What's the Cost of Living in El Paso Texas? [2020]

What's the Cost of Living in El Paso Texas? [2020]

Hi and welcome to Living in El Paso, Texas. My name is John Peña and I'm a real estate agent with EXP and today we're going to be talking all about the cost of living. So I've been talking to a lot of people from out of state who are considering a move to Texas. Texas is quite honestly a very popular state to

move to right now. You've been hearing probably a lot in the news perhaps about the mass exodus from California, but I've also been talking to people from Florida, New York, and while a lot of those people aren't talking necessarily about moving to El Paso, they are talking about moving to Texas. We've got a lot of

great cities here in addition to El Paso. Dallas-Fort Worth is blowing up. Austin is super cool. San Antonio is great. Houston remains a popular destination for people. So today I thought I would tell you a little bit though specifically about El Paso and the cost of living here and compare it to some of those

other cities in Houston. So to do that we're going to use what is called the cost of living index and it's based on a United States average of 100. So let's say that we have a city called Average America, your average American city. That town, Average, has a 100 score for everything. Groceries, utilities, housing,

transportation, health care. So as an example, if you went to buy groceries in Average USA and you spent $100 and then you went to another city that say had a grocery cost index of 75, you would spend $75 for those exact same groceries. Whereas if you went to another city that had a grocery cost index of let's say

150, you would pay $150 for those exact same groceries that you spent $100 in Average USA. So that's kind of how the cost of living index works and so let's go ahead and jump in take a look at El Paso. So you can see that overall El Paso scores about 81.4. So in El Paso those same groceries that cost you $100 in

Average, those same groceries would cost you $81. So that's a savings right there for you. Texas is doing pretty good as well. It's below the national average so those same $100 of groceries in Average USA would cost you about $94. So just making sure I have those numbers right. So now you can see the other categories

and El Paso and Texas I think do pretty well but I really wanted to highlight housing and transportation. And yes I'm a real estate agent and yes I'd love to sell you a home but the housing one really sticks out. So the housing stat for El Paso is 56.5. That means that let's say that you in Average USA, our

make-believe city where everything is $100 right down the line, in Average USA let's say that you bought a small house for $100,000. That exact same house in El Paso would cost you $56,500. I mean pretty remarkable. So the other stat that stuck out to me I thought was health care. So the cost of health care 86.7

definitely below that US average. And as we all know health care costs are creeping up for all of us and becoming a bit more of a financial burden perhaps than they were a couple of decades or so ago. So that's El Paso in a nutshell. Now if we go ahead and compare that to Houston. The ones that I thought were

pretty interesting for Houston. Houston overall 96.5 pretty good still below 100. Housing now you've stepped up a notch. So now that $100,000 house in Average that cost you $56,000 in El Paso it costs you $80,000 in Houston. So the other stat and now mind you I grew up in Houston kind of outside Houston in a

little town called New Caney but we drove into the city very very frequently. So I grew up with Houston traffic. So the stat that I think stands out there is in Houston the transportation score 119. That is above 100 and that is not good. If you now if you love traffic and you like sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic

that's great for you. Anything over 100 is going to be right up your alley. But if you are not into traffic it's not good. You will you want to traffic transportation score under 100 which is of course what El Paso has 91.9. We do not have nearly the traffic that Houston does so that's certainly one thing to

consider. And by all means I understand that there are trade-offs. El Paso is a smaller smaller city. We're still under 1 million. Houston is a much larger city and what do you get with a much larger city? More stuff. More culture. More arts. More restaurants. All of that stuff. So I understand that you know this is you know

I'm tailoring this to portray El Paso in the greatest light possible. Of course I am. That's my job quite honestly and I believe that El Paso is a great city. But I do understand that there are certainly going to be trade-offs. So with that said let's take a look at the Dallas area. Now I thought it was pretty

interesting that Dallas and Houston pretty much stacked up pretty pretty close. So Dallas overall score it broke that 100 so now things are getting a little more expensive than the national average but honestly not that much more. Housing jumped up a little bit from Houston so that $56,000 house in El Paso

that costs you almost $93,000 whereas it cost you about $80,000 Houston. So housing is going to be more expensive in Dallas. Transportation unfortunately that's about the same. 117 that over 100 score means that there's going to be more traffic. My wife was doing a lot of traveling to Dallas-Fort Worth a couple

months ago and she certainly can vouch for the notion that there's a bit more traffic. But Dallas-Fort Worth is a really popular area. Like I said earlier it is really blowing up so there must be something there. So speaking of something there, Austin. Let's take a look at Austin. Now I love Austin. It was one

of the cities that we seriously thought about moving to. One of my best friends lives there. I've spent a lot of time there. I'm a former music teacher and musician. I love music. South by Southwest is so cool. Austin is fantastic. So don't get me wrong when I when I give you these numbers. But

Austin's overall cost of living is creeping up to $120,000. So that house that cost $100,000 in average USA that costs you $159,000. So that's a pretty significant bump up. So definitely definitely something to think about. The average home price in El Paso $130,000. That same house in Austin $369,000.

