Would’ve been nice to see rent in addition to housing prices as another factor for affordability, since (especially for young people looking for a place to move to after high school or college) rent is a pretty relevant factor that doesn’t always align perfectly with housing prices
@@dirtymike3329 maybe generally but not always. For example, median 3BD2BA house in Tucson is about $453k and about $$460k in Phoenix (1.5% more) yet median 2BD rent goes from about $1300 to $2000 (54%)
@@do9138 economics. More specifically, the law of supply and demand. Also, the data is out there. If you were to plot the median home price against the median monthly rent for a every city in America, I bet you you would get a r value greater than .75. Thus, correlation
I just got back from Philly and really liked it. I love where I live in the DC metro area, but it can't be accused of being affordable. Philly is definitely tempting. I like being on the Northeast Corridor, which kinda keeps Pittsburg off my radar. It's just too removed, in spite of not being all that far away. I don't drive, and it's a much longer train trip than makes sense. But Philly has a lot going for it. I'll be keeping my eyes on it, for sure.
Pittsburgh is cheaper than the rest of the expensive US, but if you're a single person making under $55K you're going to have a tough time finding a place anywhere near the city itself. Oh and if you're not willing to waive all contingencies and/or pay cash? Forget it.
This is largely a nationwide problem at this point. Low supply started during the pandemic and continues now in part because mortgage rates have increased so people with 2.5-3% mortgages (which is probably *most* current homeowners if they bought or refinanced in the past 10 years) have a strong disincentive to sell unless they absolutely have to.
That median house price is a little sus to me.. It should be broken down by Single Family Homes median price (normally higher than the listed average) and condos/townhomes/apartments/other median price as this tends to be lower than the average. Or maybe studio-1bd median price and 2+bd median price.. The only reason I bring this up is you can see the somewhat low median price for that city and then go looking at single family homes and be in a little sticker shock..
If you purchase a home in Chicago for 300K you are in a bad and dangerous area. I love my hometown and we are working very hard to make it better. Chicago's home are easily 500k.
I know you just did a video on all three big ohio cities but I would love to see your city profile of Cincy, why are you a fan? (besides the chili of course)
8:17 "Not only is Cleveland not the hell-hole people think it is" perfect way to describe it. My family lives in the town of Brecksville, located 15 miles south of Cleveland in Cuyahoga County and to me that is the best suburb town in America since it has access to both a big city and a nature reserve right in its own backyard. I really love all the metro-parks that surround Cleveland.
Lakewood, Rocky River, Fairview, Berea, and Strongsville say hi... 😊 Brecksville is really nice but the Emerald Necklace makes "big city/nature" pretty common in Cle area. Makes Cleveland awesome.
Cleveland is quite a popular area for Orthodox Jewish families from the New York-New Jersey area to move to - large and well-established Orthodox Jewish community with robust infrastructure as well as much cheaper housing.
Don’t let the “Rust Belt” fool you…a lot of these cities are doing great things and attracting high tech, corporate jobs. They are fun, easy places to live. I’ve got 99 problems, but cost of living ain’t one.
@@dre32pitt nah I live in Buffalo and love it. Sure we get snow but it isn't as bad as they make it seem. Besides, people are great here and crime is relatively low
@@whppnpost1 I visited a friend there once.. Love Duff's, lol.. Does it snow 2 or more months out of the year? If so, hard pass, lol.. I'd rather do the humidity of the south again (lived in the FL panhandle, aka LA or Lower Alabama for 10 years) than deal with snow like that..
@@whppnpost1 Crime still isn't great... not in a lot of neighborhoods. Definitely on the upswing though. I lived in Rochester until relatively recently and while I did like it, there are parts of downtown that are pretty scary. Other parts are just starting to revitalize. Buffalo is much the same way.
@@whppnpost1 I love snow! Retired to Madison WI from California in part because I wanted four seasons (and the snow season is quite generously long here, haha)
I'm a plumber and I've done a similar analysis, except that I used average plumber wages instead of overall wages. California cities & Hawaii are the least affordable for plumbers. Then the South and Southwest are largely pretty bad places to be a plumber. Then you have the east coast cities, they are generally better than the south/ southwest,. Surprisingly Seattle and Portland are pretty high up there. But Midwest cities beat everyone out by a long shot. The only problem with the Midwest is that projected job growth is really slow.
Job growth might be slow, but even poor people need to poop in their toilet have good water in their kitchen, regardless of what is happening otherwise. IMHO - doing a job in a place with slow anything… would’t affect you being called upon to fix a toilet or helping people to have potable water to drink. Both of which is obviously job security if you have the skill to do so often when one “can’t drink, or poop”. I wish I had your skills!!!
Haha I do the same as a contract painter. Southeast hubs like Atlanta and Nashville bring in BANK for us. Remote locations or mosts Western states... not so much.
Maybe that's why midwest is often claimed as bad for small businesses because it's already oversaturated. Supermajorities states that had lasted a decade is often the worse.
The best thing about being a plumber is that you are always needed wherever you go. No matter how bad the job market for most industries may be, where there are people there will be a need for a plumber.
I spent 9 years in college, and about $200k of loans in today’s money to get 3 degrees in civil engineering. I was dead broke when I was 30 years old…. NEGATIVE net worth. Went into teaching. While I managed to retire early, I wish I had a skill to keep doing something using my learned skills. Nobody cares about my ability to teach properties of physics…. I’m financially comfortable… but not at all wealthy. I just got to where I have no debt. Not much past that. Other than volunteer work, there is very little I can do which utilizes my education and/or experience. If I could talk to myself 50 years ago, I’d try and convince my young ambitions to learn a vocational trade. Probably welding, even if I was just welding circles on a steel pipeline while I’m still healthy and over 65 years old.
I really respect the fact that you share your information sources and that you don't just denigrate all of the large US cities in the same way that others do.
I agree, I saw a video yesterday that ranked the richest cities in the world and they cited no sources and it was completely inaccurate based off every google search that I did.
@@jskelly1979 And even with 2023 best states in the world and others they tend to agree with some states and cities but gets others wildly off. North Dakota and Alaska is such example they couldnt agree on.
@@NamelessProducts Growing up we used to call it "Over-the-Crime" and it hasn't quite shaken that reputation but man that area is so peak. What a just perfect historical urban experience.
Cincy is legit as hell for its size, four professional sports teams, good urbanism, and a great location to boot. If I-75 ran a little closer to the rail yard, and they actually saw the subway to completion, it would surely have a better reputation.
I grew up in the DC suburbs where a 1 bdrm apt in a rat-infested, roach-infested complex for $1400 (utilities not included, no washer/dryer) was the norm. Moving to Baltimore City (not County) was the best decision I ever made. I now live in Mount Vernon (north of downtown) in an amazing 2 bdrm apt in a historic brownstone. Great walkable historic neighborhood with great restaurants, great amenities, water included, and washer/dryer in-unit and I pay $1150/month. A lot of ppl allow sensationalist news to keep them suffering when they don't have to. This Baltimore neighborhood I've been living in for 3 yrs has hands down been the best independent living experience of my life. All because I decided to give this great city a chance.
Where did you live Arlington? A new one bedroom a bit further out can run you 1500 which is reasonable if your making 100K (quite common here) people that complain about the cost always want to live in DC or Bethesda, Arlington, or Silver Spring. Go to Woodbridge, PG county or even further out in Fairfax and you’re fine.
OOf, I feel your pain. I grew up in Georgetown. I seriously considered Baltimore when house hunting since you can hop the train and be in DC in no time for work. This was at a time when a lot of people from DC were commuting. I found houses I really liked and strongly considered, but ultimately I let the crime statistics scare me off.
I lived in Mt Vernon for 5 years. My rent was $650 for a studio and then $950 for a 1 bedroom. Beautiful neighborhood. Then I bought a rowhouse in Patterson Park and my mortgage is only $1350. Everyone told me don’t buy north of the park because it’s the “bad side” and that my house wouldn’t increase in value. But 8 years later houses on my block are selling for over $80k+ more than what I paid.
