High rents, crime, a bad commute – it’s enough to make anyone go prematurely bald.
A report from Movato Real Estate lists the above factors for ranking San Francisco and Oakland among the most stressed out cities in the United States.
San Francisco is No. 4 on the list, with its cost of living index higher than any of the other 99 places the company looked at. In fact, the city’s cost of living index is a staggering 52 percent higher than the national average, Movato found.
Movato lists the median price for a home in San Francisco at $996,000. The city's ludicrous rental market has been the subject of countless articles, parodies and jokes. In March, a Craigslist ad which listed a mansion in the City’s Forest Hill Extension neighborhood at $45,000 a month set tongues wagging about how San Francisco was no longer an affordable place to live.
Movato found that households in San Francisco spend 34 percent of what they make on rent, which is high, but not as high as New York, where residents spend an average of 38 percent of their annual household income on rent.
The next-higest factor was population density at No. 2 overall, which Movato said was not surprising when you consider all the people (17,233 per square mile) squeezed into the tip of the peninsula.
Oakland ranks No. 6 on the stress list, performing the worst for crime of anywhere on the top 10. Oakland also had the eighth-highest cost of living.
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Oakland's renaissance was one of the reasons Movato named it the most exciting big city in the nation last year, but there's no denying that the city still has a crime problem.
Wondering who stole the No. 1 spot?
“When it comes to cities where lost hair piles up in huge mounds and fingernail biting could be a pro sport, there’s none better at it than our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C.,” Movato said.
New York comes in at No. 2 (rough commute), followed by Miami at No. 3 (affordability).
Here's the complete list:
1. Washington, DC
2. New York, NY
3. Miami, FL
4. San Francisco, CA
5. Jersey City, NJ
6. Oakland, CA
7. Chicago, IL
8. Newark, NJ
9. Philadelphia, PA
10. Los Angeles, CA
