Moving from LA to Reno? Cost of Living, Housing & Lifestyle Compared

If you're thinking about relocating from the LA metro area to the Reno, Nevada or Sparks area, you need to watch this video. Hey, hey, welcome back to my channel. If you're new here, my name is Sarah Schultz. I am a realtor in the Northern Nevada market serving Reno, Sparks, Carson City, and all the surrounding areas. And on today's video, I thought it might be very valuable for you as I reflect on my recent trip to LA and sort of compare not only my personal experience there with life here in Reno, but also look at some KPIs and data points that may help you make a very informed decision. I am going to get into housing costs and all of that good stuff. Obviously being a realtor, that is my wheelhouse. But before I do, I wanted to give you some context, reflect on, as I said, my recent personal trip to the area in LA, and also give you some other context points to kind of consider before you make the move. So I was in Los Angeles granted with my eight-year-old daughter. So that kind of gives you context around, you know, the kinds of activities and experiences that we had there. I did take her down there for a concert at the Kia Forum. We stayed not too far from there, although I did opt for a small boutique hotel rather than the airport conglomerate or anything like that. We also visited Knott's Berry Farm. We did a beach day in Hermosa Beach. We visited the Santa Monica Pier. So I feel like we did hit a lot of the key tourist attractions for being in LA. And of course we did a lot of great dining. So I feel like I did have a pretty well-rounded experience even though I was traveling with a child. But the thing that stood out to me more than anything was that everything is so, so far apart. And the amount of traffic between all of those far apart things was notable to say the least. And that's not to say that Reno is a walkable city either. It surely isn't for the most part. But getting from A to B here is more like a 20 to 30 minute thing rather than up to a several hour commute depending on where you're trying to get. But enough about that. I'm going to dive into some of this data and some of these key points to maybe help you make a more informed decision. Let's just start with the everyday day-to-day cost of living. This is going to be things like groceries, gas, utilities, everything kind of besides housing. And granted these statistics are coming from various places so I will try to share as best I can where I've pulled them from. This particular metric did come from the Wall Street Journal which stated that besides housing costs like rent or mortgage or the cost of purchasing property, the overall cost of living in Los Angeles and the LA metro is about 44% higher than it is in Reno. Groceries specifically in LA are about 6.6% higher than you're going to find here in Reno. And according to apartments.com utilities are 17% higher in LA than they are here. Transportation and gas clocks in at 17% higher in LA than it does in Reno. All right those are some big numbers you guys already I'm starting to question how anyone makes ends meet there because here it already feels very expensive. So I did pull up the census data so that I could compare income between two cities and actually this I think is probably the crux of this entire video for me at least and that is that although Los Angeles proves to be far more expensive in terms of cost of living and we're looking at all things right we're looking at housing but also day-to-day expenses like utilities, transportation, gas, groceries, all of that. LA is by far way more expensive than Reno however when I looked at the income metrics from the census data I was absolutely shocked to see that there's really not that much difference between income. So from the census data looking at median household income and this is for a whole house not just for individual salaries the number that I came up with for Los Angeles was $79,700 compared to Reno which was $78,400. I don't know that's almost the same thing and the cost of living is so dramatically different that really shocked me. Up next let's talk about weather, climate, overall lifestyle. Granted life on vacation as I was in the LA area isn't the same as day-to-day life and the same could be said if you're visiting Reno for a week or a weekend as I was there but obviously the biggest change in climate and lifestyle is that LA is on the ocean it is a coastal metropolis versus Reno over here we're in the high desert we're in the mountains we get a lot of really extreme weather obviously if you're at lake level in Lake Tahoe you're gonna see a lot more snow than we do here in Reno and depending on which part of Reno obviously up in the mountains you know towards Somerset or even up Mount Rose Highway you're probably going to get a ton more snow than say down here where I am kind of near Damani Ranch, Kearney Ranch or downtown Midtown obviously by noon if it snows usually most of the snow has melted. Last year we didn't even have to shovel once in my neighborhood if that's any indication versus you know snow's not even really a conversation in Los Angeles although I was super surprised to experience how