Anyone else in a HCOL city having trouble figuring out an RE expense estimate ?

[Daisyedwards800]

Currently, I arbitrage my high paying city with a relatively low rent apartment.  Eventually I want to "upgrade" to a house but that house will likely cost less than my rent is right now (even with the cheap apartment).  I also know my food and transportation expenses here are a lot higher than they would be elsewhere. 

So for me, how can I estimate what my housing, transportation and other expenses would be when I take my FIRE money and go live in a lower cost of living area? 

[Peachtea]

Pick a place you might want to live after you FIRE, and then research cost of living there. It doesn’t have to be where you end up, but it helps with estimates. Or pick three places do the research and average them out. A lot of averages for things like utilities, cost of fuel or transit, insurance for that area are available online. And of course you can look at house listings online to see housing costs.

I picked a LCOL area to do estimates and was kind of surprised that the house + transportation + utilities were actually higher than my large city, but MCOL, situation. Then again that’s comparing a one bedroom apartment and no car here to a 2-3 bed house with at least one (older) car there.

[Freedomin5]

We are in a similar situation. We know generally where we want to FIRE. During the summers,  we live there for a month, which gives us a sense of the transportation and food costs. We also know people who live there so we asked them about utilities and their monthly expenses. Rent/housing prices can be found online.

[WSUCoug1994]

There are a number of relocation calculators online that take in all of the factors associated from moving from one place to another including housing, food, taxes, etc.  I would recommend playing around with a couple of them.