It's about 2.8 times more expensive. So you're certainly going to get more bang for your buck in El Paso than you will in some of these other cities. But again I'm not a fool. I understand that it's a trade-off and the coolness factor that you get in a city like Austin is you know it's hard to beat. But if the

coolness factor isn't all that important to you or the most important thing to you, then some of these financial considerations might might come into play for you. So I think they're interesting to take a look at regardless. So let's go ahead that's kind of the cost of living analysis. Let's go ahead

and talk specifically about El Paso. Rental prices in El Paso. So on this chart the orange is for the El Paso average. Dark blue is for the El Paso metro average. Blue is the Texas average. And then the light blue is the US average. So you can see how El Paso ranks in in the rental game. Interesting

points. Studio apartment you can get it this says for about 590 compared to 738 for Texas. 821 is the national average. So considerably less money there. A two bedroom for under $1,000. That's pretty remarkable nowadays. I have a friend who actually is renting a one-bedroom apartment at the foot of the Franklin

Mountains on the west side. It's a really great area. It's off of Stanton Street which is a really very nice area. And she's paying $625. So just for comparison's sake. Rentals rental prices I think it's fair to say pretty affordable. So let's talk utilities. The dreaded utilities. So in El Paso we've

got electric. We pay for our water and our water includes our sewer and garbage collection. And then we also pay for our gas. So again these are stats that I found. I tried to find the most reliable sources for you. For a 915 square foot apartment you're gonna pay for all of those utilities roughly $155 a month.

Whereas a 2,000 square foot home you're gonna pay closer to $250 a month. So I can speak directly to this because we just purchased a home here in El Paso like I've said before. My first electric bill was about $110. Mind you that was in the summer in El Paso when it was pretty darn hot. That was offset by my $25 gas bill.

So my water bill definitely steeper than what I've paid in other places. It was around $90 and so those prices are gonna fluctuate right now in the summer. Electric bills are obviously going to be a little bit higher. My water bill is higher because I have a swimming pool and I also have one daughter who is

living with us for the last couple of months and takes two hour long showers and baths. If you're a father you know what I'm saying right there. And internet costs those are gonna run you about $60 a month. So we have spectrum and works great. So let's go a couple more slides for you here. Transportation.

Transportation we talked about how there really isn't very bad traffic. We certainly do have our fair share of road construction here in El Paso which I'll talk about in another video. But while nobody likes road construction it's nice because you can tell that the city is thinking ahead and preparing the

infrastructure to make it so that when new people do come into our city we don't have those traffic nightmares. So I do feel like we're kind of getting ahead of the curve which is which is nice. We have a really really fantastic transportation system. Sun Metro monthly pass will cost you $48. Not too bad. We

also have these old streetcars that the city used to have and then they junked them. But then several years back they renovated all of them. They're super awesome. They run downtown. I was going to include a picture but I couldn't find one that was not copyrighted. But if you're really interested Google El Paso

streetcar. They're super cool. I love the colors that they chose for them too. So child care. Now this is a huge spread. $500 to $1,000 a month. I didn't want to give you a really tight number because honestly I couldn't find data that really seemed to be legit on this topic and I don't want to mislead anybody. My

children are grown so I haven't done child care costs for a very long time. So I gave you a really big stretch there. I've said this before El Paso is really into education, family. So I do believe that the quality of the child care here is top-notch as far as the price goes. I'm sorry I couldn't give you a better

idea about that. Like I said I don't want to mislead anybody there. So one more thing. You work. So of course what do you want to do when you work? You want to enjoy some of the fruits of your labor which might mean going out to eat, going for entertainment. So just a couple little stats here. The average meal for

one $10. This is legit true. There are food trucks around here. There are tons of Mexican restaurants around here and the prices are very affordable. So I can vouch for that one. A meal for two at a mid-range restaurant restaurant. It's going to run you about $30. You're going to want to probably grab yourself a beer

from time to time. A domestic beer $2.68. Pretty awesome. And the average movie ticket about $10. So that sort of takes us into our last slide which is just a reminder that in Texas we remain one of the seven states with no income tax. So that's going to save you a significant amount of money. So

with all of that I hope that gives you a great idea of the true cost of living in El Paso, Texas. Obviously these are all numbers that are going to fluctuate just a little bit but I tried my best to find you the absolute best information and deliver it to you in a way that was meaningful for you. So I hope that you

found that useful and if you did I would encourage you to subscribe to the channel. I put out new videos every single week. So click the notification button and you'll receive a notification of when a new video comes out. Other than that if you are considering a move to El Paso by all means I would encourage you

to reach out to me. I am a real estate agent. It would be my greatest desire to help you find your dream home in El Paso. Thank you so much and we'll see you next time.