I live in western PA. The reason housing costs are so low is that the people here never bought into "housing mania". People buy houses to live in, not to gamble with. We don't have a lot of bidding war nonsense. Ask a fair price and you get something in that vicinity. Prices have risen over the years, but no astronomical leaps.
Really good video. I grew up in Cleveland and have lived in the Kansas City area for 50 years. Ohio and Missouri have some great people and cities, unfortunately some of the areas deserve their reputations, but they are concentrated and easy to avoid. All big cities seem to have them.
If you stay out of the bad areas in KC you never know they exist. I can't imagine any bad area being more than 5% of the total. St. Louis is a different story. My read is its all bad. I lived in North County by Ferguson. Polyglot.
@@seanevans3272 It depends on what you have seen and what your priorites are. If you could exclude cost I would go with London based upon what I have seen. I could deal with NYC under those conditions. I would have formerly said San Diego but it is becoming another Portland. Denver is just mediocre.
Fine research, Kyle. But I would like to say a word about "average incomes." Particularly in the Sun Belt, when high paying jobs have quickly come into a city and county, it's usually because corporations have been drawn there because unions are weak, and there is no local or state addendum to federal Minimum Wage levels. This means precisely that wages are basically low. Those techy people with degrees in science and management moving in push the average wage up rapidly, but they are sometimes 10 or 20 percent of the population. The remaining 80 to 90 are generally some of the poorest people in the nation. We need to value having a small income gap, rather than average wages. That makes for a vastly better place to live.
I imagine the massive tech layoffs that are happening are remote workers that moved to lower CoL areas. Now doubt when they get rehired, they'll be zipcoded and have their salary adjusted accordingly. You won't find many tech companies that are gonna pay you a SF/NYC salary to work in St. Louis.
@@peterroberts4415 Well, in the '90s and 2000s Minnesota, alone among Great Lakes states, raised taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals, and put the money into schools and universities. In the last dozen years, Minnesota has had the only growing economy in the Great Lakes region. In recent surveys, Minnesota has had the highest economic confidence of all 50 states.
Recent transplant to Pittsburgh, here. Cost of living wasn't the primary consideration, but it really is hard to argue with the bang you get for your buck in some of the rust belt cities. Pittsburgh offers so much for far less than any of the major east coast metros. There are definitely drawbacks, but the region is loaded with character and the vibe is unique.
@@TheLordmewtwo So far, mostly the unintuitiveness of the road network and the congestion of main arteries; it's mostly due to the topography, so there's not much to be done about it. Also the Pittsburgh Left.
Hey! I’m considering Pittsburgh to move to, however, is it sunny or cloudy throughout the year? Google says cloudy for most of the year, but idk. What say you?
@@miguelcabanillas8539 "Cloudy" includes days of broken cloud cover, where you still see blue sky and intermittent sun. There are, however, stretches where it's overcast for days on end and you'll feel like you haven't seen the sun for a week or more, especially during the winter months. I grew up with that, but if you're coming from the sun belt you will definitely notice the difference.
He points out there are only 37 metros with over 2 million people, so it's just a list of half of them. 20. Raleigh 19. Nashville 18. Charlotte NC 17. Atlanta 16, San Antonio 15. Columbus 14. Dallas 13. Minneapolis (if you like Woke and looting Target?) 12. Houston 11. Milwaukee 10. Baltimore (okay, is he joking? Yeah, it's cheap. So is your life there.) 9. Chicago 8. Philadelphia (doesn't all of PA have not just state tax, but also county and local city tax?) 7. Kansas City, MO 6. Indianapolis 5. Cincinnati 4. St. Louis 3. Detroit (hahahaahah, sorry. No. Just no.) 2. Pittsburgh 1. Cleveland
Agree. I live next door and I refuse to go to Ohio. You can never pass on the highway because people get in the fast lane and drive door to door next to someone in the slow lane. Literally the worst drivers I’ve ever seen anywhere. And way too many towns named after gross food. Lima (which is a frightening place), vandalia. Etc. 😂
@@sm3675 Normally I'd say, "and what, miss out on price appreciation?" But in Texas (outside of Austin), what price appreciation? They still have nearly infinite buildable land, which helps keeps prices low. But yeah, those taxes are fierce. Not as bad as the Northeast, but still a big deterrent for anyone looking for a nice/expensive house.
@@OurBelovedBungo Texas need a brake on growth for a few years until things settle down. Your Governor Abbott cut 211 million in mental health just to fight the waves of illegals last may.
Yeah Cleveland has a great bang for your buck. Granted Ohio is a bit too red for my taste and there are some legitimate concerns about moving to Ohio if you care about Reproductive healthcare and LGBT rights. However there are several other Midwestern cities in blue/purple states that are worth checking out. Given the arbitrary 2 Million person cut off, many of these metros didn't make the cut like Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, and Buffalo.
@RobShutt357 if you're gay or a woman that matters a lot. Hence the references to affordable, prosperous small Midwest cities that also protect the rights of women and gay people. That said, if more people would move to these blue Ohio metros, wouldn't be long until things look more like Minnesota than Alabama.
Love from #2 Pittsburgh! Houses are cheap for a number of reasons but I want to guess that the nice old housing stock from when the city had 700k people is mostly intact with only 300k people is a big reason. Most of the growth of the last century has been in the suburbs. If you are considering an Allegheny county suburb definitely consider well-connected ones on the T or the a busways, or better yet just stick to the city. Avoid the car-infested traps of Monroeville, Robinson, and the north hills 🤮
I had a great vacation there a few years ago, stayed in a VRBO house in Edgewood, slightly east of Frick Park. Nice neighborhood and conveniently located, although it does border some more run-down sections of the city. Hard to tell as a visitor if those sections are getting bigger or smaller - surprisingly from what I understand, Pittsburgh's population continues to slowly decline.
@@OurBelovedBungo run down areas are definitely getting smaller, gentrification is rampant. And while it is slowly declining, tech and skilled workers are flocking to the city for well paying jobs and low housing prices. Meta, Duolingo, Google, Lots of Robotics and Engineering firms, American Eagle
hugely agree with avoiding the car infested areas of Pittsburgh. I live in Oakland for school and my partner lives in Robinson so I drive out there pretty often, the change in walkability and transportation options between the two is like worlds apart. I ride my bike for most errands in the city, but I've literally never seen a person on a bike in Robinson.
@@orrsh2049 Agree. The only place you see people biking in Robinson is on The Montour Trail, but Montour Trail is the longest suburban rails-to-trails in the U.S. so is probably where everyone is biking anyway.
Chicago isn't cheap by any means. I used to live there. It is cheaper than a big city on the coasts, but that is by comparison. But for the midwest, it is expensive.
Well done Kyle. I've really appreciated how you haven't taken the easy route, and jusy sh** all over Chicago. As a life-long resident Ive seen the "crime," dog whistle turn into a bullhorn. When it has been STATISTICALLY proven we're neither the deadliest, nor the most dangerous of the big cities.
Yeah. While Chicago has its problems it really isn't any more dangerous than your average Midwestern metropolis (Lansing and Dayton have similar crime rates to Chicago). Like any other Midwestern city, crime is unfortunately concentrated in low income neighborhoods. If you are middle class you won't really have to deal directly with the impact of that violence on a regular basis.
@@jonathanbowers8964 However, that said, it's the low income neighborhoods that drag average prices down, and if your not in a low income neighborhoods, property is definitely significantly more expensive than the stated median price here
I moved to Cleveland from Florida about 3 years ago and I could immediately feel the difference in my finances. This list doesn't surprise me at all. Can't wait to get a bunch of transplants in the coming years for our water. Cleveland needs to grow. Not Shrink.
@@amikagahbo2487 Lol. I'm gonna love showing you this message when you are desperate for water and to get out of your firey hellscape. Also, I have an engineering degree. Not hurting for money lmao.
I'm planning on moving there from Texas since I'm getting very fed up with the summers down here. I have family that lives in the Cleveland area so it's an area I know very well, and I know that it is a great place to live as long as you don't mind the winters, which I don't.
Your post is unclear. Are you saying that Floridians will be moving to Cleveland due to water shortages? From FLORIDA? Where one can practically set one's watch by the daily afternoon thunderstorms?
