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This study is meaningless because it considers only the cost of buying a home, and not the total cost of housing or the cost of living. Specifically, it omits p
by ccleve 5y ago
This study is meaningless because it considers only the cost of buying a home, and not the total cost of housing or the cost of living. Specifically, it omits property taxes, state income taxes, and state and local sales taxes.
Several of the "most affordable" cities are in Illinois, yet here in Illinois we are losing population rapidly. The reason is that the tax burden is the highest in the nation. Property taxes in particular are out of control. That's why houses are cheap: buyers have to take into account the fact that they have to pay a significant percentage of the value of their home to the government every year.
Across the border in Indiana, there is a 1% property tax cap. In Illinois, property taxes average 2.5%, and there are some communities where it runs as high as 10% (mostly south-side Chicago economically depressed townships).
My advice: don't come here because you think housing is cheap. It ain't.
- vidanay 5y agoExactly this. As a lifelong Illinois resident, I was quite shocked to see Illinois as #5 for home buying affordability. That is CLEARLY not home _owning_ affordability (mostly due to property taxes as you pointed out). eta: We are also leaving IL as soon as our new house is built in NC.
- ryandrake 5y agoSomeone posted this comparison[1] the other day, which I found to be valuable. Tax burden by state. Too bad the article didn't account for this with their data. We really need more integratable open data sources so that people can do these kinds of mash-ups easily themselves. Maybe I want to sort regions weighted by home prices, distance to a ski resort, least light pollution for stargazing, and cheapest gas prices. All these data are out there, but you need to be a GIS wizard to mash them up. 1: https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-burden/20494 https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-bur...
- Godel_unicode 5y agoWhich is actually the point of the article, if you look at the footer they're doing this to advertise their analysis platform: https://priceonomics.com/the-priceonomics-data-studio/ https://priceonomics.com/the-priceonomics-data-studio/
- 8ytecoder 5y agoThat’s a double whammy. Not just that it’s an additional expense, it also depresses the price.
- op00to 5y agoIt omits services which might be provided by the government in one area but are privately provided in another. It omits whether there’s anything nearby that anyone wants - jobs, shops, etc. whatever go move to the Midwest and be bored I guess the article is saying.