Long Island to Burlington? (Colchester, South Burlington: apartments, rent, insurance)

[Gooseburt]

Thought I would ask any of you who may of had a similar experience as myself.
Having lived in Long Island my entire life, recently my wife and I have been talking about moving to the Burlington area and just spent a week in South Burlington. During that week we have travelled and got to experience almost all the surrounding towns and villages and fell in love with the area. Long Island has become on my opinion, an overdeveloped, crowded, crime ridden place to live and raise a family. The housing prices and rent are ASTRONOMICAL. We are fortunate enough to have an apartment right now at a great price but so not see a future here.

My wife is a graphic designer with 7 years of professional experience in and out of NYC.
I am a self employed commercial and residential painter that has a small clientele base and also sub out my work. Together our currently salaries are 90k-100k household. Wife does freelance work as well.

Things I’ve read about Vermont are as follows:
-Rents are SKYHIGH, now after spending a week there and months looking at apartments out of curiosity, I have found that rents are priced fair and not nearly as much as Long Island. Obviously comparing Vermont to somewhere down south is going to seem astronomical but have a Vermonter tell a long islander that their rents are sky high would be a joke.
-Job market- terrible, competitive, scant opportunity. (Does this apply to certain professions like medical,tech,engineering sector? How hard would it be for a graphic designer to find decent work?
Are there opportunities for blue collar workers?
Housing costs and property tax- expensive and sky high (now my wife has explored opportunities in upstate ny specifically the Syracuse area and the housing costs around there are incredible low. We visited Syracuse and wasn’t for us. Now we were just in Colchester,VT during our stay and loved that area. Went on Zillow and were shocked to see how affordable the homes were for such a beautiful area. (In Long Island if you want a small ranch in a working class neighborhood you’re looking at 400k with 10k + taxes, you don’t even want to know what upper middle class neighborhood is priced at).

I understand that Vermont is on the high spectrum when it comes to taxes and housing costs but it seems to me that it’s almost justified. Having been to most of New England I haven’t found anywhere I’d like to love more than Vermont, it’s beautiful, well maintained, many lifestyle opportunities and so far it seems that my wife and I would be able to find work.

Has anyone here had experience in relocating from Long Island to Vermont or the Burlington area?

[tkln]

Born/raised and lived in Queens for first 40 years of my life, relocated to Waterbury 6+ years ago.

Don't have time to get into full details but as someone in the design field, I will say salaries here are much lower than what you get in NYC. And therein lies the rub. Coming from NYC/LI, yeah, housing/etc seems cheaper. But unless you are pulling in NYC/LI money, you are going to feel the cost of taxes/housing/etc.

I applied for a design manager role at a very popular business in Burlington - the recruiter called me to let me know what the salary was - $25K pay cut for a role that is pretty senior in level. I also interviewed for a director-level state job, that was a pay cut as well.

I currently work remotely for a NYC based company, so I knew all of this going in. I would encourage your wife to look up some job openings, connect to some recruiters/etc, and do some research on pay and competitiveness - there are not a lot of well-paying jobs here, and there are a lot of people applying for them, at least in the design field.

[Jax2PVB]

Sorry to say that I do not think that you are looking at it fairly. I am from LI and have been out for 20 years, BUT once you leave the tri-state area, your earnings stay behind! As a painter, it is probably not unlikely that you get $10,000 to paint a whole house. In Vermont where people don't average $175k per year in household income, and they make more like $45k, you will likely paint a 4-bedroom home for under $3500. Paint costs the same and supplies cost the same, so it is a direct hit to your income! And taxes are incredibly ridiculous in New England - at average of 2-3% of value. That is of the highest in the country!

How would you like to pay $8000 taxes a year on a small $280-325k home, plus an average 80% mortgage and be at $2400 a month with taxes and insurance but only be bringing in $60k a year combined? Guess what, you won't qualify! That is a 48% DTI and no lender will do it unless you have like zero debt, but at that DTI your interest rate will also increase. Chances are that if you have been renting in LI, it is not likely that you have been able to save a lot for a large down payment either. Long Island is a rough trap that many escape - but they are able to make fair comparisons to income potential of where they are going.

If you really want to save on living, try the Carolinas! Taxes are dirt cheap in SC and there are job opportunities probably equal to or better than that in VT.

VT is beautiful, so is Maine, but it is not "affordable" in the long run when leveraged against earning potential.