The good news: We beat LA and Chicago and New York and Washington DC and even SAN FRANCISCO. W00t!

The bad news: We lost to Connecticut. Connecticut? Haven’t they been in the news enough already?

The US Metropolitan Areas Packed With The Most Rich People

Rob Wile | Business Insider | Feb. 11, 2013, 8:24 PM

The U.S. Census has published its list of U.S. metropolitan areas with the highest concentrations of wealth in the country.

These are places where a large percentage of your neighbors earn incomes in the top 5th percentile.

Here are the top five.  For the full list, see the article at Business Insider.

CNN/Money has another one of their Most/Least/Best/Worst/Good/Evil slideshows that could have been presented as a table, but then they'd get ten fewer click-throughs. This time it's one of our favorite regional competitions, for 10 Least Affordable Cities for buying. Actually it's Least Affordable Metros, but it sounds better if they call them cities, even if a couple of them are known locales for multiple Portals to Hell and very few yachts or polo ponies.

10 least affordable cities to buy a home

BY LES CHRISTIE @CNNMONEY – LAST UPDATED NOVEMBER 29 2012 02:02 PM ET

Looking to buy a home? You may want to skip these places. Prices are either so high or incomes so low that many families can't afford to buy homes here, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index.

Anyway, we lost to New York City again, which is just so unfair. This isn't even an SF to Manhattan comparison, so we should have kicked serious butt here. However, California totally owns the Least Coast as far as leaderboard spots, and Washington DC didn't even qualify. We present the results in one easy list, so you don't have to click through their annoying one-city-at-a-time-gee-who-could-be-next-and-if-this-was-so-exciting-why-didn't-they-put-it-in-reverse-order-Top-Ten-List-style?

1. New York, where 28.5% of homes are affordible. They seemed impressed by $1100 a square foot, too. But they didn't define the boundaries of any of these metro areas, so of course we can (and will) complain we were cheated on geographical grounds. We doubt this was an apples-to-Big-Apples comparison.
2. San Francisco, 31.4%. The piece laments it's unaffordable all over, because nearby communities are also expensive. Nearby high-priced places such as Sausalito, Berkeley, and… wait for it… Daly City. We swear we are not making this up.
3. Santa Ana, 43.5%. I kid you not. Perhaps the nearby beach towns are pulling up its results. And Disneyland. Because Santa Ana is not what comes to mind when we think “delightful but so unaffordable California real estate.”
4. Los Angeles, 44.1%. Because “bunus” hydrocarbons and ozone raise home prices. Seriously, when did LA rediscover the bubbly?
5. Bridgeport, Connecticut, 44.2%. Look, if you have to tell us what state the metro is in, maybe it isn't really worth mentioning. Just sayin'.
6. San Jose, 46.2%. Above is the lovely photo they used to feature the Capital of Silicon Valley, probably because the Quetzlcoatl statue made the photog drop a perfectly good camera. Not one other metro had a freeway interchange featured. Not even Los Angeles, which loves its freeways so much they get definite articles. We suspect they're also putting their thumb on the scale by adding in San Benito County.
7. Honolulu, 48.8%. Houses cost more because of good weather, expensive shipping, and hotel jobs pay squat. But they get a photo with palm trees.
8. San Diego, 54.6%. Here the filler text spends more time lamenting the glory days of 6% affordability during the last bubble. Well screw you, because we're already on our next one.
9. Newark, 55.3%. No, not that one, in New Jersey. Although Newark itself is cheap. It's la-di-da luxury locales like Hoboken and Jersey City that cost the big bucks. We're sure it's a complete coincidence that NJ made the list even though the feature author's surname is Christie.
10. El Paso, 61.7%.This is an honest case of low overall incomes ($41.7K) as opposed to expensive housing ($141K).

Let us know if you find any of these results surprising, or what you plan to do to ensure we never lose to New York or LA or The OC ever again.. Or mention anything you want, because this is Your Weekend Open Thread.

$469,000 – 526 KNICKERBOCKER RD, TENAFLY NJ

Property Remarks

POTENTIAL SHORT SALE! SUBJECT TO LENDER/BANK APPROVAL. RARE OPPORTUNITY ON A BRIGHT AND CHARMING WELL KEPT CENTER HALL COLONIAL HOME ON DOUBLE SIZE (145X138) LOT.THIS VALUABLE HOME FEATURES 3B/R,11/2BTHS,2DRIVEWAYS ,DEN AND HARDWOOD FLOORS THROUGHOUT. WALKING DISTANCE NYC BUS,PARK, SHOPPING,AND BLUE RIBBON DISTRICT SCHOOL.

Ha ha. Got you didn’t I? An $469k for a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath single family house in a good school district? You’re out of your mind.

Instead, you’ll have to go to the “unaffordable” (HAH) east coast, especially that New Jersey where everyone is always complaining about how “expensive” it is to live there.

Take that NJ and your affordable homes in the nation’s best (not California’s best) school districts.

Just look at these lame stats:

Median Household Income of $118k? With house prices like this? Forget about it! (or…  fuhgeddaboudit). There’s no comparison!

The Bay Area continues to lead the nation in un-affordability, fair and square.

