http://biz.yahoo.com/spec...icle4.html


By Lacey Rose
Forbes.com

Ever complained about the cost of gas? Guilty. How about a movie ticket? Guilty. Utilities? Transportation? Real estate? Guilty, guilty, guilty.

Every American adult gripes about the price of daily life, from a gallon of milk to a posh dinner. But in some areas, where ever-increasing living costs and real estate prices are pitted against "lackluster salaries and job growth, complaints are more legitimate. There's no way around it -- such locales are anything but bargains.

That we're talking about places like New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco should come as no surprise. But what about Tucson and Essex County, Mass.? Both made our annual list of the most overpriced places in the United States.

Go to Forbes.com to see the slideshow.

Surprise Leader
In fact, Essex County, which lies north of Boston and comprises a host of waterfront locales, topped off the ranking. With the idyllic views come high living costs and expensive real estate.

"We saw a lot of waterfront property being bought and smaller homes being torn down and replaced by million dollar mansions during the dot-com boom," explains Sara Young, economic development manager at the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce. "Now you'll find a lot of those homes on the market, and they aren't selling because nobody can afford them anymore."

The recent increase in inventory has caused the median home prices in Essex County to drop slightly, from $380,000 in the first quarter of 2005 to $373,750 in the first quarter of 2006, according to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. But that's not enough to make real estate a steal.

Another surprise newcomer to the list: Tucson, Ariz. Though our data shows that job growth is healthy, salaries don't seem to be keeping up with the high living costs. And while housing prices may still be low compared with the hottest areas of the country, the housing boom pushed them up considerably, according to the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

The Repeat Offenders
San Jose, San Francisco and New York are all repeat offenders, having landed on our list for four consecutive years. Because we've improved our methodology this year, it's difficult to make a direct comparison with prior lists.

But we do know that the three metros rank poorly in everything except the average salary ranking, where they place first, second and third, respectively. Many would argue that such places offer tremendous lifestyle benefits -- among them, high culture and active nightlife. But such things are hard to afford -- much less enjoy -- when basic living costs are so high. While there is no dearth of wealth in those areas, ordinary folk may be squeezed.

The tropical paradise of Honolulu landed in the fourth-place spot. There's no question it's a great place to visit, be it for a week-long trip or to a second home, but residents feel the burn in their wallets. Honolulu fall in the bottom quartile when it comes to housing affordability, income and cost of living.

Methodology
To compile our list of the ten most overpriced places in the United States, we started with the largest 112 metro areas of the 200 included in Forbes' 2006 list of the Best Places for Business and Careers. The areas are ranked from No. 1 (best) to No. 200 (worst) on various factors, among them job growth and cost of living.

We took the job-growth and cost-of-living rankings, and added to the mix a housing affordability index from research firm Moody's Economy.com and a salary index from Seattle-based compensation collection firm PayScale. We added up the rankings; the ten metros with the "worst" combined scores -- the highest -- made our list. They had the highest cost of living, lowest salaries, least job growth and least affordable housing.

Our job-growth metric, derived from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Moody's Economy.com estimates, analyzes the growth over a five-year period. The cost of living ranking, also from Economy.com, includes the cost of housing, transportation, utilities and other necessities. The housing affordability index gauges the amount of a local, median-priced home (the price at which 50 percent of homes are more expensive and 50 percent are less expensive) you can buy if you earn the local median income, given current interest rates.

And last -- but certainly not least -- our new earnings ranking, provided by PayScale, looks at average salaries (base pay, not including bonuses) for a basket of common professions.

The results are not directly comparable with those of last year's list, both because we added a new type of data and because the Office of Management and Budget has reconfigured its metropolitan statistical areas. (To be considered a metro area, OMB requires at least one urbanized area of 50,000 people.) Essex County, for example, wasn't even considered for a spot in the 2005 edition.

Click to see the slideshow
Back to The Best that Money Can Buy

This is a definite. Though I am not in my career for the money, it would be a nice incentive to have a salary where I didn't feel as if I am barely surviving from paycheck to paycheck.

What should be revered as one of the most commendable professions that a person could have pays so very little in comparison to others (like dribbling a b-ball for a mere million). Survival for me at it's best is working more jobs than I can possibly handle just to make ends meet.

I feel like there's an overwhelming goal to get rid of the middle class

BlackBuddy said:

The Repeat Offenders
San Jose, San Francisco and New York are all repeat offenders, having landed on our list for four consecutive years. Because we've improved our methodology this year, it's difficult to make a direct comparison with prior lists.

But we do know that the three metros rank poorly in everything except the average salary ranking, where they place first, second and third, respectively. Many would argue that such places offer tremendous lifestyle benefits -- among them, high culture and active nightlife. But such things are hard to afford -- much less enjoy -- when basic living costs are so high. While there is no dearth of wealth in those areas, ordinary folk may be squeezed.

Maybe I shouldn't move to SF.

kidelrich said:

Where do you live now?

Imago said:

Northern Virginia.

kidelrich said:

Move at all cost.

Imago said:

Why?