Gyroscopic Investing

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Source: http://blogs.computerworld.com/it-caree ... on-matters

How in the world can it be cheaper to live in NY, NY than in El Paso, Texas?!

That just doesn't make any rational sense to me at all. I would imagine that for the same price as a studio apartment in NY you could buy a four bedroom home in the El Paso suburbs or something. And Texas has no income tax!

Not happy with the limited rankings in that article, I crunched the numbers myself and also accounted for local, state and federal taxes assuming $5K into IRA, single filer status, standard deduction, one personal exemption.  About 25 cities have no composite COL data so they were excluded but other cities in the same state are represented.  Ranked on net economic benefit (please don't ask to account for government assistance!):

1 Texas Houston $71,717.23
2 Texas Fort Worth $70,939.14
3 Tennessee Memphis $69,954.23
4 Arizona Phoenix $69,418.33
5 North Carolina Raleigh $69,254.97
6 Tennessee Nashville $68,744.67
7 Missouri St. Louis $68,728.01
8 Texas Austin $68,269.86
9 Arkansas Fayetteville $67,927.46
10 Louisiana Baton Rouge $67,476.54
11 Alabama Birmingham $67,133.14
12 Texas Dallas $67,030.25
13 Illinois Chicago $66,384.80
14 Ohio Columbus $66,382.62
15 Georgia Atlanta $66,163.33
16 Utah Salt Lake City $65,828.73
17 Arizona Tucson $65,801.70
18 Texas San Antonio $65,366.30
19 North Carolina Charlotte $65,287.75
20 Ohio Cincinnati $65,233.29
21 Florida Tampa $64,962.90
22 Michigan Detroit $64,946.19
23 Nebraska Omaha $64,939.25
24 Texas Midland/Odessa $64,827.29
25 Washington Seattle $64,513.29
26 Oklahoma Tulsa $63,576.17
27 Nevada Reno $63,530.49
28 Illinois Springfield $62,829.34
29 Florida Orlando $62,801.82
30 Pennsylvania Pittsburg $62,748.13
31 Alabama Huntsville $62,022.16
32 Indiana Indianapolis $61,478.49
33 New Jersey Princeton $61,360.09
33 New Jersey Woodbridge $61,360.09
35 South Carolina Columbia $61,124.34
36 New York Nassau County $60,987.99
37 Kentucky Louisville $60,895.59
38 Missouri Kansas City $60,845.37
39 Oklahoma Oklahoma City $60,598.75
40 Virgina Richmond $60,536.45
41 Wisconsin Milwaukee $60,498.28
42 Colorado Denver $60,281.22
43 Massachusetts Boston $60,272.36
44 Florida Jacksonville $60,156.79
45 Wisconsin Waukesha $60,139.24
46 Michigan Ann Arbor $60,087.67
47 Iowa Des Moines $60,029.60
48 Florida Miami/Ft Lauderdale $59,798.64
49 Missouri St. Joeseph $59,562.37
50 South Carolina Greenville $59,536.94
51 Arkansas Little Rock $59,358.78
52 Nevada Las Vegas $59,286.55
53 Tennessee Knoxville $59,257.32
54 New Jersey Paramus $58,892.30
55 Colorado Colorado Springs $58,843.02
56 Minnesota Minneapolis $58,653.36
57 New Hampshire Manchester/Nashua $58,615.74
58 Iowa Cedar Rapids $58,538.58
59 California Los Angeles $58,352.43
60 Minnesota Rochester $58,251.59
61 Ohio Cleveland $58,111.03
62 Kentucky Lexington $58,037.44
63 New York Queens $57,848.16
64 New York Buffalo $57,740.16
65 South Carolina Charleston $57,658.57
66 Pennsylvania Harrisburg $57,377.24
67 Pennsylvania Philadelphia $57,203.61
68 Connecticut Hartford $57,145.45
69 California Oakland $56,978.43
70 Tennessee Chattanooga $56,842.66
71 Alabama Mobile $56,778.13
72 DC Washington $56,720.48
73 Ohio Dayton $56,649.74
74 Virgina Tysons Corner $56,448.23
75 Delware Wilmington $56,336.66
76 Minnesota St. Paul $56,236.61
77 Florida Fort Myers $55,987.33
78 California San Diego $55,287.12
79 Virgina Norfolk/Hampton Roads $55,133.21
80 Iowa Devenport $54,920.69
81 Michigan Grand Rapids $54,838.04
82 Connecticut Stamford $54,768.52
83 Georgia Savannah $54,721.04
84 Oregon Portland $54,663.71
85 Idaho Boise $54,589.71
86 New York Rochester $54,427.40
87 California San Jose $54,141.10
88 Wisconsin Madison $53,835.39
89 Wisconsin Appleton $53,826.05
90 California Irvine $53,716.03
91 Wisconsin Green Bay $53,440.37
92 Ohio Akron $53,342.50
93 Maryland Baltimore $53,111.54
94 Connecticut New Haven $53,075.98
95 New York Albany $52,710.63
96 Washington Spokane $52,090.21
97 Iowa Waterloo/Cedar Falls $51,994.87
98 Maine Portland $51,894.65
99 Colorado Pueblo $51,804.96
100 Indiana Fort Wayne $51,778.86
101 Illinois Rockford $51,767.59
102 California San Franciso $51,649.40
103 California Sacramento $50,901.04
104 California Fresno $50,018.48
105 Ohio Youngstown $49,902.93
106 Nebraska Lincoln $49,596.15
107 Minnesota St. Cloud $49,489.67
108 Colorado Greeley $48,223.50
109 Ohio Canton $48,076.75
110 New York Brooklyn $47,769.75
111 Rhode Island Providence $47,561.90
112 Texas El Paso $45,002.96
113 New York Manhattan $38,701.95
114 Hawaii Honolulu $33,449.55

MomTo2Boys wrote: How in the world can it be cheaper to live in NY, NY than in El Paso, Texas?!

That just doesn't make any rational sense to me at all. I would imagine that for the same price as a studio apartment in NY you could buy a four bedroom home in the El Paso suburbs or something. And Texas has no income tax!

You're reading it wrong.  The figure was what was left over after accounting for the cost of living, i.e. the net economic benefit.  So you wind up with less disposable $ in NYC because it costs more to live there than in El Paso which is a trashy Mexican bordertown cesspool full of drugs, guns, prostitutes, i.e. hardly white collar jobs.  NYC may have all of that too but thats hardly the main draw, I would think.

Wow, that's crazy! Why is El Paso such an expensive place to live? Weird considering that other Texan cities are much better in that respect.

MachineGhost wrote:

MomTo2Boys wrote: How in the world can it be cheaper to live in NY, NY than in El Paso, Texas?!

That just doesn't make any rational sense to me at all. I would imagine that for the same price as a studio apartment in NY you could buy a four bedroom home in the El Paso suburbs or something. And Texas has no income tax!

You're reading it wrong.  The figure was what was left over after accounting for the cost of living, i.e. the net economic benefit.  So you wind up with less disposable $ in NYC because it costs more to live there than in El Paso which is a trashy Mexican bordertown cesspool full of drugs, guns, prostitutes, i.e. hardly white collar jobs.  NYC may have all of that too but thats hardly the main draw, I would think.

But... but... then wouldn't that mean that the chart thing is saying that it's cheaper to live in Long Island than it is to live in El Paso? I'm so confused...

Something's bass-ackwards.

I was out in Greeley Colorado on business a few years ago and the signs I was seeing for new homes were ridiculously cheap, yet they are in the bottom 10. And if you look at the top 10 you see a lot of cities everyone would assume to be an expensive place to live.

Wonder what's in the "cost of living index" - likely it takes things like transportation into account.  El Paso might be expensive if the average person has to drive an hour to the grocery store.

I can't understand why Long Island is on the top of the list.  Also it's a bit inappropriate since it's not a city - it's a 100 mile long region with a wide variety of towns, ranging from lowbrow to breathtakingly wealthy.  Neither do I get three NJ towns, one of them with high housing costs (Princeton) getting the #2-4 slots.

Pointedstick wrote: Wow, that's crazy! Why is El Paso such an expensive place to live?

Must be all those drug lords bidding up home prices.

MomTo2Boys wrote: But... but... then wouldn't that mean that the chart thing is saying that it's cheaper to live in Long Island than it is to live in El Paso? I'm so confused...

Correct.  I originally posted something along the below lines but deleted it when I realized you were asking about NYC and not Long Island.

I think Long Island is a unique case because Long Island is traditionally considered to be the two suburban counties to the east and not Queens and Brooklyn to the west which is considered part of the NYC metro, despite all four being on the same island.  So the cost for living in Long Island is dramatically lower, even though the Hamptons is in the east.  I suspect that there really isn't a lot of IT jobs in the east if it is really all suburbia without the kind of business-industrial congestion intermixed as you'd see in a place like California, i.e. everyone commutes more or less to NYC.  So those that do have such jobs are really in a very lucky position to be earning such high pay with lower living costs than NYC.  But, you could probably accomplish same by commuting as well.

Pointedstick wrote: Wow, that's crazy! Why is El Paso such an expensive place to live? Weird considering that other Texan cities are much better in that respect.

Its not expensive to live there, you just don't get paid a lot because such jobs are not in demand.  In this case the hit to the salary doesn't make up for the lower cost of living.

WiseOne wrote: Wonder what's in the "cost of living index" - likely it takes things like transportation into account.  El Paso might be expensive if the average person has to drive an hour to the grocery store.

Grocery (13.31%)
Housing (29.27%)
Utilities (10.22%)
Transportation (9.86%)
Health (4.23%)
Miscellaneous (33.11%)

I broke down NYC into Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and renamed Long Island to Nassau County for a better granularity.  I'll update the rankings and repost.

I can't understand why Long Island is on the top of the list.  Also it's a bit inappropriate since it's not a city - it's a 100 mile long region with a wide variety of towns, ranging from lowbrow to breathtakingly wealthy.  Neither do I get three NJ towns, one of them with high housing costs (Princeton) getting the #2-4 slots.

I didn't see COLI for those three NJ towns, so I couldn't verify and just used the COLI from the article.  But I am suspicious of the numbers.

notsheigetz wrote: I was out in Greeley Colorado on business a few years ago and the signs I was seeing for new homes were ridiculously cheap, yet they are in the bottom 10. And if you look at the top 10 you see a lot of cities everyone would assume to be an expensive place to live.

Local home prices are directly correlated to local salaries.  There's no free lunch, but arbitrage opportunities will exist.  People don't move around and get new jobs as fast as high frequency trading.