Congrats Bay Area!

So yesterday, we saw what $695,000 buys you in the world famous Cupertino – with its best of Bay Area schools:

Remember! Free fridge! Remove it before you knock the house down!

As is tradition, let’s take a look at what roughly the same amount of money will buy you in another equivalent school district:

TENAFLY, NJ 07670

$679,000
($3,806 per month | Personalize this estimate | Check local mortgage rates)
4 Bed, 3 Bath |
MLS ID #2830900
96 days on this site

Property Information Save Listing
Move right in this spacious 4 Bdrm./2 full Bath home on a desirable street & enjoy the best schools in the state. Renovated EIKit & Baths 2-car garage w/ paver driveway. Central A/C Finished basement complete w/ full bath & galley Kit. with access to private back yard. Excellent for extended family or professional office. Seller will hold Mtge. for Qualified Buyer.
Property Features

*   Single Family Property
* Status: Active
* Area: TENAFLY
* 4 total bedroom(s)
* 3 total bath(s)
* 3 total full bath(s)
* Style: Colonial
* Fireplace(s)
* 2 car garage
* Heating features: Gas, Hot air
* Central air conditioning
* Exterior construction: Clapboard

Now, let’s face it – you could get a 4/3 for the price of a 0/0 here but be honest – just look at the economy. NY City is shedding millions of jobs. In fact, they expect the NYC metro area to lose 20 million jobs because of the Wall St fiasco – the same Wall St fiasco that destroyed the housing market in California by tricking us using their NY fast talking skills into taking bad mortgages.

On the other hand, Silicon Valley is completely immune from this down turn. Heck, while I was writing this, 22 new social networking virtualization mobile companies popped up.

So there you go – big house in nation’s best school district with job uncertainty, or a house that has to be torn down in the Bay Area’s best school district with guaranteed jobs?

It’s an easy choice if you ask me.

So yesterday we saw what $1.2 million buys you in the Bay Area’s best school district:

Let’s look at a house in what some claim is Burbed’s city of obsession in the East Coast:

Single Family Home – TENAFLY, NJ, 07670 – Realtor.com

Wow. Is it any wonder why the message boards are full of threads about people wanting to leave New Jersey and it’s best in nation school districts?

My god.

Just look at that bloat. You spend $1.2 million and you get 3425 sqft of waste. What are you going to do with that space? How will you be incented to work anymore? You’ll probably just want to sit at home and relax all the time.

And just think about those taxes in New Jersey. That’s right! They have a state income tax of 8.97% if you make more than $500,000. Which, of course, nearly all of Burbed’s readers do. (It’s only 6.37% if you make $75k-$500k. You might as well get food stamps if you do!) And no taxes on clothing!

Then there’s the lack of any good schools in the area. Do they have Cal or Stanford? DUH of course not. All they have is Princeton, and maybe Columbia. Are those schools known for anything?

When you put it all together, it makes sense why people are fleeing New Jersey for low tax destinations California all the time. Just the idea of living in 3425 sqft taxes my mind!

UPDATE: Edited the title.

Exodus from N.J. grows
“New Jersey’s become a very, very, extraordinarily expensive place to live,” said James W. Hughes, dean of Rutgers’ Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and co-author of the report.

What? New Jersey is very, very, extraordinarily expensive? Are you trying to say that it’s special? Possibly even more special than the Bay Area?

Sounds like a challenge to me! Prepare to meet your doom Dean Hughes.

First, let’s look at yesterday’s featured Bay Area house – located in the prestigious Senter Road area.

Now, let’s look at a place in New Jersey. And then we’ll see who wins! I’ve picked Tenafly. Ok, let’s look at a similarly priced house there:

Hah! Take that New Jersey! You’re not more expensive, and thus you’re not more special! 4/1.5 for $649,000 – what is this? Walmart?

And look at the facts about Tenalfy: it has the 2nd best public high school in New Jersey – and was awarded a Blue Ribbon by the US Department of Education. It’s home to several New York Yankees. And yet this house is so cheap.

What does that say about you Tenafly – that’s right, it says you suck.

If you didn’t suck, if you were desirable at all, you wouldn’t be just $649,000 for a 4/1.5br. You’d be $679,000 with a 3/2.5 and converted garage.

At the end of the day though, let’s face it – how could Tenafly compete with San Jose?

• Sure Tenafly is just 18.5 miles to Downtown Manhattan, but it’s 2941 miles to Google in Mountain View. Can’t compete there.
• This San Jose house is near a shopping “senter”- this Tenafly house is near… nothing.
• Tenafly has a crime index of 46.6, San Jose has 247.1. That means it’s BORINGSVILLE there. Might as well live in Iowa.
• Tenafly has a median income of $99,500. San Jose has $70,921. That means everyone is snobby and pretentious there – they’re not keeping it real like San Jose people.
• 93%+ of Tenafly’s population graduated from high school. 78.3% in San Jose. Did I mention that everyone there’s snobby and pretentious?

If these data points don’t convince you, I’m not sure what does: San Jose is truly the most expensive place to live, and therefore it’s more special and better. New Jersey has nothing on us.

Heck, they’re probably still making land in Tenafly, New Jersey.