For what it’s worth… I’m a primary care doctor and I live in New York City (Brooklyn), with current 5 year post residency training salary of about 250k per year, and I have no plans or financial ability to ever own a 2 bedroom apartment where I practice. I’ll either have to double my income and save for another decade or just be happy being a renter. Fact is I wouldn’t want to raise my family in most of the cities mentioned. It is safe here, no school shootings, massive cultural and educational opportunities, every language and food can be found here. For all of its difficulties and there are many, real big city living is still worth it for us.
With Baltimore, some of the bad press IMO is blown way out of proportion. There definitely are rough areas but its gotten better compared to 15/20 years ago and I am optimistic things will (slowly I admit) improve. Theres plenty of nice areas within Baltimore County such as Catonsville, Woodlawn and Owing Mills Philly also gets more hate than it deserves
The combined Indy metro area from 2020-2022 has grown faster than any big city in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Kentucky. Nobody hates or kicks a dead dog..Indianapolis has been doing very well for decades, and it's combined metro is more than 200k more than Cincinnati's now and 1 million more than Louisville. It must be doing something right.
@jeaniepemberton9535 Carmel Fishers and Noblesville is where most of the metro growth is and just last week all 3 made in into the top 5 safest suburbs in the US..Let's tell the whole story of Indianapolis not just the part that makes it look bad..Way too much of that going on ..Nashville is far more dangerous and still smaller and nobody says a word and Louisville is barely over half the size of Indy and its homicide numbers rival Indys
Florida is being invaded by massive amounts of people yet it is the flattest state in America. Most of the hate on Indy is because it's mostly flat but so is Dallas, Columbus and many other cities. Indiana is the 12th flattest state. As for crime, the state of Indiana isn't in the top 20 for crime despite being the 17th most populated state, but Tennessee is 3rd highest in crime and people are still pouring in..Despite all the hate Indiana continues to grow much faster than every state that touches it.
Thanks Kyle. Great video. I like Cincinnati and Pittsburg and think they are great places to invest. I live in St. Louis and although we have a bad rap it is really beautiful and has so many cultural and fun things to do. Many are free as we support a lot of museums and the zoo with our taxes and make it free for everyone. I bought a huge historic house in an improving neighborhood and found my neighbors to be the best I have ever had.
Good to see a kind word about St. Louis and totally agree about its wonderful cultural assets. Perhaps the crime situation improves with the departure of the incompetent and corrupt prosecutor.
You should do one for small cities. Tulsa comes to mind. Bought a house there last year for 1/3 of what it would have cost in PHX or DEN. Gas is also below $3 😊
If you want to live anywhere decent in the city of Chicago (the North Side), it's going to cost $450,000 on the low end. The South Side and the suburbs in Cook County are relatively cheap but no one wants to live there.
There’s a myth that’s been going around that Austin (where I live) is cheap. It’s not and hasn’t been for many years. Housing costs in the central city are rivaling the prices in Los Angeles.
Recent news makes me afraid to even visit Texas. I mean, you’re allowed to have target practice with an AR in your suburban backyard? That seems bonkers.
My grandparents lived a few miles north of downtown St. Louis. As a kid in the 70s/early 80s I could see that it was a bit rough but it wasn't outright poor (lower middle class would probably be the best description). Fast forward into the 2000s, last time my long-dead grandparents' house changed hands was in 2016, when it sold for $25k. The Zillow pics from that sale show that it was gutted and covered with graffiti. (Google street view of the neighborhood shows that much of the neighborhood is now like this.) Some ambitious flipper is currently trying to sell it for $60k. Some people pay more than that for a car.
I'd rather they just expand the MetroLink further into the suburbs. It's not much of a "link" when I have to drive 20 miles just to get to the most outlying station in my direction.
White flight. People moving in from Illinois driving down property values. KC largely completed white flight in the 70s. Still on going in St. Louis. They have armies of cops in St. Louis just to keep the lid on it. See Ferguson.
Great episode. This Detroiter thinks Cleveland is very underrated and after I just visited there for a weekend I found myself looking at prices on line. Some real nice neighborhoods for an arthouse goon like me. Oh I always loved Pittsburgh too and that will be the next stop.
I think you got it right when you combined St. Louis City with St. Louis County. The City makes up only one tenth the population of the metro area, from what I have heard. That makes it different from a lot of other places. My house in the suburbs is in a semi-upscale area but it is only valued at around 300K.
@@rogersmith7396 St. Charles has a nice historic Main Street but St. Charles County in general is a good example of suburban sprawl. People who live there are apparently not ones who like more urban districts.
“Cincinnati and and suburbs really aren’t growing that much” 😂😂😂 that’s a good joke. Besides the fact that Amazon is putting their super-hub and the CVG airport.
Clevelander here! Wife and I moved back after living in NYC and then Austin for a decade and we could not be happier. I always say that, while Cleveland is demonstrably not the “best” city in the country, it is certainly my favorite.
I'm visiting Pittsburgh for a concert but I'm also gonna walk around and check it out to possibly move to, glad to see it has your endorsement! Is there a particular neighborhood or area I should check out?
If you want to live right in the city I suggest places like Shadyside or Squirrel Hill. I live in Highland Park, which is close to the zoo and the actual park called Highland Park. It's pretty residential but beautiful to walk around in and still close to walkable areas such as E. Liberty. The bus system will get you most places you wanna get to in town, although sadly it's rarely on time. The city is more walkable than people think, if you can deal with the hills. The East End is relatively flat though. One thing you will notice is there are lots of beautiful old houses here, and quite a variety of types of housing, from mansions to row houses, most of whom have been fixed up on the inside. We do lack late night food options though and I wish we had more outdoor dining. The nightlife isn't great either, but then again I'm too old for it anymore anyway lol.
Why not do the top twenty of the 1 mil+ metros? That would up things to 56 metros, and add some places people might've assumed to be in the 2 mil +, but aren't, like Memphis or New Orleans (especially since it sounds like you use a custom definition of metro, as Milwaukee and Raleigh are included).
I knew the rust belt was going to dominate the top 10 lol. Housing prices are why I’ve stayed around the Great Lakes most of my life. Though winter is probably a really hard sell if you haven’t grown up here dealing with it.
Actually the Great lakes a ts as an natural shield. That's why Minnesota is much more colder - no great lakes to the north to take some of the bitter cold away.
The real problem is that the cold air from the north pole comes in through the center of the country. I'm in Chicago and have noticed that we have the same avg temperatures than Toronto despite being more south.
Milwaukee, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, all great cities. We live in the South now but my wife has said if we ever move back north we'd move to Cleveland.
I'm gonna have to disagree with their being plenty of goos housing in Philadelphia. I could be bias but outside of Center City I wouldn't recommend moving here. I agree with the other, I lived in Cleveland and loved it personally.
ok how about a shout out to Akron OH...I always get negative feedback when I mention it but really I love it here...more great parks per sq mile than anywhere I've lived before, lots of old neighborhoods with tree lined streets and beautiful homes and extremely low cost of living, all cities have bad neighborhoods, even the super expensive cities in the sunbelt, but in Akron you can have a good life without it costing very much.
Baltimore elegance I'm especially fond of, yet St-Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland or Cincinatti are legacy cities too -- unfair that cleptoparasitic barons bring about sheer rot to these cities, these places had been earth-quaking for crying out loud..!
^^^ as in no person of colour to be seen there..? I highly doubt that, pal, its splashiness must've been too magnetic a draw to be passing over, you see...Quebec, e.g., was pioneered by mariners of French, Greek, Jewish, and I believe even Nubian descent by some extent or other 💡
Ranking: 1. Cleveland (Cuyahoga County), OH 2. Pittsburg (Allegheny County), PA 3. Detroit (Wayne County), MI 4. St Louis (St Louis County), MO 5. Cincinnati (Hamilton County), OH 6. Indianapolis (Marion County), IN 7. Kansas City (Jackson County), MO 8. Philadelphia (Philadelphia County), PA 9. Chicago (Cook County), IL 10. Baltimore (Baltimore County), MD 11. Milwaukee (Milwaukee County), WI 12. Houston (Harris County), TX 13. Minneapolis (Hennepin County), MN 14. Dallas (Dallas County), TX 15. Columbus (Franklin County, OH 16. San Antonio (Bexar County), TX 17. Atlanta (Fulton County), GA 18. Charlotte (Mecklenburg County), NC 19. Nashville (Davidson County), TN 20. Raleigh (Wake County), NC
I live in a small town outside of San Antonio and I know someone who is originally from Houston Texas and she's lived in Houston majority of her life but she's stuck and Baltimore Maryland right now and people say that that Houston is bad but it ain't nothing compared to Baltimore This woman that I'm talking about tells me all the time that Baltimore is a lot worse than Houston and it's That's bad as the media says it is. She's coming home to Texas but she's not going to Houston she's coming to live with me in this small town.
