[quote=spdrun]Really difficult to answer this. I’d say on average, costs other than housing in NYC are 1.25-1.5x those of San Diego.
“Normal” housing in Manhattan (i.e. not condos bought by magnates and Russian heiresses) is probably 3-6x as expensive per sq ft than San Diego, depending on whether you rent or buy, but most people don’t have as much square footage, simple as that.
Housing in convenient/nice parts of NJ is actually about the same as San Diego as far as monthly nut if you buy. Higher taxes in general (with a few exceptions that I won’t advertise to vultures here 🙂 ), but lower purchase price per sq ft.
$400k would probably mean $250k take home after taxes. You could do pretty nicely with this, the more if you bought housing 20 years ago when it was cheap and have it mostly paid off by this point. Those are stagehands in the sense of senior management, not errand boys after all — they’re probably been there a while 🙂
If those people bought a brownstone in what used to be a bad area of Brooklyn for a few hundred thou 20 years ago, it may be worth north of a mill now, and they’ll still be paying $200/mo in property tax (property tax for houses in the city is actually super cheap).
I’m not sure if this really answers anyone’s question, because the NY area is so damn diverse that it all depends where exactly one chooses to live. And moving a mile in one direction or another can result in a significant difference in costs.
Upper East Side — it’s actually cheaper than some trendier areas of Manhattan these days. It’s never been trendy, it has only one subway line (changing ca. 2015-6) and it’s considered a bit of an older area. And there’s a big difference between what’s west of Park Ave and what’s east of 2nd or 3rd Ave as well.[/quote]
Thank you for your expertise, spdrun. From your post, I take it that the majority of Manhattan and close-in burrough residents live in smaller quarters than similarly-situated residents (those with similar demographics) of SD County. Of course, due to age and likely being built out many decades (or even >100 yrs) ago, there likely aren’t any 2500 – 4500 sf “mcmansions” there to choose from which are typical of those built in SD County in the last 15 yrs or so. So NYC residents are used to living in smaller quarters than CA residents (especially suburban and exurban CA residents). This doesn’t make them any less valuable, just smaller, just as smaller houses within a few miles of dtn SD cost just as much or more than many larger houses located 20+ miles away. Because of their small size, they do not generally attract too many Gen Y and younger Gen X buyers in SD, that is, unless the buyer has relatives living nearby. Because, unlike NYC, SD County worker-bee buyers DO have the choice to move out into suburbia and exurbia without crossing one or more (crowded) bridges twice daily into/out of another county or state. SD County buyers often get 2-3 times the space in an outlying area for the same price as an urban dwelling.
I find it interesting that property taxes on a typical Brooklyn brownstone are just ~$1200 annually. That has got to be a bargain as even if it is only 1500 sf, I seem to remember reading that they had basements.
My (armchair) experience with NY’s upper east side (spacious) flats/apts (co-ops?) was from the pages of Architectural Digest, lol. Its depicted “remodeled” apts appeared to be 2200 to 3600 sf (avg of abt 2500-2600 sf). The views from most of the windows were spectacular, as I recall.
I’ve never been to NYC (or NY, for that matter) but have helped send each of my kids to NYC on school trips (one twice). Maybe I’ll visit someday and have one or more of THEM show me all the tourist sites 🙂
It seems that the “culture” of a typical New Yorker is to be content with living in less space and there is nothing wrong with that. I’m sure other amenities they have outside their doorsteps which we don’t have here more than make up for that. And a family of 3 or 4 doesn’t need 3000 sf anyway, IMO.
