Nashville skyline at sunset – Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
It is obvious that living in Music City is starting to add up, and now a study shows the city has seen the greatest year-over-year cost of living increase in the nation.
Released by financial planning website GoBankingRates, the study compared the change each of city’s cost of living index from Numbeo to GoBankingRates’s metrics for how much annual income it takes to “live comfortably” in a city. For instance, it takes a salary of $70,150 to live comfortably in Nashville today, according to the study.
The cities are ranked by the amount of points they increased on Numbeo’s cost of living index, which includes costs associated with food, rent, utilities and transportation.
Nashville’s prominence on the list shouldn’t be too much of a surprise as the region continues to see unprecedented growth as a byproduct of the “It City” boom. To be sure, that growth has come with its own challenges as affordability, particularly affordable housing, becomes more of an issue for local officials and business leaders.
Click through the slideshow to see what other cities made the list and how Nashville stacked up.
Local home prices have skyrocketed recently, with the median single-family sales price in Nashville in June of this year at more than $293,000, according to the Greater Nashville Realtors. For comparison, Nashville’s median sales price hit $200,000 for the first time in June of 2013.
Last year, a Nashville Business Journal analysis of wealth data from researcher Esri found the average net worth of Greater Nashville’s most affluent areas had increased by 48 percent, increasing the Greater Nashville’s inequality ratio to 5.7. That means the wealthiest 20 percent of ZIP codes in the region have an average net worth that is 5.7 times larger than the average net worth of the bottom 20 percent. This gap has climbed from an inequality ratio of 4.47 in 2013.
To see the full study, click here: https://www.gobankingrates.com/personal-finance/cities-cost-living-rising-fastest/
By Meg Garner, Reporter | Nashville Business Journal