It’s no secret that life in a big city is expensive and riddled with cheap futons. But what if you can barely afford an apartment that won’t even fit a frugal futon? Welcome to the millennial cost of living in 2014.
Time previewed a RealtyTrac study that analyzed the priciest American cities attracting twenty-somethings and some of the places might surprise you. Bronx County? Queens County? Charleston County? San Francisco, home to the Golden Gate Bridge and your favorite app’s creator, tops the list of least affordable places to buy while Bronx County leads the list of least affordable areas to rent. RealtyTrac only included areas where millennials comprise about 24% of the population and has continued to swell for the last six years.
New York, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Los Angeles follow San Francisco as the most expensive places to buy while Baltimore, Philadelphia, Brooklyn (Kings County) and San Francisco follow the Bronx as the most expensive places to rent.
No (real) shockers there, though who knew Queens County and Bronx County were so expensive? (Seriously, who?) But did you know that millennials are giving up around 70 to 40 percent of their income to rent in those cities? Buying takes an even larger chunk in those areas, grabbing nearly 80 to 50 percent of an inhabitant’s income for mortgage payments. That means you may live in Manhattan but you can only afford to eat at that sketchy pizza place where you’re unsure of the ingredients or if the guy behind the counter washed his hands. But who cares because 68 percent of millennials are still moving to San Francisco! And 43 percent to New York! Who needs a retirement fund!
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