I started last year living in New York City. Many of my friends have moved down to Raleigh, Charlotte, Atlanta, and Tampa over the past few years, and in sprin

I started last year living in New York City. Many of my friends have moved down to Raleigh, Charlotte, Atlanta, and Tampa over the past few years, and in spring of last year I got a job offer and moved south as well. Insofar as living expenses - coming from New York I do not own a car so a place near good public transportation was important. I also wanted to live in a nice neighborhood that had other young professionals. This narrowed things down to two neighborhoods - one had a lot of theaters, bars, restaurants, art galleries etc. but had no decent supermarket within walking distance - the other did (and also had my bank and other convenient places). I went with the latter neighborhood. The ballpark for a one bedroom in this neighborhood was $1400-1600, with square feet being one determining factor. Knowing that I would be stuck inside due to Covid I opted for more square feet and was looking for apartments around $1600. A very desirable two bedroom townhouse came on the market for $1700 which was $100 more than I wanted to spend, but it was so perfect I went $1200 over a year. I'm a software engineer, I can afford it. I have a parking space in the building garage that I rarely use as I am from New York City and have yet to buy a car (I rent when needed). I have two bedrooms (one converted to a gym, as public gyms were closed for a while) and two bathrooms. I have a door on a tree lined street where twentysomethings walk by walking their dogs and such, another door goes to the apartment building. I have two parks nearby, one which is pretty nice where I jog when it is not winter. I am two blocks from my bank, a good supermarket, and several bars and restaurants. I have a washer and dryer in the unit. The place was built a decade ago and is all modern appliances. I am less than a ten minute walk from the train station. My office is actually moving next to my train station, but if it re-opens before the move my commute is less than half an hour. $1700 a month. 1000+ square feet, in-unit washer/dryer, first floor door opening to the outside, attached garage, walking distance to train, supermarket, bars, parks - it would be difficult to even find this in the New York metro area. Everything in New York City is at least double the price for something like this. It's a nice place to hole up in and WFH during the pandemic, and not expensive. The reality is if I moved back to the NYC metro area at some point, I would be paying more for a smaller apartment with less amenities in a less desirable neighborhood that was farther from everything. Especially talking to young (or entering middle age) married professionals who moved down - with the breadwinner earning $100-150k a year - they can afford to buy a nice sized house in a nice neighborhood, two cars, go on vacations etc. They can just live a nice comfortable life on $100k while the well-educated wife is raising two kids until they're grown more and she'll go back to work. The math would just be impossible to work out in New York, even on the salary of a programmer or PM or QA etc. who is getting paid well compared to the average Joe.