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my wife & myself get contacted on occasion for jobs outside of our area in Hartford, CT. We kind of have an understanding that if one of us has a good career opportunity at another location, we'd move as a family.
However, in trying to determine cost of living between one area and another is not always easy. I usually try homefair.com, but lately it does not seem too good. Are there any other decent ones?
As an example, I put the standard $100K salary in my hometown in the Hartford area. My wife was recently contacted about a job in Billerica, Mass. it says that if we make $100K in my town, we'd need to make like $90K in Billerica to live an equivalent life. So, I figure that is pretty cheap for so close to Boston... so, I figure it must be bad schools. I go to realtor.com and get the school quality report and over 80% of high school seniors go on to college & the average SAT score is close to 1100 - both a bit better than my town in CT. Then, I search on homes in Billerica and a home that is somewhat equivalent to our home in CT costs like 50% more. I'm also pretty sure that Mass has the highest car insurance rates in the nation, too... So, unless the Mass government is subsidizing folks in the Boston area on a large scale, it does not seem too accurate.
And, a while back, I was contacted about a job in North Jersey... via homefair.com, it said it was like 8 or 10% more than my town in CT. But, then going online to realtor.com, anything close to my home in CT is well over $1 million, or like 2-3 times what we could get for our home if we sold it.
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