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Comment by olcor | Hacker News Reader

Apart from the state/city taxes, there’s little difference in NYC and Seattle any more. My rent has barely moved in the last three years; my friends in Seattle are complaining about ridiculous rent increases. I visited a year ago and did not see a massive difference in prices for every day goods and services. Unsure about housing market though.

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> Apart from the state/city taxes

That’s a pretty big difference though! I suppose with NYC you don’t have the cost of owning and operating a car, though.

You can live car free in Seattle. It depends on who you work for and where they are, but it is doable. People carpool and such to go hiking and to events, and Lyft/Uber is pretty good.

I second this, as someone actually doing this thing. :) And with light rail extensions and transit expansions it's getting better all the time.

As someone who did the move a year ago:

Rent is comparable, but the apartments would be very different. 1BD 10 min walk away from work in SLU can be found for $1500/mo with in-unit washer dryer, secured package room, etc. To get the same level of amenity would require going further out into the boroughs and being subject to the whims of the MTA.

Goods and eating out are more expensive, but that's because Seattle has its min wage at 16/hr already, and unlike New York businesses do actually pay their workers the minimum wage. (Paying under the table is rampant at minority-owned businesses; those cheap supermarkets in NY Chinatown didn't get there through mystic eastern business practices.)

Oh definitely you do get much more for the same amount in Seattle today, but it was ~1200 three years ago. Meanwhile rents in NY have pretty much stayed the same (except for minor increases) for me and my peers.

I hear that prices have flatlined /fallen recently; let’s hope it stays that way.

Amazonian who has lived in Manhattan the past decade. The two neighborhoods I've lived in over the past 5 years have seen 20-30% increases: Chelsea and Upper East Side. Not sure that folks are seeing minor in Brooklyn either.

$1500!? The place I was in was $2.2k for all of that on Dexter.

Now I pay $2.6k...so

A lot of apartment buildings have opened on Dexter. I used to live there and got a renewal for significantly cheaper after paying $2200. (I ended up moving anyways because SLU is a giant dead zone.)

Everybody was offering not only cheaper rent, but concessions (1-3 months free). Supply has finally outpaced demand.

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