I am planning to move back to Pittsburgh after nearly 30 years away. Thanks for the video. Hope you and your family are well.
Hope the move goes well and is as stress-free as possible
@@GeographyKing Thanks! If you ever make it back there, I can show you around to some of the little known places. Keep up with the interesting videos.
Welcome home from a fellow yinzer.
@@davidmitchell6873 Let's go Stillers!
Where did/do currently live ?
With Baltimore, some of the bad press IMO is blown way out of proportion. There definitely are rough areas but its gotten better compared to 15/20 years ago and I am optimistic things will (slowly I admit) improve.
Theres plenty of nice areas within Baltimore County such as Catonsville, Woodlawn and Owing Mills
Philly also gets more hate than it deserves
INDIANAPOLIS at #6 .. definitely hated on & slept on.. yet we're one of the top 3 fastest growing cities in the Midwest. 🏁
Yeah but they got shot at faster than they can move here 🤷🏼♀️
The combined Indy metro area from 2020-2022 has grown faster than any big city in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Kentucky. Nobody hates or kicks a dead dog..Indianapolis has been doing very well for decades, and it's combined metro is more than 200k more than Cincinnati's now and 1 million more than Louisville. It must be doing something right.
@jeaniepemberton9535 Carmel Fishers and Noblesville is where most of the metro growth is and just last week all 3 made in into the top 5 safest suburbs in the US..Let's tell the whole story of Indianapolis not just the part that makes it look bad..Way too much of that going on ..Nashville is far more dangerous and still smaller and nobody says a word and Louisville is barely over half the size of Indy and its homicide numbers rival Indys
Florida is being invaded by massive amounts of people yet it is the flattest state in America. Most of the hate on Indy is because it's mostly flat but so is Dallas, Columbus and many other cities. Indiana is the 12th flattest state. As for crime, the state of Indiana isn't in the top 20 for crime despite being the 17th most populated state, but Tennessee is 3rd highest in crime and people are still pouring in..Despite all the hate Indiana continues to grow much faster than every state that touches it.
Well done Kyle. I've really appreciated how you haven't taken the easy route, and jusy sh** all over Chicago. As a life-long resident Ive seen the "crime," dog whistle turn into a bullhorn. When it has been STATISTICALLY proven we're neither the deadliest, nor the most dangerous of the big cities.
Yeah. While Chicago has its problems it really isn't any more dangerous than your average Midwestern metropolis (Lansing and Dayton have similar crime rates to Chicago). Like any other Midwestern city, crime is unfortunately concentrated in low income neighborhoods. If you are middle class you won't really have to deal directly with the impact of that violence on a regular basis.
@@jonathanbowers8964 However, that said, it's the low income neighborhoods that drag average prices down, and if your not in a low income neighborhoods, property is definitely significantly more expensive than the stated median price here
I'm visiting Pittsburgh for a concert but I'm also gonna walk around and check it out to possibly move to, glad to see it has your endorsement! Is there a particular neighborhood or area I should check out?
Squirrel Hill, Mount Lebanon, Green Tree, McCandless. I live in Crafton and I love it.
I live in Sewickley. It is pretty nice
If you want to live right in the city I suggest places like Shadyside or Squirrel Hill. I live in Highland Park, which is close to the zoo and the actual park called Highland Park. It's pretty residential but beautiful to walk around in and still close to walkable areas such as E. Liberty. The bus system will get you most places you wanna get to in town, although sadly it's rarely on time. The city is more walkable than people think, if you can deal with the hills. The East End is relatively flat though. One thing you will notice is there are lots of beautiful old houses here, and quite a variety of types of housing, from mansions to row houses, most of whom have been fixed up on the inside. We do lack late night food options though and I wish we had more outdoor dining. The nightlife isn't great either, but then again I'm too old for it anymore anyway lol.
East Pittsburgh Borough is affordable, quiet, close to the city, and you avoid city taxes.🤙
I knew the 3 big Cs in Ohio would make the list 💪🏽
You could have done better by Cleveland by throwing some grituitous shots in there with it. Not just that one sidewalk while you talked. Love your videos Kyle, you are the man
You said there were 37 cities over 2 million, but you only listed 20, can you go thru the other 17? Loved the video as always!
I've lived in Cincinnati, Detroit and Columbus
Life is good
I did enjoy the whole video
That NRPS LP is when Mr Garcia was just learning how to play pedal steel. Incredible steel guitar! Especially 'Dirty Business'. Yep, that was a great Dead/ NRPS tour!
Great video. I would love to see something similar but instead of home prices. rent prices!
Suggest you look at transportation county wide. We just passed federal infrastructure bills, so can see expected infrastructure project completion in these areas affecting county wide, esp. short line electric trains.
Great video! Midwest FTW!
Chicago isn't cheap by any means. I used to live there. It is cheaper than a big city on the coasts, but that is by comparison. But for the midwest, it is expensive.
The AFC North absolutely waxed the competition on this list.
Nice!
First of all, great video as always, GK. Just a quick comment and I say this as someone who grew up in NE Ohio (and still loves it); the two biggest issues with Cleveland are weather (it’s really cold!) and lack of a decent downtown. Pittsburgh slightly improves on the first issue and definitely on the second.
I just got back from Philly and really liked it. I love where I live in the DC metro area, but it can't be accused of being affordable. Philly is definitely tempting. I like being on the Northeast Corridor, which kinda keeps Pittsburg off my radar. It's just too removed, in spite of not being all that far away. I don't drive, and it's a much longer train trip than makes sense.
