A City in California is now One of the Most Expensive to Live In
San Luis Obispo has once ranked as one of the happiest cities in the United States thanks to its rolling hills, beautiful beaches, and picturesque vineyards. However, living there isn’t cheap.
San Luis Obispo County is now the second least affordable small metro area in all of America, according to the San Luis Obispo Tribune.
According to SFGate, Porch, the home improvement and home-buying website from which this data came, discovered that SLO County had a 9.5% higher cost of living than the national average.
Porch studied the area’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is an index that measures the cost of food, utilities, transportation, clothing, and housing.
The researchers found that SLO County’s housing costs were 51.7% higher than the national average, placing it as the fourth most expensive area in the United States.
Currently, the median price of houses in San Luis Obispo County is $829,000 – consequently, only 39% of the households in SLO are owner-occupied, while 60% are rented.
The cost of renting in the area is also high.
According to the same report from RentCafe, rent in SLO was $2,347 per month in February 2022 – $719 more than the national average.
The average apartment costs over $2,000 in this area, but just 32% is within the range of the national average. This trend is only expected to continue.
According to the Tribune, since June 2021, the CPI has been increasing by 5% or more every month.
The most critical resource, housing, has been the hardest hit.
Homes across the nation sold for an average of about $408,000 in the fourth quarter of 2021, up to $49,400 from the same quarter last year.
Meanwhile, as the cost of housing increases, over half a million people will remain homeless across the country, with most of them living in California.
