Hacker News Reader

Comment by carbeewo | Hacker News Reader

This looks very similar to http://www.numbeo.com which was also created in 2009. Is it the same data?

When living in a city that has niche, but no general, name recognition, a friend and I were taken for dinner, a very nice dinner, by a lady who worked for an international relocation consultancy. This was in 2008/2009. She politely, and professionally, refused to disclose the name of her company and of her company's client. Her job was to fly somewhere twice a month, anywhere in the world, meet English speakers ovr dinner, walk around shops with a camera, and write quantitative and qualitative reports of her findings.

The questions and purchase options in this crowd sourced list are extremely similar to the 'basket of goods' she was seeking. Prices are also pretty similar to 2008/2009 but a bit askew from today (particularly food, which over the past 5 years has experienced significant inflation).

Was there a surge of this type of information collection at the time (I can't recall anything of note online), or has a relocation / relocation-type consultancy released past data?

The creator of Expatistan here. No, it is not the same data. Both sites follow a similar principle but we do not share data.

Thank you for the site. My friends are like a little ex-pat community, using your site often to compare cities and figure out where to move next. I really like how easy is to compare the cost of living and make a decision based on data, rather than anecdotal evidence.

Well…

Expatistan: "Volkswagen Golf 2.0 TDI 140 CV 6 vel. (or equivalent), with no extras, new" Numbeo: "Volkswagen Golf 1.4 90 KW Trendline (Or Equivalent New Car) "

I don't know. Not the same but very close and alike. I love Numbeo and this looks eerily similar.

...but shouldn't data collected by two independent process come "very close and alike"? Otherwise we wouldn't have efficient markets.

What is more, Numbeo seems to be more exhaustive.

Expatistan has only 1 accomodation data point (Monthly rent for 85 m2 (900 Sqft) furnished accommodation in EXPENSIVE area) while Numbeo give me information about different size apartments in and out of city center

Yes, currently we have only one accommodation type.

We started collecting prices for different ones a while ago. We are now reaching the point where we already have enough data to include the new types of housing in the public index.

More cities supported for Numbeo for me. (I.e. Berkeley is in Numbeo, at least partially, but not in the other)

That website is useful, but depressing! How is living in Rome cheaper than living in Coventry????!!!!

In fact, most places in the US (even the sunny bits) look cheaper to live in than Coventry. How sad.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com