cold it is in the morning there before that fog burns off in the morning time it is cold and obviously we're not talking about snow and flurries and winter weather but I mean it was not warm and layers really proved to be the name of the game while I was down there. For most people your biggest expense your biggest overhead is going to be the cost of housing whether you're looking at buying or renting now full disclosure I am a realtor in Nevada I belong to the Northern Nevada Regional MLS so the data that I have access to that's super accurate and in real time is our data here on the ground in this market I do not have access to any of the MLSs that are in the Los Angeles metro so the data that I'm able to pull and kind of analyze is somewhat limited maybe it's outdated who knows but I mean it's going to give you a general sense of comparison between the two cities also full disclosure Reno means lots of things right like it could mean Reno proper it could mean specific neighborhoods in Reno and from one neighborhood or one end of Reno to the next or to the other could be a very extreme difference and we could be talking about you know a hundred thousand dollars difference in a price tag of the same home in different parts of the city obviously LA metro is a huge huge area and living in Hollywood versus living in Palmdale those are two very different things and I'm not going to get so granular with you guys I'm going to give you very general metrics and these are going to be pulled from the internet because I don't belong to the MLS in any part of California so that aside don't come for me but I'm just going to try to give you an overview of what you could expect in pricing differences for housing our market here in Reno and this is for single family residents I'm not talking about apartments townhouses condos vacant land definitely not talking about commercial that's not the kind of agent that I am but our median sales price for a single family home for a long time has been between 550 and 600,000 now if we jump over to the city of Los Angeles and based on what I'm seeing here this is the actual city of Los Angeles proper we're not talking about Palmdale or any of these like kind of outlying or up-and-coming areas I'm talking about within the actual Los Angeles city the median sales price for a home there is going to run you about 1.1 million so it's pretty much double based on what I'm seeing here for the cost of buying a single family obviously there are a lot of intricacies and nuances you know how many bedrooms what's the square footage what's the neighborhood I'm not getting into all that these are very big broad generalization and now let's talk about rent I don't do a whole lot of rentals this section of video is full of disclosures when in doubt disclose right that's what I always say but I'm pretty busy with resale I don't really dabble with a lot of rentals that said I'm going to give you some statistics these are taken off of apartmentadvisor.com in Reno a studio apartment is going to run you about $1,100 a month all the way up to a three-bedroom home which is going to run you just under $3,000 a month and again there are so many variables I personally have a really close friend who rents a two-bedroom apartment in Midtown and I think she pays $1,600 a month but it's tiny and it's dated that said it's in a great part of town that's walkable so I mean there are so many variables just like any other city these are generalizations according to rent.com Los Angeles rents are about 49% higher than that so 49% higher from Los Angeles to Reno so in summary if we're gonna go the broad generalization route I'm just gonna come out and say it it's way way more expensive to live in Los Angeles than it is in Reno with that you get world-class entertainment you get every kind of food imaginable at any hour you get access to some of the best beaches obviously we don't get all that here in Reno but we are growing our you know foodie culture is growing our entertainment I wouldn't say it's boring we have all the casinos that bring big headliners we've got great grassroots entertainment lots of smaller mom and pop bars boutique clubs boutique bars that kind of experience we've got world-class skiing and hiking and mountain biking we've got Lake Tahoe in our backyard so there's a lot to be said about quality of life and I mean overall affordability obviously Reno's gonna take the cake on that one that said if you are thinking about making a move to our area from Los Angeles or anywhere I would love to be of service to you you can book a free strategy call with me it's no pressure no obligation just a chance to connect and see if we might be a good fit to work together and at the very least help you devise your next and best steps get your questions answered all of that good stuff and you can book that call with me there's a link to do that in the show notes below and if you haven't already please hit the like and that subscribe button I put out new videos each and every week about the northern Nevada lifestyle the Reno Sparks housing market and of course all things to do with buying and selling real estate thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you next week