Austin Texas Real Estate Blog

Well, maybe not right away.  Results from a recent survey released by Salary.com suggest that Austin is a great city to build your personal wealth. Ranked number thirteen on a list of 69 major US cities, Austin is near the top for its decent salary level, relatively low cost of living, proximity to institutes of higher education, as well as unemployment rate and percentage of residents living below the poverty level.

Not surprisingly, New York, NY, Washington DC, Los Angeles and San Francisco, CA, and Honolulu, HI, were ranked at the bottom of the list, mainly because of the high cost of living relative to average salaries in those cities.

Plano, Texas, topped the list. Other Texas cities that made the top 35 were San Antonio, Houston, and Arlington, coming in at 24, 28, and 34 respectively.

The survey, called the Salary Value Index (SVI), takes salary data from US cities with populations of 250,000 and more and compares it to the cost of living in each area. Other factors considered were diversity of industry, education levels in the general population, and median commute times. These were factors added to the survey just this year.

According to Bill Coleman, chief compensation officer at Salary.com, “each additional qualifying factor helped to further refine the list by highlighting the ‘employment strength’ of cities with a variety of industry, strong focus on education, and low unemployment. The 2008 Salary Value Index represents cities with tremendous workforce and employer diversity and a sense of livability” Which describes the city of Austin to a “t”!