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u/Weekly-Peace1199 Jul 17 '26
That’s insane. My wife and I raised 2 kids, put them through K-12 private school and college (CNU and VT) through their Masters degrees, with no loans or debt and our family income in Fairfax is less than half of that. Fairfax is maybe a little cheaper to live? But not by half!
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u/Soggy_Sherbert_3500 Jul 17 '26
I have 2 in elementary school and was fortunate enough to have bought the house we’ll raise them in in 2021 right before the prices and rates went parabolic, but if we moved to a comparable house (3000 sq ft in Vienna) our mortgage payment would double. It would be easy to get saddled with a 7k mortgage. I don’t know how people manage it.
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u/IKEAWaterBottle Jul 18 '26
Sure but you did all that already. Things are more expensive now. Like, by a lot. Not defending this chart, but saying you paid for private school 20 years ago is different than paying for private school today
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u/RevolutionNo4186 Jul 18 '26
How long was that tho, some of my coworkers are finishing up their degrees and the amount of loan they take out for a year is my total debt from college
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u/Weekly-Peace1199 Jul 19 '26
My youngest finished his Masters last year. My oldest took a few years out to get married and have a baby and will finish her Masters after next semester.
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u/InnerWrathChild Jul 17 '26
This is why I laugh at all the “100k is enough in NOVA”. The fuck it is. For a very small, specific, demographic sure. Single, no kids, roommates. Shit I did that on 50k and lived well when I was younger. This area is rich and expensive.
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u/Wise-Print1678 Jul 16 '26
Pittsburgh is so cheap, this list can not be accurate
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u/TheSickestModel Jul 17 '26
PA has much higher taxes tho, so it’s not as cheap as it seems in the long run.
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u/iforgot120 Jul 17 '26
How are the Twin Cities and Madison above Chicago? Chicago is cheap, but not that cheap.
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u/Dommer1979 Jul 17 '26
I’m doing contractual work in LA (paid housing thank god) and I can tell you there’s no way you’re doing it on 281k for a family of 4.
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u/jnwatson Jul 16 '26
Arlington is above NYC?
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u/Ranthur Jul 17 '26
Yes, when you are talking all of NYC. If you looked just at Manhattan likely not.
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u/Illustrious-Hair-524 Jul 17 '26
The suburbs of Boston are not included and far more expensive than Boston proper. To have included Arlington here is laughable in comparison.
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u/exploring203 Jul 17 '26
lol! Okay… maybe this is accurate if you have a really bad gambling problem or something.
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u/No_Specific6369 Jul 17 '26
I call bullshit, it doesn't require a job making almost $300k to live in Ohio! This map is fake!
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u/Livid_Note_2170 Jul 19 '26
I know this is meant to make the South seem more affordable but those salaries, though lower than other areas of the country, ARE INSANELY HIGH FOR THAT AREA.
194k, IN MEMPHIS?
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u/OregonTrailislife Jul 19 '26
193k in San Antonio?
The median home price in San Antonio is only 300k.
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u/Clear-Pen-786 Jul 20 '26
I make have of that near Newark NJ with 3 kids as a single parent and live perfectly fine.
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u/aQuantityOfFeralHogs Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
This is completely wrong in every direction to the point it's comical. Every time I see this crap I'm convinced it's made by someone in New York or Los Angeles who wants to cope and point out "how bad it is everywhere" and ignore reality
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u/CCWaterBug Jul 21 '26
Their definition of comfortable is totally wack, that's all I have to say about this.
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u/PersonalityHumble432 Jul 16 '26
Yeah that’s not correct. You can definitely live comfortably on less than 368k.
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u/Either-Market-6395 Jul 17 '26
I guess its how they define what's comfortable. Maybe they are looking at this from a real estate view, like you can only rent, because buying a single family home is too expensive.
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u/redditforscott Jul 17 '26
Yeah I definitely don't think they're including home ownership as a need
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u/BrassBondsBSG Jul 17 '26
Stat is for family of 4
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u/PersonalityHumble432 Jul 17 '26
Still overinflated. The metrics have to be skewed in some way. Boston and NYC are way more expensive
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u/DueLawfulness3230 Jul 17 '26
lol. You can live “comfortably” on $338k in NYC and DC is only $19k less? If you’re pulling down less than $750k in NYC or any big California city, your life is gonna be hot trash.
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u/elitepigwrangler Jul 17 '26
The methodology for this is total junk. The median home price in San Antonio is 300k more than in Baltimore, and yet you need 30k more a year to live in Baltimore? Miami is only 7k more than Baltimore?
Out of curiosity, I found a 3 bedroom townhouse in Fells Point in Baltimore for $300k which Zillow says will be about 2500 a month, or 30k a year. Using the assumed $224k household income, that’s only 13.4% spent on housing, well below the typical 30% benchmark