This list is very skewed....when I saw Chicago listed....that county has one of the highest Tax burden for its residents....this doesn't even cover other parts of the demographics like crime and weather etc.
4:29 To buy a house for $300,000 in Houston, it has to be in the deep burbs. In my neighborhood where I rent, the old tear down houses start at $500,000 - $600,000.
You could have done better by Cleveland by throwing some grituitous shots in there with it. Not just that one sidewalk while you talked. Love your videos Kyle, you are the man
Ok... This list needs to have a split with crime rates. A lot of these median home values include slum house values. I've lived in Chicago. You can't find a house valued under 1 million that ISN'T in a place that most wouldn't want to raise a family if given a choice. I would gentrify some of those neighborhoods just by walking through them. If we're talking safe AND affordable, then the top 10 of this list wouldn't be the same at all.
It's a bit like saying the most affordable city to live in if you have a 100% remote job is Gary, Indiana. Yeah, the properties are cheap, but you don't want to live there. Even the people living there don't want to live there.
It would be quite high on the list. I always want to include Buffalo in big city discussions but despite it feeling like a bigger city it does have less than 1.5 million in the metro.
Detroit is a tricky one to base off of the country lines. Because of the cities central, radiant nature the urban area really more so inhabit the tri-County area of: Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb County. Interesting to see how that would effect the cities rating
So you're saying Minneapolis makes your list but St. Paul doesn't? I don't think St. Paul housing is too much more than Mpls and Avg Income is higher. How does that work? I think everyone should move to Detroit.
Yeah he went with metro areas, which make the most sense for this kind of list. Detroit also is getting better (although it isn't the best "deal" in the country). Overall this list just really highlights how overrated places like California, Texas, and Florida are as their costs of living are becoming unsustainable.
Thank you for saying there's nice parts of Philly, evert out of towner I talk to always asks how do I live in Philadelphia all they hear about is the crime and poverty, I tell them that's only certain neighborhoods, the rest is beautiful
Maybe some of the houses could be a fixer-upper. Also most of these cities don't really have to deal with frequent flooding (although Houston got it bad a few years ago)
@@OurBelovedBungo oh sure, there's a myriad of reasons chicago sucks, politics, weather, income tax, crime, ect. But property taxes being nearly $1000/mo for my old house... yeah, tends to lower the value. especially since it's a forever tax.
Many neighborhoods are. Mine is. I live in a “vacants to values” house which means an investor bought it from the city after it was left abandoned for $1 in 2002. I could sell it for $260,000 today. Houses on my block that are being rehabbed now are listed at $350,000.
I love all three, but I think Cincinnati is my favorite, Louisville is too small IMO and while Pittsburgh is awesome the downtown especially, I like the areas outside of downtown and culture of cincy a little more. WBU?
I've had a blast in Detroit, Pittsburgh and Cleveland. I would rank Detroit last bc of weather and transportation but it's still a cool place. I think Pittsburgh is best overall bc of location and diversity but Cleveland is fun
Would’ve been nice to see rent in addition to housing prices as another factor for affordability, since (especially for young people looking for a place to move to after high school or college) rent is a pretty relevant factor that doesn’t always align perfectly with housing prices
I’m don’t fully disagree, but rent correlates with home prices
@@dirtymike3329 maybe generally but not always. For example, median 3BD2BA house in Tucson is about $453k and about $$460k in Phoenix (1.5% more) yet median 2BD rent goes from about $1300 to $2000 (54%)
@@dirtymike3329 Where do you get that silly idea? Rents are tied to whatever the corporations that own the properties think they can get away with.
@@do9138 economics. More specifically, the law of supply and demand. Also, the data is out there. If you were to plot the median home price against the median monthly rent for a every city in America, I bet you you would get a r value greater than .75. Thus, correlation
I just got back from Philly and really liked it. I love where I live in the DC metro area, but it can't be accused of being affordable. Philly is definitely tempting. I like being on the Northeast Corridor, which kinda keeps Pittsburg off my radar. It's just too removed, in spite of not being all that far away. I don't drive, and it's a much longer train trip than makes sense.
But Philly has a lot going for it. I'll be keeping my eyes on it, for sure.
Pittsburgh is cheaper than the rest of the expensive US, but if you're a single person making under $55K you're going to have a tough time finding a place anywhere near the city itself. Oh and if you're not willing to waive all contingencies and/or pay cash? Forget it.
Unfortunately it's all relative.
This is largely a nationwide problem at this point. Low supply started during the pandemic and continues now in part because mortgage rates have increased so people with 2.5-3% mortgages (which is probably *most* current homeowners if they bought or refinanced in the past 10 years) have a strong disincentive to sell unless they absolutely have to.
Yep, it really is relative.
That median house price is a little sus to me.. It should be broken down by Single Family Homes median price (normally higher than the listed average) and condos/townhomes/apartments/other median price as this tends to be lower than the average. Or maybe studio-1bd median price and 2+bd median price..
The only reason I bring this up is you can see the somewhat low median price for that city and then go looking at single family homes and be in a little sticker shock..
Refreshing to see a video talking about cities and crime, traffic, or some other scary talk. Thanks.
Very nice. Thank you.
I did enjoy the whole video
If you purchase a home in Chicago for 300K you are in a bad and dangerous area.
I love my hometown and we are working very hard to make it better. Chicago's home are easily 500k.
I know you just did a video on all three big ohio cities but I would love to see your city profile of Cincy, why are you a fan? (besides the chili of course)
This is a great video.
8:17 "Not only is Cleveland not the hell-hole people think it is" perfect way to describe it. My family lives in the town of Brecksville, located 15 miles south of Cleveland in Cuyahoga County and to me that is the best suburb town in America since it has access to both a big city and a nature reserve right in its own backyard. I really love all the metro-parks that surround Cleveland.
I go to school at CWRU and love escaping to Brecksville! It’s such a cute town
Lakewood, Rocky River, Fairview, Berea, and Strongsville say hi... 😊 Brecksville is really nice but the Emerald Necklace makes "big city/nature" pretty common in Cle area. Makes Cleveland awesome.
Cleveland is quite a popular area for Orthodox Jewish families from the New York-New Jersey area to move to - large and well-established Orthodox Jewish community with robust infrastructure as well as much cheaper housing.
Don’t let the “Rust Belt” fool you…a lot of these cities are doing great things and attracting high tech, corporate jobs. They are fun, easy places to live. I’ve got 99 problems, but cost of living ain’t one.
I hear you, but fuck snow, lol.. It snows 2-3 times a year where I live.. Just enough to be novel and cool.
Edit: and fuck NY taxes, lol
@@dre32pitt nah I live in Buffalo and love it. Sure we get snow but it isn't as bad as they make it seem. Besides, people are great here and crime is relatively low
@@whppnpost1 I visited a friend there once.. Love Duff's, lol.. Does it snow 2 or more months out of the year? If so, hard pass, lol.. I'd rather do the humidity of the south again (lived in the FL panhandle, aka LA or Lower Alabama for 10 years) than deal with snow like that..
@@whppnpost1 Crime still isn't great... not in a lot of neighborhoods. Definitely on the upswing though. I lived in Rochester until relatively recently and while I did like it, there are parts of downtown that are pretty scary. Other parts are just starting to revitalize. Buffalo is much the same way.
