Comparables—the right comparables—are key to delivering a quality product and growing your practice. Comparables are…
John Borrowman, CPC
Borrowman Baker, LLC
Gallatin, TN
When you’re looking for comparables for a client, you wouldn’t use an average of an average of an average. But that’s what you’re doing when you rely on online cost-of-living calculators in a career relocation.
Let’s be honest, everyone uses them. That doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of reason to be skeptical.
It’s no secret that housing costs are the 800-pound gorilla in any cost-of-living calculation. Most calculators will tell you how much you need to earn in the new location to match what you make now. But, if you don’t know how housing costs actually figure into that number you’re seeing, you could be operating in fog.
If you’re going to turn to an online calculator, make sure it measures—and includes the data for—a wide range of costs; the sort of expenses you can verify with a phone call, or a trip to the local grocery. Look at that data carefully. Does much of it really go very far up or down in comparing your city to a new one?
Now, let’s think about housing.
Be honest. You could probably find a perfectly acceptable place to live in your city and pay less for the housing than you do now. Right? Conversely, you could easily find a place where you’d pay more and expect to be even happier.
Those same nuances exist in every market, nuances that don’t show up in that online calculator you’re ready to put so much faith in.
Alright, alright, you say. There’s no doubt that there are places where it’s simply more expensive to live. Yes, there are. And employers in those places will pay competitive wages. What they won’t do is bump your salary simply because you show them the results of that online calculator.
John Borrowman
