Poll: Annual Housing cost/SF

[kaudrey]

About $16/sf in northern VA (just outside DC).

 

[Silver]

Orlando Florida = $6.61 per SF.


No mortgage. No pool. $2,675 a year in HOA fees.

 

[dixonge]

$22.85 in north Austin *shocked face*

Rent (includes water/sewer) + electricity + insurance + Internet. 642 sq. ft. Apartment. Not even close to the nicer parts of town, below average rental costs. I'd hate to see the numbers for smaller studio lofts downtown...

 

[Lakedog]

Florida, oceanfront condo, no mortgage - $6.84/SF (with property tax being half of the annual cost).

 

[gardenfun]

Currently: renting in downtown San Francisco: $65 per sqft
Next year: owning a house free and clear in a medium-size southern city: <$5 per sqft.

Vacation condo owned free and clear in large European metro area: $7 per sqft

I hear ya.

$55 for a 1 bedroom apartment in Lafayette, an east bay suburb of San Francisco. For this I have the privilege of driving in 6 lanes of slow traffic pretty much any time of the day. And that's on the surface streets, not just the freeways.

So after 4 years of renting, I am taking on a mortgage again. In Chico, a mellow college town north of Sacramento. My mortgage payment for a 4 bedroom 2 bath house including taxes and insurance will be $600 less per month than what I am paying to rent this 500 sq ft apartment.

Yes, yes, I know my utilities will go up and there will be maintenance, etc, etc. But it's crazy to pay this kind of rent when I don't have to commute to a j*b to go to in this increasingly unlivable area.

 

[sakowitzm]

$5 - $6 in Northern Virginia, 20 miles west of DC, a few miles south of Dulles Airport. No mortgage.

 

[Danmar]

Quite a range of costs. Obviously a mortgage makes a big difference.

 

[2017ish]

Ignore the under $2 response. "Math is hard."

We actually are in $13-14 range now due to being midway on a 10 year jumbo note. Will drop to $5-6 if the refinancing to 15 year fixed conforming occurs tomorrow.

4200 square ft. in semi-rural/suburban Middle TN. Additional factors keeping expenditures down: due to acreage, classified as "farm" for property tax; do most work myself; I gut rehabbed the whole house about ten years ago, which helps on both maintenance and HVAC costs.

 

[dand76]

$11.37 with a mortgage in rural SE Washington state. Would be $3.02 without the mortgage.

 

[Lsbcal]

Quite a range of costs. Obviously a mortgage makes a big difference.

And maybe appreciation should be considered? Real estate is not just about negative cash flow. Also impossible to measure satisfaction but mine is very high despite the costs.

I think we need a more complicated formula to determine the winner.

Something like $8/sf in northern California.

 

[kcowan]

Under $6/sq.ft. no mortgage in West Vancouver BC.

 

[Persn]

25.00/sq ft on the California Central Coast. I estimated property tax on the high side and maintenance at 0, because for the time being anyway, everything is new. We still have a mortgage.

All I can say is when I see San Francisco costs I feel lucky. A good friend is paying 55/sq ft there to rent a 650 sq ft house - and for her area her rent is reasonable.

 

[NYEXPAT]

$1.37/mth for a condo 2 blocks from the cliffs overlooking the Pacific in a major city. Includes rent,electric,FT housekeeper,Cable,phone,internet,maintenance,taxes.

 

[HFWR]

SWAG at around $10, $3 of which is mortgage.

 

[Surewhitey]

$7.13 here in Dallas proper. Higher property taxes offset the lack of mortgage. Low operating costs and 1% maintenance assumed.

1750 sq ft

 

[Huston55]

Currently: renting in downtown San Francisco: $65 per sqft
Next year: owning a house free and clear in a medium-size southern city: <$5 per sqft.

Vacation condo owned free and clear in large European metro area: $7 per sqft

I hear ya.

$55 for a 1 bedroom apartment in Lafayette, an east bay suburb of San Francisco. For this I have the privilege of driving in 6 lanes of slow traffic pretty much any time of the day. And that's on the surface streets, not just the freeways.
:

Brau Buddy-Sadly, your scale doesn't go high enough.

$50/SF/yr

PS: Our neighbors just moved from Brooklyn, NY. They think it's very reasonable here.

 

[LauAnn]

Less than $6 - Suburb, northwestern Pennsylvania.

 

[PandaBear]

$21.56 in Silicon Valley


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[daylatedollarshort]

And maybe appreciation should be considered? Real estate is not just about negative cash flow. Also impossible to measure satisfaction but mine is very high despite the costs.

With appreciation we're at -$32, a bit more if we paid off the mortgage but the plan is not to. Home prices have increased pretty crazy in the SF Bay Area the last several years so our appreciation has outweighed our housing costs.

We also enjoy living where we do - pleasant weather most of the year, pretty scenery and lots to do.

 

[SonofCohoes]

11.00 upstate NY no mortgage 1300 sq ft townhouse with an HOA

 

[exnavynuke]

$8.86 currently, will drop to around $4 once I pay off the mortgage.

 

[fritz]

Less than $6.00 actual out of pocket. House is just under 10 yrs old and no mortgage.

 

[Huston55]

With appreciation we're at -$32, a bit more if we paid off the mortgage but the plan is not to. Home prices have increased pretty crazy in the SF Bay Area the last several years so our appreciation has outweighed our housing costs.

We also enjoy living where we do - pleasant weather most of the year, pretty scenery and lots to do.

That approach would be more accurate with opportunity costs factored in. That cost plus other ongoing costs (taxes, insurance, etc.) would keep it from ever really being negative...as appealing as that might be.

Negative housing cost is a boomerang kid to whom Mom hands $20 each day as the kid walks out the door.

 

[Major Tom]

Apologies if this comment seems negative, but I'm having a bit of difficulty seeing how the figure of housing cost/sq ft is a useful metric. Housing costs tend to get quite expensive on a per sq ft basis as the space gets smaller - it's not a linear relationship.

I've always liked numbers and am comfortable with them, but am definitely not as analytical as many in this forum. My housing cost turned out at $28.72/sq ft for a 285 sq ft studio apartment in the SF East Bay (including the cost of electricity, internet and landline). Thing is - I'm not really sure how that figure is helpful, other than giving me a number I can post here in order to somehow "compare" with others. More meaningful to me is that in a normal year, I spend around $17K total on this thing called life (isn't that a Prince lyric?)

My financial life is so uncomplicated that it seems to defy any attempt at analysis - at least, in the mind of this simpleton!

 

[NoiseBoy]

$3.90 in central Illinois for a 1,500 sq. ft. townhouse which has not needed much in the way of maintenance yet. But, a few home improvement projects, such as the replacement windows that I'd like to get, would bump me up into the $4-$6 range. Still, for supposedly expensive Illinois, it looks like I have a pretty good deal. Our community has streets with curbs and sidewalks, street lighting, good snow removal, 4 public gold courses, and good local schools. I am still working, but this poll has definitely given me something to think about concerning any future relocation plans I might make.