What does it take to have an average lifestyle in nearly 40% of the 384 U.S. metropolitan areas? More than a cool million. Nationally, retirees would need an average nest egg of $1.07 million. Meanwhile, a retiree in San Francisco needs nearly $1.37 million—the highest total across the U.S., a study by LendingTree found.
The new LendingTree study calculates how much people need to retire in each U.S. metro based on the amount retirees spend in a year and on the median annual earnings of people ages 55 to 64. Read: Americans think they need $1.25 million to retire. Is that enough? After San Francisco, rounding out the five places you’ll need the biggest nest egg to retire are New York ($1,315,587), San Diego ($1,298,796), Honolulu ($1,288,763) and San Jose, Calif. ($1,276,997). You can retire with an average lifestyle for less than $800,000 in just one metro area: Johnstown, Pa. The Pennsylvania metro slides just under that mark at $779,765. Cumberland, Md. ($802,988), and Danville, Ill. ($804,301), are the next closest.
According to LendingTree senior economist Jacob Channel, many factors contribute to how expensive a metro is, including how many people live there or want to live there, how many and what kinds of homes there are, what zoning and building laws look like and what sort of industries are most common. For example, high housing costs in San Francisco are often attributed to strict development regulations and scarce land. That’s created limited supply in a city with high demand. Add that it’s close to Silicon Valley, with high salaries that can drive up prices, and it’s no wonder San Francisco—and San Jose—are pricey places to live and retire, Lending Tree found. “Ultimately, each metro is uniqu …