Where to Live Now
Boost your salary! Have more sex! Live longer! Here are
10 cities that will change your life
By Richard Sine, Map by L-Dopa
Psychologists say that moving to a new town is one of life’s greatest traumas, right up there with divorce and severe illness. So it would be nice to know that your new home isn’t going to fall off a cliff, valuewise, the moment you move in.
Houses are indeed more affordable now than they were a few years ago; prices have declined by more than 14 percent throughout the country since the bubble burst. And with foreclosures growing, employment slowing, and credit tightening, the wizards at Moody’s Economy.com (in conjunction with Fiserv Lending Solutions) predict that nationwide housing prices won’t stop drifting downward until the middle of 2009. Moody’s housing economist Celia Chen, Ph.D., says prices won’t start growing at a normal rate—about 5 percent a year, in lockstep with household incomes—until 2010.
But that’s just on average. When we asked them to predict price trends between now and February 2010 (the farthest they’re willing to project, being cautious economists), only a handful of the markets showed growth rates above 3 percent. A larger group—31 markets out of 380—will see declines of more than 8 percent. Moving to Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, or Tucson this year? We’d rent.
But prices are only part of the story. You want a great place to live, not just a bulletproof investment. So we paired Moody’s estimates with eight different data sets of our own for 100 of the largest metro areas across the country. We looked at life expectancy, number of doctors and fitness facilities per capita, air quality, education levels, crime, cost of living, and even the ratio of single women to single men.
When the dust settled, 10 cities emerged. They are, by our estimation, the best places to live for men. And the winners are . . .
Continue to read about the best cities for men...
Comments