But Philly has a lot going for it. I'll be keeping my eyes on it, for sure.
Outstanding.
Cincinnati here! Love this channel. Go Bengals!
Its nice t o hear some Rust Belt cities get some love, as with all places there's good and bad to deal with
Detroit is a tricky one to base off of the country lines. Because of the cities central, radiant nature the urban area really more so inhabit the tri-County area of: Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb County. Interesting to see how that would effect the cities rating
As is so frequently the case, I like the video and respect your methodology. That said, while I can appreciate using median home value (both findable and meaningful to a person right at the 50th percentile), my intuition tells me that the tails vary wildly from city to city. I’m not sure what exactly to do about it: just posting standard deviation (if you can even identify it) doesn’t mean a lot without some accompanying information about the underlying curve, and plotting a full home value distribution would be loads of work. The best I can think of would be to continue using the (median value / mean income) ratio as the ranking metric, but augment the information with the home value range for the middle quintile (yet again, assuming you can even find it).
If he is already using median values, weighting it via a middle quintile median shouldn't do much to change the calculation unless you believe the underlying distribution is extremely skewed to one of the tails.
The way I ran to this video with my push notifications on!!
I have been trying to figure out where to retire to but thanks to your videos and a few others I think I will stay in Cincinnati. I never expected Cincinnati to be on the list.
Not surprised. I knew many who moved from South Florida to Georgia (Cobb county) and North Carolina (Piedmont Triad).
I lived in Atlanta for many years and loved it. It's not as car-centric as you might think - especially if you live in midtown Atlanta.
Hi Kyle. Thanks for you awesome info. Are you available for a short paid consultation? I’m planning a road trip from west to east coast and trying to decide between hwy 80 vs hwy 50 (prettier?). I’m leaving early to mid June. I don’t see how to private message you. My key concerns are road conditions and how to get info on that AND weather…any chance I will hit snow west of Colorado? Any Don’t Miss restaurants? I am not trying to see big cities. I have 2 weeks to get there. Thanks. (Will pay for an hour of consultation)
Nice video. Would like to see where Buffalo NY fits
It would be quite high on the list. I always want to include Buffalo in big city discussions but despite it feeling like a bigger city it does have less than 1.5 million in the metro.
@@GeographyKing ah yes I see. You have to have criteria! We like our "rebellious little brother" and "underdog" attitude.
I knew the rust belt was going to dominate the top 10 lol. Housing prices are why I’ve stayed around the Great Lakes most of my life. Though winter is probably a really hard sell if you haven’t grown up here dealing with it.
Actually the Great lakes a ts as an natural shield. That's why Minnesota is much more colder - no great lakes to the north to take some of the bitter cold away.
The real problem is that the cold air from the north pole comes in through the center of the country. I'm in Chicago and have noticed that we have the same avg temperatures than Toronto despite being more south.
@@giacobbeperales5926 At least you can grow one kind of fig in chicago ha.
You talk bad about winter but it was consistently above freezing most of this past winter. Climate change taking the chill off.
It would be interesting to see left over income after housing or all living expenses. That would be a pretty proxy to see how much you can be putting into retirement. It would be an even ground between high cost of living/income areas and areas with cheap housing
Love Philly. Loved there for years.. It’s huge. What about Buffalo NY?
If you want to live anywhere decent in the city of Chicago (the North Side), it's going to cost $450,000 on the low end. The South Side and the suburbs in Cook County are relatively cheap but no one wants to live there.
Interesting!
Can you do a similar analysis for smaller cities?
I was listening to "Louisiana Lady" and "Henry" earlier today.
Maybe some of the houses could be a fixer-upper. Also most of these cities don't really have to deal with frequent flooding (although Houston got it bad a few years ago)
Can you do a video of middle-sized cities, like Wichita or Tulsa? Metro areas with just under a million up to 2 million. That would be helpful to those of us who don't make the median income but want an urban atmosphere.
What year are you pulling house prices from? I know the median in Marian County (Indianapolis) is much higher than you posted. A lot of areas in Indy jumped in the last 12 months so your number feel like they are 1-2 years old.
They are from Q3 and Q4 2022. I wasn't able to get the numbers from the Q1 2023 in time for this video.
@@GeographyKing That might explain it. Indy is now up to a median of about 270k. So, not overpriced necessarily but no longer super undervalued like Indy had been for the past decade. (Bias reveal, I am a real estate investor in Indy).
Got a suggestion for you that most people don’t know. Volcanoes in the middle of the US. The St. Francois Mountains of southeast Missouri. Taum Sauk Mountain, Johnson’s Shut-Ins, Elephant Rocks, Castor Shut-Ins (pink granite), Bonne Terre lead mines (world’s largest man made cavern), Mill Stream Gardens, Silver Mines, St. Francis River, etc.
Been there and agree. Love the area- about 100 miles south of St Louis
I grew up in Cleveland and worked there for years before moving to New Mexico. I do return once or two a year to visit family and for the numerous attractions the area provides.
Would the Land Value Tax in Pennsylvania be part of why the housing prices are lower?
Same effect at work in Texas, although there it's somewhat balanced by no state income tax and (in Austin at least) high wages.
That median house price is a little sus to me.. It should be broken down by Single Family Homes median price (normally higher than the listed average) and condos/townhomes/apartments/other median price as this tends to be lower than the average. Or maybe studio-1bd median price and 2+bd median price..
The only reason I bring this up is you can see the somewhat low median price for that city and then go looking at single family homes and be in a little sticker shock..