The spreadsheet below is a comparison based on my personal housing search in both Rochester, NY and Raleigh, NC. I have a family of 5 and I work from home so my housing requirements are fairly high with 4 bedrooms, a separate office, and common space. The spreadsheet below doesn't take into consideration intangibles such as:  Weather, quality of housing, neighborhood amenities all of which I personally consider much greater in Raleigh than Rochester. Some people enjoy winter, I do not. Some people don't care that Rochester is overcast a significant portion of the year. I hated it, it was depressing. Some people like the older housing in Rochester (though there's newer housing to be found but it's more expensive than the housing built in the 60's and 70's or older that is most common in Rochester) and some people like the newer McMansion-type housing that abounds in Raleigh now. It's a lot of personal preference, just like everything else in life.

For my family the move to Raleigh has been full of success and no complaints. We've met more neighbors here in 6 months than we did living 8 years in our old neighborhood. My kids wore JUST their costumes on Halloween, no winter jackets necessary. It's mid-November and the leaves are just starting to fall of the trees in Raleigh. We've been outside nearly every single day and it's been sunny nearly every day including in the dead of winter. We have worn winter jackets but have only put on hats and gloves a dozen times this winter. And usually it's light or no jacket weather during the peak of the sunshiney day. Flowering plants appear to grow year round here as they're was panzies and what not flowering throughout the winter, which was certainly an odd sight.

On the flip side of that Raleigh is in a serious drought and under water restrictions. Though a lot of the country is these days. And there were days in the summer where we didn't go outside until the late afternoon when the sun dipped down due to it being unbearably oven-hot outside during mid-day. But we still did go outside in the evening. Compare that to seemingly never-ending months of freezing winter where we'd stay indoors the entire time in Rochester and you still end up with much, much more usable outdoor time throughout the year in Raleigh. But you'll surely find people that hate the 8-10 weeks of hot, muggy Raleigh summer more than the 5 months of freezing cold winter and depressing grey skies in Rochester, NY. It just isn't my family.

On the job front I telecommute and kept the same employer so I cannot personally comment. My wife is a medical technologist and was bound to working low-paying jobs in hospitals back in Rochester. She found a more interesting and challenging job for at one of the many biotech startups here and has increased her salary about 30% and increased her benefits as well. However, her commute is now 30 minutes instead of 15.  

I'm not saying one place is better than the other for everyone. But for my family the savings in the cost of housing, better salary/jobs, and the significantly better weather have made Raleigh a great place to live. We did leave a lot of family behind in NY and that's really the ONLY thing we miss.

We haven't run through an income tax season so we'll have to see how that pans out. As it stands Raleigh will theoretically incur higher income tax and I'll have less property tax to write-off. So that could be significant. But it still shouldn't dwarf the hundreds per month we're saving elsewhere.


