Most Expensive And Cheapest Places To Live In America

The Council for Community Economic Research (C2ER) scoured over scores of economic facts to discover the cheapest and most expensive places to live in the United States. New York City residents will not likely be stunned to find out that they live in the priciest area in the country. The most affluent zip codes in the nation were found in New York and California.

The boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens ranked at the top of the most expensive addresses in America. A Manhattan resident should expect to pay 133.5 percent more to live in the Big Apple than anywhere else in the country. Multiple cities in California also rated among the highest priced home addresses in the US. Towns in the South, Texas in particular, were found to offer the smallest housing price tags.

“The top 10 most expensive cities are pretty stable, they remain almost static. There’s more change with the bottom,” Cost of Living Index Project Manager Dean Frutiger told ABC News.

Council for Community Economic Research investigators based their findings on six specific categories, housing, transportation, groceries, medical care, utilities, and miscellaneous expenses. Home mortgages or rental fees not surprisingly comprised the biggest portion of the household budget. According to the economic study, 29 percent of a resident’s annual income is used to pay for a place to live, the Daily Mail reports.

Regions ranked near the top of the most expensive list include Honolulu, San Francisco, San Jose, Stamford, Framingham-Natick, Massachusetts, and Orange County, California. The cheapest places to live in America include the Texas towns of Harlingen, Wichita Falls, and McAllen. States which also had cities considered to be budget-friendly include Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Illinois.