@@whppnpost1 I love snow! Retired to Madison WI from California in part because I wanted four seasons (and the snow season is quite generously long here, haha)
I'm a plumber and I've done a similar analysis, except that I used average plumber wages instead of overall wages. California cities & Hawaii are the least affordable for plumbers. Then the South and Southwest are largely pretty bad places to be a plumber. Then you have the east coast cities, they are generally better than the south/ southwest,. Surprisingly Seattle and Portland are pretty high up there. But Midwest cities beat everyone out by a long shot. The only problem with the Midwest is that projected job growth is really slow.
Job growth might be slow, but even poor people need to poop in their toilet have good water in their kitchen, regardless of what is happening otherwise. IMHO - doing a job in a place with slow anything… would’t affect you being called upon to fix a toilet or helping people to have potable water to drink. Both of which is obviously job security if you have the skill to do so often when one “can’t drink, or poop”. I wish I had your skills!!!
Haha I do the same as a contract painter. Southeast hubs like Atlanta and Nashville bring in BANK for us. Remote locations or mosts Western states... not so much.
Maybe that's why midwest is often claimed as bad for small businesses because it's already oversaturated. Supermajorities states that had lasted a decade is often the worse.
The best thing about being a plumber is that you are always needed wherever you go. No matter how bad the job market for most industries may be, where there are people there will be a need for a plumber.
I spent 9 years in college, and about $200k of loans in today’s money to get 3 degrees in civil engineering. I was dead broke when I was 30 years old…. NEGATIVE net worth. Went into teaching.
While I managed to retire early, I wish I had a skill to keep doing something using my learned skills. Nobody cares about my ability to teach properties of physics….
I’m financially comfortable… but not at all wealthy. I just got to where I have no debt. Not much past that. Other than volunteer work, there is very little I can do which utilizes my education and/or experience.
If I could talk to myself 50 years ago, I’d try and convince my young ambitions to learn a vocational trade. Probably welding, even if I was just welding circles on a steel pipeline while I’m still healthy and over 65 years old.
I really respect the fact that you share your information sources and that you don't just denigrate all of the large US cities in the same way that others do.
I agree, I saw a video yesterday that ranked the richest cities in the world and they cited no sources and it was completely inaccurate based off every google search that I did.
@@jskelly1979 And even with 2023 best states in the world and others they tend to agree with some states and cities but gets others wildly off. North Dakota and Alaska is such example they couldnt agree on.
What I like about Kyle is he’s also well-traveled and has been to many of these places personally. Really walks the walk.
House prices in Pittsburgh are cheap because there used to be 800,000 people and now there are only 300,000. That's a lot of excess supply.
The Rust Belt is coming back.
Nice to hear you acknowledge Cincinnati's glory. It's underrated across the board and is pretty legit. Keep up the good videos my man.
Over the Rhine is near-perfect urbanism for the united states.
@@NamelessProducts Growing up we used to call it "Over-the-Crime" and it hasn't quite shaken that reputation but man that area is so peak. What a just perfect historical urban experience.
Everybody I've ever met from Cincinnati loves their city
I’m from Nashville and moved to Cincinnati back in 2015. Cincinnati feels more like home to me than Nashville will ever be.
Cincy is legit as hell for its size, four professional sports teams, good urbanism, and a great location to boot. If I-75 ran a little closer to the rail yard, and they actually saw the subway to completion, it would surely have a better reputation.
I grew up in the DC suburbs where a 1 bdrm apt in a rat-infested, roach-infested complex for $1400 (utilities not included, no washer/dryer) was the norm. Moving to Baltimore City (not County) was the best decision I ever made. I now live in Mount Vernon (north of downtown) in an amazing 2 bdrm apt in a historic brownstone. Great walkable historic neighborhood with great restaurants, great amenities, water included, and washer/dryer in-unit and I pay $1150/month. A lot of ppl allow sensationalist news to keep them suffering when they don't have to. This Baltimore neighborhood I've been living in for 3 yrs has hands down been the best independent living experience of my life. All because I decided to give this great city a chance.
Where did you live Arlington? A new one bedroom a bit further out can run you 1500 which is reasonable if your making 100K (quite common here) people that complain about the cost always want to live in DC or Bethesda, Arlington, or Silver Spring. Go to Woodbridge, PG county or even further out in Fairfax and you’re fine.
Baltimore is seriously the most underrated city in the country
@@pjflynn5978 You are correct - I love Baltimore.
OOf, I feel your pain. I grew up in Georgetown. I seriously considered Baltimore when house hunting since you can hop the train and be in DC in no time for work. This was at a time when a lot of people from DC were commuting. I found houses I really liked and strongly considered, but ultimately I let the crime statistics scare me off.
I lived in Mt Vernon for 5 years. My rent was $650 for a studio and then $950 for a 1 bedroom. Beautiful neighborhood. Then I bought a rowhouse in Patterson Park and my mortgage is only $1350. Everyone told me don’t buy north of the park because it’s the “bad side” and that my house wouldn’t increase in value. But 8 years later houses on my block are selling for over $80k+ more than what I paid.
I live in western PA. The reason housing costs are so low is that the people here never bought into "housing mania". People buy houses to live in, not to gamble with. We don't have a lot of bidding war nonsense. Ask a fair price and you get something in that vicinity. Prices have risen over the years, but no astronomical leaps.
Really good video. I grew up in Cleveland and have lived in the Kansas City area for 50 years. Ohio and Missouri have some great people and cities, unfortunately some of the areas deserve their reputations, but they are concentrated and easy to avoid. All big cities seem to have them.
If you stay out of the bad areas in KC you never know they exist. I can't imagine any bad area being more than 5% of the total. St. Louis is a different story. My read is its all bad. I lived in North County by Ferguson. Polyglot.
@@rogersmith7396Saint Louis gets a bad rep. It’s actually a really nice city.
@@seanevans3272 I lived there. Not impressed. North County.
@@rogersmith7396 I’ve lived in 12 major cities and STL is by far the most underrated but that’s just me
@@seanevans3272 It depends on what you have seen and what your priorites are. If you could exclude cost I would go with London based upon what I have seen. I could deal with NYC under those conditions. I would have formerly said San Diego but it is becoming another Portland. Denver is just mediocre.
Fine research, Kyle. But I would like to say a word about "average incomes." Particularly in the Sun Belt, when high paying jobs have quickly come into a city and county, it's usually because corporations have been drawn there because unions are weak, and there is no local or state addendum to federal Minimum Wage levels. This means precisely that wages are basically low. Those techy people with degrees in science and management moving in push the average wage up rapidly, but they are sometimes 10 or 20 percent of the population. The remaining 80 to 90 are generally some of the poorest people in the nation. We need to value having a small income gap, rather than average wages. That makes for a vastly better place to live.
On the flip side, the taxes are much much lower so everyone's bang for their buck goes further
I imagine the massive tech layoffs that are happening are remote workers that moved to lower CoL areas. Now doubt when they get rehired, they'll be zipcoded and have their salary adjusted accordingly. You won't find many tech companies that are gonna pay you a SF/NYC salary to work in St. Louis.
@@peterroberts4415 Well, in the '90s and 2000s Minnesota, alone among Great Lakes states, raised taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals, and put the money into schools and universities. In the last dozen years, Minnesota has had the only growing economy in the Great Lakes region. In recent surveys, Minnesota has had the highest economic confidence of all 50 states.
@@peterroberts4415 High tax areas have higher minimum wages on average, so the truth is more fuzzy than low tax = more money.
which is why median is better
Recent transplant to Pittsburgh, here. Cost of living wasn't the primary consideration, but it really is hard to argue with the bang you get for your buck in some of the rust belt cities. Pittsburgh offers so much for far less than any of the major east coast metros. There are definitely drawbacks, but the region is loaded with character and the vibe is unique.
Any particular drawbacks you have personally experienced in Pittsburgh ?
@@TheLordmewtwo So far, mostly the unintuitiveness of the road network and the congestion of main arteries; it's mostly due to the topography, so there's not much to be done about it. Also the Pittsburgh Left.
@@Towboatin Thanks.
Hey! I’m considering Pittsburgh to move to, however, is it sunny or cloudy throughout the year? Google says cloudy for most of the year, but idk. What say you?