ROCHESTER RALEIGH NOTES
REAL ESTATE TAXES 3% or more 1.07% or less BINGO! This is the most significant cost savings over NY. Note the reduced RE taxes propogates directly to a huge savings in closing costs below.
PERSONAL PROPERTY TAXES N/A Approx .005% Applies to autos and boats only. Actual cost for my 2000 Honda was $131/yr.
HOA FEES N/A $364/yr Varies wildly by neighborhood.
CAR REGISTRATION $72 $68 + 3% of value NYS charges be weight, NC flat fee + highway use capped at $150 max. It cost me $248 to register my 2000 Honda.
STATE INCOME TAX 6.85% max 8.25% max
STATE SALES TAX 8.25% 7% NC taxes all foods incl. dairy
AUTO INSURANCE $608/yr $565/yr These are my actual costs of insuring one 2000 Honda Odyssey in each state with the same coverage.
HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE $850/yr $542 Note size of Raleigh house is considerably larger and 50% more costly yet less to insure
GASOLINE $3.23 $3.07 Roch is notorious for above average gas prices. Prices here are as of 03/04/08.
HEATING AND COOLING $250/mo $224/mo Rochester cost was my actual cost on a 2100 sq ft split-level house. Nearly all of that is heating as very little AC was used. Raleigh cost is my actual averaged gas and electric in Raleigh on a 2900 sq ft 2 story house for the first 12 months I lived there.
WATER/SEWER$32/mo$61.36/mo This is one cost of living expense where Raleigh is decidedly more expensive. I believe water is actually less expensive per 1K gallons in Raleigh. But your sewer is metered against water usage and included in your water bill where NY bundled sewer into taxes I believe. I never saw a specific line item in NY for sewer charges. Raleigh is also more expensive for water due to irrigation in the summer which provides the high water bills. My total annaul water + sewer + irrigation + trash was $858.90 total. That's a real actual cost. Note if you subtract out the garbage costs from that total you're left with $736.30 for just water/sewer.
GARBAGE $300/yr $123.60/yr Garbage and recycling is a mere $10.30 per month. Note that is included in the $858,90 total in the above line item. I just break it out again here for direct comparison to the costly 3rd party pickup found in most of Rochester, such as Gates.
HEALTH INSURANCE $1600/MO $1200/MO Actual cost as billed from provider for BlueCross/BlueSheild in both locations to cover medical/dental on my family of 5. Note that Raleigh has $250 hospital deducable VS $50 copay in Rochester.
FOOD n/a n/a Raleigh has noticably higher dairy costs than NY. I'm unsure why this is, but it appears Raleigh imports all dairy. Rochester is surrounded by dairy farms so maybe that's the reason? I don't have specific costs but my recollection is that milk was about $0.40/gallon more in Raleigh.
HOUSE SALE PRICE $315,000 $365,000 4 bed 2.5 bath with formals and office close to 3K sq ft. This type of a house is actually pretty uncommon in Rochester unless you stick the office in the basement. $315 was for a newer "starter" home in a generic subdivision in Pittsford. Pittsford house had no usable yard and no sidewalks, though the interior was modern and nice.
HOUSE TAXES $9,800 $2,800 My current Raleigh taxes are $2400 and may go DOWN in the next tax cycle due to a decrease in overall tax rate in conjunction with recent reassessments. My taxes in Rochester went from $3200/yr to $6000/yr in the course of 8 years. Note that the $9800 in taxes is likely on the LOW END of the possible taxes on said NY house. The Pittsford house noted above actually had $13,000/yr in taxes I believe. Every $1200/yr in taxes adds $100/mo to your mortgage, though that's deductable on your tax returns.
CLOSING COSTS $15,700 $2,500 Roch closing costs are super high due to NYS mortage taxes, high title ins, and prepaid property taxes.
20% DOWN PAYMENT $63,000 $73,000 Even with the higher Raleigh down payment the total closing costs are still over $3000 less in Raleigh, and you start with $10K more equity in Raleigh.
TOTAL OUT OF POCKET COST$78,700$75,500Total money it costs you to buy your house.
APPROX MORTGAGE$2,418.67 $2,052.72 Assumes 20% downpayment, 6.125% rate, 30 years, and values above.
TOTAL MONTHLY COST$4447.17$4090.46All values assume I can do math correctly. :)  Does not include food, gasoline, income taxes, sales taxes nor one-time auto registrations. But there's no way that's going to equate to anywhere near the $356.71 that Raleigh saves each and every month over NY. Not to mention the extra $3K in the bank you have thanks to the decreased closing costs that could be earning you interest.
CONCLUSION * NY costs more up front to purchase a less expensive house.
* NY costs more per month via mortage on a less expensive house due to high taxes.
* NY costs more per month overall in utilities.
* Raleigh is more expensive for car registration, water usage, and dairy products.
* Raleigh has a distinct lack of good quality housing available in the $100K or less range so that would be an issue for someone trying to find a decent house in that price.



Last updated 06/10/08