Eastern Jackson County > Relocation Tools

For an overview and some selected comparisons see the Cost of Living section of the Profile of Greater Kansas City. For information on individual income taxes, property tax rates, sales taxes, etc., see the Profile of Taxes and Financial Incentives.

For further comparisons, see the following national sources of comparative data:

Cost of Living IndexACCRA
ACCRA provides an over-all index with the U.S. average equal to 100, as well as indexes for subcategories such as groceries, housing, utilties, etc. Kansas City's index consistently comes in below the national average. The ACCRA link provided above takes you to the organization's web site. You can obtain detailed comparisons between cities there, but they'll want a credit card to process the request. Therefore, we've provided an extract of ACCRA's composit index for about 50 metros.
Salary CalculatorHomeFair.com
HomeFair.com provides one of several "salary calculators" offered on the web. You can select your origin and destination cities from dropdown menus and when you input your current salary, the calculator will tell you what you'll need to earn in your destination to maintain a comparable standard of living.
Salary WizardSalary.com
Salary Wizard is a comprehensive salary tool enabling users to research salary ranges for thousands of job titles in a comprehensive set of career fields, sorted by occupation and region. The Salary Wizard also provides links to additional data and research.
Home PricesNational Association of Realtors
NAR provides quarterly and annual median sales price data for existing homes by metropolitan area.
Housing AffordabilityNational Association of Home Builders
NAHB's data is especially interesting because, in addition to comparing median home price, NAHB calculates a "Housing Opportunity Index" which takes account of differences in median family income and other factors which differ between housing markets.
Home Price Comparison IndexColdwell Banker
This study holds the type of home constant in its comparisons of North American housing markets. Square footage, bedrooms, neighborhood, etc. are what they consider typical for a "middle management transferee." It also provides a formula for calculating the amount you can expect to pay to replace a home of a certain value in one market with a comparable house in another market.
Apartment RentsU.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
You can go to HUD for their orginial files, however, the means by which you get to the data might be somewhat involved, so here's an extract you'll find simpler.

Your time is also worth a lot and it would be prudent to consider Kansas City's advantages over other metros with respect to:

Average commute times U.S. Bureau of the Census
Roadway congestion measuresTexas Transportation Institute
TTI's annual study yields a congestion index, a travel rate index, and other composite indicators for comparing different urban areas. The study also provides per capita and per driver estimates of annual person hours of delay, excess fuel consumption, and other measures. The study includes 68 urban areas ranging from small to very large. Among the large and very large cities in the study, Kansas City ranks as third least congested. Among these cities, Kansas City also ranks third in freeway and arterial lane-miles per capita. Since the TTI report and web site might be a lot to wade through, here's an extract of part of their data.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT EASTERN JACKSON COUNTY OR THE EASTERN JACK DEVELOPMENT ALLIANCE (EJDA), CONTACT MARILYN SCOTHORNE, OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR, AT (816) 881-4443 OR ScotMar@gw.co.jackson.mo.us.

FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE GREATER KANSAS CITY METRO AREA, CONTACT TIM COWDEN, SENIOR V.P. BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, KANSAS CITY AREA DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL, AT (816) 374-5650 OR cowden@smartkc.com.

- | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |