Plano’s a pretty large suburb north of Dallas. There’s a heavy tech presence. I think Frito-Lay is there, too.
Re: Lincoln, college students likely have low or no earnings compared to non-students fully employed in the work force, I would think, thus increasing the impact of rental prices relative as a percentage of (low) income. And college towns often have strict zoning, which tends to increase enforce higher rents.
That’s just my hunch, though.
Plano is the suburb of choice for north Dallas executives. As such the combination of perceived value and a higher than average number people with 7+ figure incomes work together to keep it pricey. It really has no intrinsic value over other locations in the Dallas area.
As an aside, the average rent for a 2 br apartment in Dallas is $1560 while Plano is only $1410 but the home sale prices may be what’s placing it above Dallas on the list. Now for really expensive Dallas area rent, you got to Addison where the median 2 br price is $1620.
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That’s considered a rule of thumb across the country. Sometimes one third is used.
Seattle is actually the fifth most expensive-rent city in Washington. But I don’t know if they mean the actual city of Seattle, or the “greater Seattle area” which is the dozen cities around it. Seattle itself comes in behind Mercer Island, Bellevue, Redmond, and Kirkland.
http://seattleluxuryrental.com/seattle-named-5th-most-expensive-city-in-us-but-is-not-most-expensive-city-in-washington/
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Wow, from the flagged rant above about San Diego, I almost thought I was on the Red Line trolley for a minute.
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That may be because it’s dying, by inches.
In the inner-city in T-town, they don’t just leave rental units vacant if they can’t get anyone to pay the desired monthly price; they demolish them, leaving the wreckage and debris right where it falls; so instead of a property going to seed and/or becoming a haven for squatters, they become havens for wild vermin like rats, raccoons and possums.
O_o
Of course, the last time I was there was a couple years ago, so maybe the situation had improved since then… but the natural cynic in me really doubts it.
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Well, it is nice to see that my town, Honolulu, has either dropped off the 100-most-populous list (you wouldn’t know it from the traffic) or has had its rents drop (though that doesn’t seem consistent with the rest of the article).
Theres also those of us who refuse to be a government subsidized customer, also. They want to see growth with stagnant wages? Tough shit, that has only inflated the prices of the things that the median wage couldn’t afford to begin with, and funneled wealth from the government to people with expensive things to sell.
It hasn’t lowered costs, or shrunk wealth inequity, or grown any type of middle class. It has had the exact opposite effect.
Out of a morbid sense of curiosity, what was the driver of your property tax increases? Regardless of increases in what you could sell it for on the market, Measure 50 should hold property tax increases to 3% or less annually. Was there a major renovation that caused a revaluation?
I lived in PDX in the mid 90s, in an old house in Sellwood. Three of us were sharing the rent, and it was $700. I well remember my checks for $233 every month. That house then was worth, mayyyyyybe $100k. If it could even be sold. Portland was fresh off the recession and jobs were pretty scarce, but coming back. Grunge was almost in full effect. The hipster scene was more dirty hippy than what it is now. Portland’s downtown was still half-rotten. I made about $5 an hour, so the $233 was a lot and I didn’t have much left. That house, according to Trulia and Zillow is worth about a million now. I can’t believe it. It was a craphole. I’m sure they renovated it. I wonder if they found the old Sprite bottle bong I stashed behind the wall in the attic.
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I miss living in Tacoma. Manuscript museum, Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium, and all of my friends lived nearby (in Seattle).
Honestly, trying to get back there would help us a lot. Being 7% less costly to rent there versus Alaska would be the least of it.
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I’d guess South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana is about the Fracking boom. And the data may be a couple years old. They had extreme housing shortages in those areas, and the state populations are tiny, so said boom may have moved the stats a lot more than one might expect.
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No renovations. My property taxes have increased $1200 in 6 years.
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Anyone have any idea what county has the lowest cost of living period? And I’m not talking about things like communes or people squatting on BLM land.
If I was a total skinflint and not afraid of getting to know the locals- where could I stretch my dollar the furthest?
Alabama or Mississippi, frendo.
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Plano is also home to EDS and Frito Lay. It neighbors Dallas and while it’s gone downhill in recent years it’s still got some very well-to-do neighborhoods.
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Ahh - Tunica County, Mississippi is the cheapest.
I had to Google Map it - was surprised and enchanted by some of the interesting place names nearby:
- Hollywood
- Falcon
- Darling
- Barksdale (anyone named Avon should live there)
- Sledge
- Savage
- Alligator
- Modoc (after the Marvel baddie)?
- Bobo
-Askew
Sadly the crime rates are substantially above average for Mississippi or the US. Doubt I’d survive short term residency:
Good lord