@@miguelcabanillas8539 "Cloudy" includes days of broken cloud cover, where you still see blue sky and intermittent sun. There are, however, stretches where it's overcast for days on end and you'll feel like you haven't seen the sun for a week or more, especially during the winter months. I grew up with that, but if you're coming from the sun belt you will definitely notice the difference.
The best US geography channel and one of the best channels on UA-cam. Keep going your thing Kyle.
Thank you!
I watch from here in Australia and love learning about US states and cities 👍
He points out there are only 37 metros with over 2 million people, so it's just a list of half of them.
20. Raleigh
19. Nashville
18. Charlotte NC
17. Atlanta
16, San Antonio
15. Columbus
14. Dallas
13. Minneapolis (if you like Woke and looting Target?)
12. Houston
11. Milwaukee
10. Baltimore (okay, is he joking? Yeah, it's cheap. So is your life there.)
9. Chicago
8. Philadelphia (doesn't all of PA have not just state tax, but also county and local city tax?)
7. Kansas City, MO
6. Indianapolis
5. Cincinnati
4. St. Louis
3. Detroit (hahahaahah, sorry. No. Just no.)
2. Pittsburgh
1. Cleveland
I agree about Cleveland. The abundance of interesting green space really shocked me the first time I spent any real time there....
Love the thumbnail!! The painted ladies of Charles Village in Baltimore are stunning. So incredibly underrepresented and beautiful.
There is a reason half this list is in Ohio….just saying. 😮😮
Agree. I live next door and I refuse to go to Ohio. You can never pass on the highway because people get in the fast lane and drive door to door next to someone in the slow lane. Literally the worst drivers I’ve ever seen anywhere. And way too many towns named after gross food. Lima (which is a frightening place), vandalia. Etc. 😂
The property taxes in TX are insane, somewhat offset by no state income tax, but it needs to be factored in.
Can't you just live in an apartment and pay less taxes?
@@sm3675 Normally I'd say, "and what, miss out on price appreciation?" But in Texas (outside of Austin), what price appreciation? They still have nearly infinite buildable land, which helps keeps prices low. But yeah, those taxes are fierce. Not as bad as the Northeast, but still a big deterrent for anyone looking for a nice/expensive house.
@@OurBelovedBungo Texas need a brake on growth for a few years until things settle down. Your Governor Abbott cut 211 million in mental health just to fight the waves of illegals last may.
@@sm3675 You're paying the taxes one way or another. The landlord would include it in the rent.
Laughs in Wisconsin.... tell me again about your high property tax....
I knew the 3 big Cs in Ohio would make the list 💪🏽
I'm surprised no counties in Florida wasn't on this list.
Also climate migration might change things
The rust belt. Very cold 🥶 but at least we have plenty of water!!! 💧 💧 💧
You know you watch too many geography videos when you know Cleveland is gonna be on top even though you live in the Canadian PNW.
Yeah Cleveland has a great bang for your buck. Granted Ohio is a bit too red for my taste and there are some legitimate concerns about moving to Ohio if you care about Reproductive healthcare and LGBT rights. However there are several other Midwestern cities in blue/purple states that are worth checking out.
Given the arbitrary 2 Million person cut off, many of these metros didn't make the cut like Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, and Buffalo.
@@jonathanbowers8964 you keep worrying about LGBT and reproductive rights instead of economical impacts. Let me know how that works out for you.
@RobShutt357 if you're gay or a woman that matters a lot. Hence the references to affordable, prosperous small Midwest cities that also protect the rights of women and gay people.
That said, if more people would move to these blue Ohio metros, wouldn't be long until things look more like Minnesota than Alabama.
W cincinnati
Love from #2 Pittsburgh! Houses are cheap for a number of reasons but I want to guess that the nice old housing stock from when the city had 700k people is mostly intact with only 300k people is a big reason. Most of the growth of the last century has been in the suburbs. If you are considering an Allegheny county suburb definitely consider well-connected ones on the T or the a busways, or better yet just stick to the city. Avoid the car-infested traps of Monroeville, Robinson, and the north hills 🤮
I had a great vacation there a few years ago, stayed in a VRBO house in Edgewood, slightly east of Frick Park. Nice neighborhood and conveniently located, although it does border some more run-down sections of the city. Hard to tell as a visitor if those sections are getting bigger or smaller - surprisingly from what I understand, Pittsburgh's population continues to slowly decline.
@@OurBelovedBungo run down areas are definitely getting smaller, gentrification is rampant. And while it is slowly declining, tech and skilled workers are flocking to the city for well paying jobs and low housing prices. Meta, Duolingo, Google, Lots of Robotics and Engineering firms, American Eagle
hugely agree with avoiding the car infested areas of Pittsburgh. I live in Oakland for school and my partner lives in Robinson so I drive out there pretty often, the change in walkability and transportation options between the two is like worlds apart. I ride my bike for most errands in the city, but I've literally never seen a person on a bike in Robinson.
@@orrsh2049 Agree. The only place you see people biking in Robinson is on The Montour Trail, but Montour Trail is the longest suburban rails-to-trails in the U.S. so is probably where everyone is biking anyway.
As a life long Baltimorean, finding a place to live near the city that is mostly safe but not more than 200k hasn’t been the easiest.
Chicago isn't cheap by any means. I used to live there. It is cheaper than a big city on the coasts, but that is by comparison. But for the midwest, it is expensive.
I've lived in Cincinnati, Detroit and Columbus
Life is good
Well done Kyle. I've really appreciated how you haven't taken the easy route, and jusy sh** all over Chicago. As a life-long resident Ive seen the "crime," dog whistle turn into a bullhorn. When it has been STATISTICALLY proven we're neither the deadliest, nor the most dangerous of the big cities.
Yeah. While Chicago has its problems it really isn't any more dangerous than your average Midwestern metropolis (Lansing and Dayton have similar crime rates to Chicago). Like any other Midwestern city, crime is unfortunately concentrated in low income neighborhoods. If you are middle class you won't really have to deal directly with the impact of that violence on a regular basis.
@@jonathanbowers8964 However, that said, it's the low income neighborhoods that drag average prices down, and if your not in a low income neighborhoods, property is definitely significantly more expensive than the stated median price here
I moved to Cleveland from Florida about 3 years ago and I could immediately feel the difference in my finances.
This list doesn't surprise me at all.
Can't wait to get a bunch of transplants in the coming years for our water.
Cleveland needs to grow. Not Shrink.
No Cleveland doesn’t need to grow. That’s what keeps it affordable
@@amikagahbo2487 Lol. I'm gonna love showing you this message when you are desperate for water and to get out of your firey hellscape. Also, I have an engineering degree. Not hurting for money lmao.
@@RobShutt357 What Keeps it affordable is surplus housing. Every city regardless of growth can be affordable with surplus housing.
I'm planning on moving there from Texas since I'm getting very fed up with the summers down here. I have family that lives in the Cleveland area so it's an area I know very well, and I know that it is a great place to live as long as you don't mind the winters, which I don't.
Your post is unclear. Are you saying that Floridians will be moving to Cleveland due to water shortages? From FLORIDA? Where one can practically set one's watch by the daily afternoon thunderstorms?
I’m about to graduate college and don’t know where to look for jobs. This video is a huge help.
For what it’s worth… I’m a primary care doctor and I live in New York City (Brooklyn), with current 5 year post residency training salary of about 250k per year, and I have no plans or financial ability to ever own a 2 bedroom apartment where I practice. I’ll either have to double my income and save for another decade or just be happy being a renter. Fact is I wouldn’t want to raise my family in most of the cities mentioned. It is safe here, no school shootings, massive cultural and educational opportunities, every language and food can be found here. For all of its difficulties and there are many, real big city living is still worth it for us.
You can get all those things in Chicago's north side. The price per square foot is $240 compared to $1200 in Brooklyn.
With Baltimore, some of the bad press IMO is blown way out of proportion. There definitely are rough areas but its gotten better compared to 15/20 years ago and I am optimistic things will (slowly I admit) improve.
Theres plenty of nice areas within Baltimore County such as Catonsville, Woodlawn and Owing Mills
Philly also gets more hate than it deserves
Great video! Nice seeing the 3 Ohio cities on the list! I enjoyed watching!
