Your income vs price of homes

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Specializes in Ante-Intra-Postpartum, Post Gyne.

How much do you make and how much is the average and/or median house price in your city?

I live in California. Many people talk about how much people make in California and think this is the land of the rich. I live in a rural area which has high house prices compared to what people make. Granted, the average house price has come down in the recession, the average house listing price for homes for sale in my town was $403,749 for the week ending Oct 07; with a median sales price for homes in my town from Jul 09 to Sep 09 of $232,175. I've started out at $29.80 which includes my $3.00 NOC differential. My husbands cousin just bought a house in Michigan and their mortgage payment is less than our rent! Which got me wondering what the average income is for an RN there...and then I thought; what is the average income for an RN vs house prices throughout the country?

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Specializes in CNA.

HeartsOpenWide,

What part of California do you live in? I live in the central valley and the median home price here is about $140,000. At that price you can find a 3-4 bedroom home that is fairly new. I am still pre-nursing, but I do know that the hospitals around here start at just above $36 an hour and that is not counting NOC differential. I think it just depends on what area of California you live in. Just a side note though......our county has one of the highest in forclosures.

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Specializes in NICU/Neonatal Step-Down.

I live in Michigan, and the job market here is TOUGH. However, my friend (we are both new grads BTW) works at ST. John Hospital in Detroit and makes a base of about 25-26 with diffs that get here up to pretty much 29-30 dollars, I was astounded! DMC is the lowest paying big hospital around here, starting around a base of 22 or so, but then a 4 dollar night diff and i think 2 more for weekends! Nurses are paid pretty well here, and because of the crappy housing market you can get a house CHEEEEAP!

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Specializes in neurology, cardiology, ED.

I live and work in upstate NY... brand new RN's where I work start at 22.50/hour, with a 3.75 night diff (goes up to 8.50 on the weekends). So I average around 28/hour working nights.

My mortgage is less than 750/month... paid 135,000 for the house. That said, we live in a pretty rural area, it's about a 45 minute drive for me, 60 minutes for my husband. If we lived closer to work, our same house probably would have cost us more like 175,000, and our taxes would be way higher.

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Yep, have to consider all those taxes as well. Doesn't matter how much you make it's how much you keep. Some communities with already high taxes will also have to increase taxes in the future.

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Specializes in neurology, cardiology, ED.

I know... when we were looking at houses here three years ago, our RE agent told us he could have found us what we were looking for (older house, 1+ acres) in the next county over for 50,000 less than what we ended up paying for our house... but my parents live in that county, and I know for a fact their taxes are ridiculous... we'd probably be paying more to the govt. than to our mortgage company every month!

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http://www.allnursesalaries.com/salary.php

This link will show you the average nurse salary and average cost of living for any zip code or metropolitan area that you choose.

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Specializes in Ante-Intra-Postpartum, Post Gyne.
HeartsOpenWide,

What part of California do you live in? I live in the central valley and the median home price here is about $140,000. At that price you can find a 3-4 bedroom home that is fairly new. I am still pre-nursing, but I do know that the hospitals around here start at just above $36 an hour and that is not counting NOC differential. I think it just depends on what area of California you live in. Just a side note though......our county has one of the highest in forclosures.

I live in Humboldt County. My friend is a Realtor and says its about supply and demand. I could make $15-20/hr more in the Sacramento area and buy a house for less...she says it is because they overbuilt down there.

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Specializes in Ante-Intra-Postpartum, Post Gyne.
http://www.allnursesalaries.com/salary.php

This link will show you the average nurse salary and average cost of living for any zip code or metropolitan area that you choose.

I find these to be very inaccurate. What they state the average salary for my position is twice as much as I am making....granted I am a new nurse, I know what we top off at and it is not even close to twice as much as what I am making now...

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that's good to know... it seemed like a cool resource, but things aren't always what they seem.

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Specializes in L&D,Lactation.

I too, work in California. These salary postings don't say whether they are 1.0 and/or if they include a differential. I have 25 years seniority so should be at the top of the scale and I don't make that much. Could they be including the cost of benefits as part of salary also?

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Specializes in LTC, Memory loss, PDN.
I find these to be very inaccurate. What they state the average salary for my position is twice as much as I am making....granted I am a new nurse, I know what we top off at and it is not even close to twice as much as what I am making now...

Totally agree. After running some numbers for different types of jobs, CNA, LPN, RN in my area, I concluded rolling dice would be more accurate.

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