If you’re living in an expensive city with a lavish cost of living, you’re probably really tired of seeing a large portion of your budget go towards rent or tiny living space. In Cincinnati, you can get a lot more for your money. I want to show you specific numbers and just how much more house you can get for your money! My name’s Eric Sztanyo from Keller Williams Realty and team Sztanyo.com where we are helping you find your home and strengthen your family. And we are gonna talk about Cincinnati’s cost of living!
I’ve done another cost of living video, but I wanted to come back and do one again because recently I’ve helped a couple of clients who actually found me via YouTube – “You know, who you are, Thanks for being awesome!” – who have moved in here from other cities. One came in from California, one came in from Texas and when they got here, they’re like “Oh my gosh, you can get that much house for that amount of money?”. Like they were shocked. Based on how much house you can get, how far your dollar could go here in the greater Cincinnati area, compared to where they had been living in Texas and in California.
I have lived here for 30 plus years, and I’m just used to the cost of living in Cincinnati. And I forget that , there are really expensive cities out there and States and California and New York and Boston and Seattle and in Texas and these places where you’ve got to put a bunch of your budget into your housing costs and it gives you very little discretionary income.
Maybe you’re thinking of moving to Cincinnati and you’re looking at cost of living. Maybe you’re already heading here and you’re relocating for a job or for family or whatever it is, you want to get some info about just how far can your dollar go. I will show you some actual numbers and I’m going to show you some actual houses and prices, so you can get a feeling for what you can expect based on what you have in your budget to spend.
But the first thing I want to do before pointing you to some different houses in their pricing is point you to a website that if you’re looking to potentially move to Cincinnati could be really helpful for you. It’s REDICINCINNATI.COM. It’s really helpful for jobs and employers, especially as someone who might be moving to the area as well.
You can go to this livability section and then click on the cost of living. There’s this awesome calculator on the page. You will also see a nice little chart that gives you a little bit of an overview of the cost of living in Cincinnati. This will show us the difference in the cost of living in New York and the Cincinnati region.
What we’re going to look at is how much you’re going to get more for your money in Cincinnati basing on the chart that we have. (33% less on groceries, 84% less on housing, 26% less on utilities, 20% less on transportation, 11% lower on healthcare).
Let’s just say you’re making a pretty decent salary about $250,000 a year. And let’s say you’re moving to Cincinnati from L.A. And so you’re working from home, you have kids and you’re trying to use your bedroom as an office. And you ask yourself “how do I get the work done? How do I get up on zoom call with keeping my toddlers away” And your employer is saying “Hey! we’re going to stay like this. We’re going to keep working remotely”. So now your asking “what are the cities that I can look at where the cost of living is really low and keep more of those dollars to myself?”
What is the cost of living in LA to Cincinnati? Well, if you’re making $250,000 a year in LA. Basically, the same salary you need to make in Cincinnati is $157,000. So roughly speaking, you’re saving $92,000 by moving. If you could take that same salary and move to Cincinnati from a cost of living standpoint, you’re saving 92 grand basically. And your housing cost is 65% less, right? 65% less than what you’re paying in Los Angeles. So what does that look like? Tangibly?
Comparing The Price Of Houses on Zillow
Let’s say you’re living in the LA area and your budget’s $200,000 to $300,000. What’s that going to get you? You could get a pretty decent 1500 ft, but it’s kind of out there, right? 1500 ft, three bedroom, two bath. You could get a one bedroom, one bath. 357 square ft for $300,000. There’s 357 square ft. You could get a 1000 Ft condo. You could get, a 750 ft, 750 square ft condo for $254,000.
Let’s take a look over at Boston for $200 to $300,000. You could get an 1800 square ft, but that’s kind of way out there in Rockland. You can get a two-bedroom, one-bath, 693 square ft condo for $300,000. You could get a 372 square foot studio, a 1100 square foot, two bed, one bath for 300,000. so this is kind of what LA.
Let’s look over in Cincinnati now. Now in case you don’t know, Cincinnati, Ohio is in the Southwest corner of Ohio and the greater Cincinnati area also consists of Northern Kentucky, which is kind of these three counties around here. So I’ve kind of scrolled out to give you a look at the Greater Cincinnati area. And let’s take a look at what can you get for $240,000? Well, here’s a four-bedroom, three-bath house, 2,700 square feet. And that’s kind of right in the right on the West side of Cincinnati. A fairly typical Cincinnati home, lots of space, 2,700 square ft.
Let’s take a look down in Northern Kentucky. Say this is closer to kind of where I live Alexandria at this home $279,000 home, four-bedroom, four-bath, it’s got a full basement. My guess is this is probably 2,500 to 2,800 square ft home. And it’s got a finished basement and it’s got a pool and a playground and a trampoline. You’ve got a little space. The other thing you could do if you wanted to is buying a new construction, so that’s an option in the, in this $200 and $300 range.
Let’s bounce that up just a little bit and let’s change it from 200 to 300 to 400,000 to 500,000 in LA.So $500,000 could get you this four-bedroom home, 1500 square feet in LA. You’re anywhere for up to 500,000 in LA, you could get it, you know, 1200 to 1500 square feet is what I’m looking at and that’s kind of if you’re more on the outskirts. Hey, that’s better than 300 square feet, right? More than double the costs and you get almost 1500 square feet.
This is what you can get for $500,000 in Boston. If closer to the city, you’re getting less square footage. This is going to be standard wherever you go. And then further out, you could get this 1500 square foot. So kind of similar to LA again in terms of the costs.
So let’s look in Cincinnati. What does $400,000 to $500,000 get you? Here’s a four-bedroom, four-bath, 3,789 square ft home in Erlanger, Kentucky. You’ll have your granite countertops, a nice big open floor plan, large living room. Though this home’s a little bit dated even, but tons of space. You’ve got a nice covered patio in the back.
Here’s a new construction home. You can get for $450,000. So if you wanted a brand new home, you didn’t want to buy someone else’s home. You could buy this four-bedroom, three, three-bath house, 3045 square ft. You could get this brand new house. If you’re looking at double, almost triple the square footage space than what you could get in Boston and LA.
I get it. Cincinnati is not Boston or a LA. We don’t have an ocean or mountains. We don’t have various things, but if you’re looking at Cincinnati or maybe another lesser expensive city, you’re saying “okay, I’m good living somewhere centrally, but I can take that money. And I can do other things with that money. I can travel. I can take that money and put my kids in better schools. I can invest more.” You can do all kinds of what you want to do with the money it’s up to you. That’s the whole point. If you’re going to move to a city where the cost of living is a lot less, you can have a lot nicer house, right? You can actually have a house where you can invite people over, you can host! Your kids can grow up and have space.
This is one of the real benefits of living in the Midwest is your dollar is going to go just a lot farther.
I hope this was helpful for you! If it was, and you’re interested and you’re thinking of moving to Cinci. Hey, watch this other video. We’ve got lots of different videos about another one on the cost of living in Cincinnati. Some of the different neighborhoods, some of the new construction might look like in Cincinnati. So go ahead right now, watch the next video. See ya!