INDIANAPOLIS at #6 .. definitely hated on & slept on.. yet we're one of the top 3 fastest growing cities in the Midwest. 🏁
Yeah but they got shot at faster than they can move here 🤷🏼♀️
The combined Indy metro area from 2020-2022 has grown faster than any big city in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Kentucky. Nobody hates or kicks a dead dog..Indianapolis has been doing very well for decades, and it's combined metro is more than 200k more than Cincinnati's now and 1 million more than Louisville. It must be doing something right.
@jeaniepemberton9535 Carmel Fishers and Noblesville is where most of the metro growth is and just last week all 3 made in into the top 5 safest suburbs in the US..Let's tell the whole story of Indianapolis not just the part that makes it look bad..Way too much of that going on ..Nashville is far more dangerous and still smaller and nobody says a word and Louisville is barely over half the size of Indy and its homicide numbers rival Indys
Florida is being invaded by massive amounts of people yet it is the flattest state in America. Most of the hate on Indy is because it's mostly flat but so is Dallas, Columbus and many other cities. Indiana is the 12th flattest state. As for crime, the state of Indiana isn't in the top 20 for crime despite being the 17th most populated state, but Tennessee is 3rd highest in crime and people are still pouring in..Despite all the hate Indiana continues to grow much faster than every state that touches it.
Minnesota is very expensive, I make 70k a year and can't afford to buy a 4 bedroom apartment for my family
Property taxes in the Chicago area are the 2nd highest in the country, you'll pay 6k-7k per year on that 300k median home
However, taxes in the Chicago city limits are significantly lower than most Crook county suburbs.
Thanks Kyle. Great video. I like Cincinnati and Pittsburg and think they are great places to invest. I live in St. Louis and although we have a bad rap it is really beautiful and has so many cultural and fun things to do. Many are free as we support a lot of museums and the zoo with our taxes and make it free for everyone. I bought a huge historic house in an improving neighborhood and found my neighbors to be the best I have ever had.
Good to see a kind word about St. Louis and totally agree about its wonderful cultural assets. Perhaps the crime situation improves with the departure of the incompetent and corrupt prosecutor.
You should do one for small cities. Tulsa comes to mind. Bought a house there last year for 1/3 of what it would have cost in PHX or DEN. Gas is also below $3 😊
If he’s gonna do that we may as well get one for medium sized cities as well
@@Not_Sal 😂
@@Not_Sal same here
Tulsa is not a small city.
@@dvferyance Population of Tulsa County is only 672,000. a quarter the size of the minimum in the video.
Pittsburg is a very nice city, but re housing, there is no such thing as a flat yard. Mowing the lawn takes an acrobat!
If you want to live anywhere decent in the city of Chicago (the North Side), it's going to cost $450,000 on the low end. The South Side and the suburbs in Cook County are relatively cheap but no one wants to live there.
There’s a myth that’s been going around that Austin (where I live) is cheap. It’s not and hasn’t been for many years. Housing costs in the central city are rivaling the prices in Los Angeles.
Texas and California have a lot in common nowaday. Mass shootings, crime, taxes, etc.
Recent news makes me afraid to even visit Texas. I mean, you’re allowed to have target practice with an AR in your suburban backyard? That seems bonkers.
I'm guessing that may have been true in the past. It might also appear cheap to California transplants.
The AFC North absolutely waxed the competition on this list.
Nice!
I love the Cleveland area. I moved back to Ohio from South Florida about 20yrs ago. Cost of living is low and there is so much to do.
Nice job on this one Kyle! Thanks.
St. Louis needs to do a lot like crime invest in blighted neighborhoods and to attract younger people into the city
Yes, I used to live in a nice part of the city until someone was murdered outside my house
That's not how any of this works.
My grandparents lived a few miles north of downtown St. Louis. As a kid in the 70s/early 80s I could see that it was a bit rough but it wasn't outright poor (lower middle class would probably be the best description). Fast forward into the 2000s, last time my long-dead grandparents' house changed hands was in 2016, when it sold for $25k. The Zillow pics from that sale show that it was gutted and covered with graffiti. (Google street view of the neighborhood shows that much of the neighborhood is now like this.) Some ambitious flipper is currently trying to sell it for $60k. Some people pay more than that for a car.
I'd rather they just expand the MetroLink further into the suburbs. It's not much of a "link" when I have to drive 20 miles just to get to the most outlying station in my direction.
White flight. People moving in from Illinois driving down property values. KC largely completed white flight in the 70s. Still on going in St. Louis. They have armies of cops in St. Louis just to keep the lid on it. See Ferguson.
Pittsburgh and Cincy are S tier cities
What does that mean?
Great episode. This Detroiter thinks Cleveland is very underrated and after I just visited there for a weekend I found myself looking at prices on line. Some real nice neighborhoods for an arthouse goon like me. Oh I always loved Pittsburgh too and that will be the next stop.
medium cities next?
great vid btw. I love that you have the experience and wherewithal to know that the fear mongering around city crime is overblown.
I think you got it right when you combined St. Louis City with St. Louis County. The City makes up only one tenth the population of the metro area, from what I have heard. That makes it different from a lot of other places. My house in the suburbs is in a semi-upscale area but it is only valued at around 300K.
I was not impressed by St. Charles.
@@rogersmith7396 St. Charles has a nice historic Main Street but St. Charles County in general is a good example of suburban sprawl. People who live there are apparently not ones who like more urban districts.
@@MrDEWaters My impression is crooks from the inner city have moved there because there is more to steal.
@@rogersmith7396 Why not? St. Charles County is one of the, if not the, best areas in the St. Louis metro area.
@@Compucles you can get pretty isolated from diversity by just living in St Charles
“Cincinnati and and suburbs really aren’t growing that much” 😂😂😂 that’s a good joke. Besides the fact that Amazon is putting their super-hub and the CVG airport.
ANY CITY that welcomes AMAZON is one that I WOULD NEVER LIVE IN
Clevelander here! Wife and I moved back after living in NYC and then Austin for a decade and we could not be happier. I always say that, while Cleveland is demonstrably not the “best” city in the country, it is certainly my favorite.
I'm visiting Pittsburgh for a concert but I'm also gonna walk around and check it out to possibly move to, glad to see it has your endorsement! Is there a particular neighborhood or area I should check out?
Squirrel Hill, Mount Lebanon, Green Tree, McCandless. I live in Crafton and I love it.
I live in Sewickley. It is pretty nice
If you want to live right in the city I suggest places like Shadyside or Squirrel Hill. I live in Highland Park, which is close to the zoo and the actual park called Highland Park. It's pretty residential but beautiful to walk around in and still close to walkable areas such as E. Liberty. The bus system will get you most places you wanna get to in town, although sadly it's rarely on time. The city is more walkable than people think, if you can deal with the hills. The East End is relatively flat though. One thing you will notice is there are lots of beautiful old houses here, and quite a variety of types of housing, from mansions to row houses, most of whom have been fixed up on the inside. We do lack late night food options though and I wish we had more outdoor dining. The nightlife isn't great either, but then again I'm too old for it anymore anyway lol.
East Pittsburgh Borough is affordable, quiet, close to the city, and you avoid city taxes.🤙
My Yinzer ass better get started investing around here.
Pittsburgh is cheap because it's snowy (44 inches) and very cloudy (only 45% possible sunshine).
Funny thing about Milwaukee is literally 10 miles outside of the city limits houses are in the 400k and up range.
Even in the city limits by the airport , northwest side, Menomonee Valley, etc
@@flyingbanana4179 Yeah its pretty wild.
Would the Land Value Tax in Pennsylvania be part of why the housing prices are lower?
Same effect at work in Texas, although there it's somewhat balanced by no state income tax and (in Austin at least) high wages.
Why not do the top twenty of the 1 mil+ metros? That would up things to 56 metros, and add some places people might've assumed to be in the 2 mil +, but aren't, like Memphis or New Orleans (especially since it sounds like you use a custom definition of metro, as Milwaukee and Raleigh are included).
He's going by the county not the metro.
@@danielfrancis3736 he's going by metro first, and then taking the central county from each metro.
As somone from Middle Tennessee, I can tell you that Nashville is changing fast. At this rate, it won't be affordable at all in a few years.
