I can speak with some context here. I moved my family to New England from OC a few years back due to a job promotion. While folks may think that Boston RE is as expensive as SD, it is much easier here to find great, upscale areas where you can buy at 3.5:1 salary/homeprice. Now the Boston job market pays substantially more than SD, OC, LA or Dallas. Check the recent BLS statistics on average weekly wages in 2006 by county, for every county in the nation. The avg wage-earener in Suffolk County MA earns $1228/week. That is the average, not the median. SD was something like $900/week. Dallas was lower. The only counties higher were NY and Santa Clara.
So affordability was my trigger. I did some research and discovered some amazing deals. So we made the move. 4 years later, how has it been? Summary:
1. We bought in a town that has a pop. of roughly 30K people. Median household income is $100K. We bought right around 3.5:1 price:median hh income. Our household income is higher than the median, so we bought for much less than 3.5:1. 50 percent of the adults age 25 or older have a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree (this was the most telling statistic for what sort of a community we were buying in). This is all per US Census data. The town is even nicer than we could have hoped for, and my total RE nut incl property taxes is $2K/month. Score 1 for the move.
2. The job has been a bonanza. Boston is the #2 tech and money center after SJC and NY, respectively. Lots of 6, and even 7 figure jobs here. Lots of educated people as well, so competition is fierce, but if you’re skilled and possess solid academic credentials, you’ll make on average way more here than SD. Score 1 more for the move.
3. New England is like Texas, with colder winters, better summers and closer proximity to the ocean. But compared to SoCal the people here are redneck. They’re just better educated and wealthier than the stereotype. Instead of youth football here it’s hockey. Every guy from New England is a frustrated hockey player. The Adam Sandler character in Happy Gilmore really does a great job caricaturizing this image. The only other guy I know here who surfs also moved here from OC. Score zero here – weather sucks related to SoCal but is much better than someplace like TX or MI.
So culturally we are fish out of water, but my financial situation is dramatically stronger than it would likely have been had we stayed in SoCal. Looking at current comps, we’re even up ~35 percent over the purchase price, and even then anyone making our town’s median could afford the house without stretching too badly.
I now might have a chance to repeat this same model again. I’m in discussions that could enable me to take a new position that would double my salary while depositing me in an area of CA that has housing prices that would enable a less than 3:1 homeprice to salary ratio (within 2.5 hours of SF). While I miss the heck out of OC and SD, I will NEVER indebt myself to the level I would need to in order to buy a nice home in a decent area there. I have come to fully subscribe to the notion of putting family financial health over personal indulgence – which is what a move back to SoCal would be for me given the current price environment and where the high paying jobs are. I like to fully fund my 401K, stock purchase plan, and have some left over for 529s, money market savings and taxable investements.
Does anyone else on this board share similar views?
