If you are in a professional career, then it's not the median salary that matters but the median salary for your particular profession (and indeed whether there

If you are in a professional career, then it's not the median salary that matters but the median salary for your particular profession (and indeed whether there are any jobs in your profession in that area). You also want to be looking at home prices for a particular class/size of home as the nature of housing stock varies considerably from place to place. I'm in the UK, 50 minutes by train from one of the mainline London train stations, but prices here are a fraction of what they would be next to that train station. Median salaries here would also be much lower, but if you moved out here and commuted into London, your salary would effectively only decrease by your commuting cost, not lower to the media salary in this area (although you of course then need to commute which has its own set of disadvantages). Other costs such as childcare are significantly cheaper here too than in central London.