I knew the rust belt was going to dominate the top 10 lol. Housing prices are why I’ve stayed around the Great Lakes most of my life. Though winter is probably a really hard sell if you haven’t grown up here dealing with it.
Actually the Great lakes a ts as an natural shield. That's why Minnesota is much more colder - no great lakes to the north to take some of the bitter cold away.
The real problem is that the cold air from the north pole comes in through the center of the country. I'm in Chicago and have noticed that we have the same avg temperatures than Toronto despite being more south.
@@giacobbeperales5926 At least you can grow one kind of fig in chicago ha.
You talk bad about winter but it was consistently above freezing most of this past winter. Climate change taking the chill off.
Milwaukee, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, all great cities. We live in the South now but my wife has said if we ever move back north we'd move to Cleveland.
I'm gonna have to disagree with their being plenty of goos housing in Philadelphia. I could be bias but outside of Center City I wouldn't recommend moving here. I agree with the other, I lived in Cleveland and loved it personally.
ok how about a shout out to Akron OH...I always get negative feedback when I mention it but really I love it here...more great parks per sq mile than anywhere I've lived before, lots of old neighborhoods with tree lined streets and beautiful homes and extremely low cost of living, all cities have bad neighborhoods, even the super expensive cities in the sunbelt, but in Akron you can have a good life without it costing very much.
Phoenix has big gang problems.
@@rogersmith7396Thanks for your input! Now back to our show.
Baltimore elegance I'm especially fond of, yet St-Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland or Cincinatti are legacy cities too -- unfair that cleptoparasitic barons bring about sheer rot to these cities, these places had been earth-quaking for crying out loud..!
In its heyday, 30s 40s, St. Louis was a white city. It is'nt anymore.
^^^ as in no person of colour to be seen there..? I highly doubt that, pal, its splashiness must've been too magnetic a draw to be passing over, you see...Quebec, e.g., was pioneered by mariners of French, Greek, Jewish, and I believe even Nubian descent by some extent or other 💡
@@trainroverWhat is Nubian descent?
There's a reason these places are cheap. Crime being one, bad weather/snow, and not much to do.
Ranking:
1. Cleveland (Cuyahoga County), OH
2. Pittsburg (Allegheny County), PA
3. Detroit (Wayne County), MI
4. St Louis (St Louis County), MO
5. Cincinnati (Hamilton County), OH
6. Indianapolis (Marion County), IN
7. Kansas City (Jackson County), MO
8. Philadelphia (Philadelphia County), PA
9. Chicago (Cook County), IL
10. Baltimore (Baltimore County), MD
11. Milwaukee (Milwaukee County), WI
12. Houston (Harris County), TX
13. Minneapolis (Hennepin County), MN
14. Dallas (Dallas County), TX
15. Columbus (Franklin County, OH
16. San Antonio (Bexar County), TX
17. Atlanta (Fulton County), GA
18. Charlotte (Mecklenburg County), NC
19. Nashville (Davidson County), TN
20. Raleigh (Wake County), NC
Just adding one comment to the pile here; great video, as always! I’ve never set foot in the US yet I find great enjoyment from your content.
I live in a small town outside of San Antonio and I know someone who is originally from Houston Texas and she's lived in Houston majority of her life but she's stuck and Baltimore Maryland right now and people say that that Houston is bad but it ain't nothing compared to Baltimore This woman that I'm talking about tells me all the time that Baltimore is a lot worse than Houston and it's That's bad as the media says it is. She's coming home to Texas but she's not going to Houston she's coming to live with me in this small town.
I lived in Atlanta for many years and loved it. It's not as car-centric as you might think - especially if you live in midtown Atlanta.
Kyle, I am planning to move back to Pittsburgh after nearly 30 years away. Thanks for the video. Hope you and your family are well.
Hope the move goes well and is as stress-free as possible
@@GeographyKing Thanks! If you ever make it back there, I can show you around to some of the little known places. Keep up with the interesting videos.
Welcome home from a fellow yinzer.
@@davidmitchell6873 Let's go Stillers!
Where did/do currently live ?
This list is very skewed....when I saw Chicago listed....that county has one of the highest Tax burden for its residents....this doesn't even cover other parts of the demographics like crime and weather etc.
Ohio in general.
4:29 To buy a house for $300,000 in Houston, it has to be in the deep burbs. In my neighborhood where I rent, the old tear down houses start at $500,000 - $600,000.
You could have done better by Cleveland by throwing some grituitous shots in there with it. Not just that one sidewalk while you talked. Love your videos Kyle, you are the man
Ok... This list needs to have a split with crime rates. A lot of these median home values include slum house values. I've lived in Chicago. You can't find a house valued under 1 million that ISN'T in a place that most wouldn't want to raise a family if given a choice. I would gentrify some of those neighborhoods just by walking through them. If we're talking safe AND affordable, then the top 10 of this list wouldn't be the same at all.
It's a bit like saying the most affordable city to live in if you have a 100% remote job is Gary, Indiana. Yeah, the properties are cheap, but you don't want to live there. Even the people living there don't want to live there.
My favorite lo-fi you tube channel (that's a compliment). Always a good day when you come across a new GK video. Thanks!
Nice video. Would like to see where Buffalo NY fits
It would be quite high on the list. I always want to include Buffalo in big city discussions but despite it feeling like a bigger city it does have less than 1.5 million in the metro.
@@GeographyKing ah yes I see. You have to have criteria! We like our "rebellious little brother" and "underdog" attitude.
Detroit is a tricky one to base off of the country lines. Because of the cities central, radiant nature the urban area really more so inhabit the tri-County area of: Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb County. Interesting to see how that would effect the cities rating
So you're saying Minneapolis makes your list but St. Paul doesn't? I don't think St. Paul housing is too much more than Mpls and Avg Income is higher. How does that work?
I think everyone should move to Detroit.
Its the metro so he just went with the bigger entity
Yeah he went with metro areas, which make the most sense for this kind of list. Detroit also is getting better (although it isn't the best "deal" in the country). Overall this list just really highlights how overrated places like California, Texas, and Florida are as their costs of living are becoming unsustainable.
CLEVELAND REPRESENT
Love Philly. Loved there for years.. It’s huge. What about Buffalo NY?
Great video. I would love to see something similar but instead of home prices. rent prices!
Thank you for saying there's nice parts of Philly, evert out of towner I talk to always asks how do I live in Philadelphia all they hear about is the crime and poverty, I tell them that's only certain neighborhoods, the rest is beautiful
Maybe some of the houses could be a fixer-upper. Also most of these cities don't really have to deal with frequent flooding (although Houston got it bad a few years ago)
Chicago is so cheap because the property taxes are so high.
They're similarly high in Austin, so that isn't the whole story...
@@OurBelovedBungo oh sure, there's a myriad of reasons chicago sucks, politics, weather, income tax, crime, ect. But property taxes being nearly $1000/mo for my old house... yeah, tends to lower the value. especially since it's a forever tax.
Milwaukee isn't that bad, only certain areas. There is a lot nice in Milwaukee, too.
Some of these are rea)y high crime
*_MOST_* of these are really high crime ... fixed it for you!
Baltimore not being gentrified yet is so weird to me considering how expensive the DMV is, and how close it is.
It’s like Newark as well in NJ…..it’s coming
Many neighborhoods are. Mine is. I live in a “vacants to values” house which means an investor bought it from the city after it was left abandoned for $1 in 2002. I could sell it for $260,000 today. Houses on my block that are being rehabbed now are listed at $350,000.
@@catgirl6803What hood do you live in?
Which of the three Ohio River cities (Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville) do you like best and why?
I love all three, but I think Cincinnati is my favorite, Louisville is too small IMO and while Pittsburgh is awesome the downtown especially, I like the areas outside of downtown and culture of cincy a little more. WBU?
For appearance in my opinion, Pittsburgh is the nicest looking one
Love seeing these data-driven videos!
I've had a blast in Detroit, Pittsburgh and Cleveland. I would rank Detroit last bc of weather and transportation but it's still a cool place. I think Pittsburgh is best overall bc of location and diversity but Cleveland is fun
What do you mean by diversity?
I live here and it’s mainly white