"We have been able to keep cost down for many years, but that will be ending soon when we start implementing alternative water supplies."
Hit on chart to make it larger.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Water costs compared. By Geniusofdespair
This chart is the combined water and sewer bill. I have heard from the Water and Sewer Dept.:
"We have been able to keep cost down for many years, but that will be ending soon when we start implementing alternative water supplies."
Hit on chart to make it larger.
"We have been able to keep cost down for many years, but that will be ending soon when we start implementing alternative water supplies."
Hit on chart to make it larger.
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4 comments:
our water may not be as expensive as other places but check this from today's MSN.com...
America's most overpriced home markets
San Diego has plenty of sunshine but little affordable housing. Only 5% of local residents could buy a median-priced home -- one reason the city grabbed the dubious honor of ranking No. 1 on this list.
By Matt Woolsey, Forbes.com
Forbes.com slide show: America's least overpriced real-estate markets
The most expensive home sales of 2006
Video: Will housing spring back?
No matter the locale, denizens almost always gripe about the stiff cost of living, housing and doing business. But in some places the financial pain is clearly more acute than others.
Take San Diego. A slumping housing market, where only 5% of residents could afford to buy the median home, and a high price-to-earnings ratio have made the oceanfront city the nation's most overpriced real-estate market. Had weather been included as a statistical measurement, there's no doubt San Diego would have avoided our list of top 10 most overpriced cities, but we didn't factor in sunshine.
Arriving at the relative value of a given market isn't as simple as calculating median home prices, income rates and the cost of living. Instead, our list of most overpriced real-estate markets incorporates a more meaningful methodology.
Behind the numbers
Using the 40 largest metro areas, we started by estimating a price-earnings ratio for each market. (Like the P/E ratio of a stock, this value attempts to measure the price a homeowner would pay for $1 of return.) Using data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the U.S. Census Bureau and the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, we took each market's median home price and divided it by annual rents minus taxes and insurance for those properties. For this exercise, we assumed other costs don't vary drastically from city to city.
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At Forbes.com: How much home $1 million buys in the U.S.
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At Forbes.com: Most expensive U.S. rentals
The average P/E ratio for the 40 markets is 28. Note: Unlike, say, the S&P 500 Index of stocks, ours is not a weighted-average ratio. If it were, certain cities with greater overall sheer market value would carry more weight.
We incorporated a second metric: an affordability index. Calculated from National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo data, the affordability score is the percentage of the population that can afford to buy the median-priced home, assuming a 6% mortgage rate. In a city such as Los Angeles, No. 4 on the list, a wee 2% of homes are affordable for residents pulling down a median income.
Consider Detroit. Almost 88% of its homes are available to those with a median income, and its 17.5 P/E ratio appears relatively low, but that doesn't make real estate in the Motor City a good investment. Already-stagnant home prices have decreased at a rate of 1% over the past year, and, of the major metros, Detroit is the only one on our list to have lost jobs since 2005. (New Orleans also lost jobs, but it was left off the list because after Hurricane Katrina its statistical figures were such anomalies that it wasn't comparable to the rest of the cities.)
So which markets are in bubble territory? Look for a high P/E ratio, low affordability, low income growth and a high cost of living.
San Francisco, ranked fourth, fits that bill. Despite home prices growing at a 2% clip over past year, according to the NAR, the city by the bay ranks third to last in expected income growth, reports Moody's. That's not good news in a market where only 7.5% of housing is affordable for the median-income earner. Combine that with a housing P/E ratio over 50, and it isn't difficult to imagine some softening on the horizon.
The usual suspects littered our list: Miami came in second, followed in order by Sacramento, Calif.; San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; Honolulu; New York; Los Angeles; Boston; and San Jose, Calif.
The 5 most overpriced places in the U.S.
Rank
City
Median home price
Housing price trend*
1
San Diego
$601,800
-4.5%
2
Miami
$371,000
-6.2%
3
Sacramento
$374,800
-4.1%
4
San Francisco
$736,800
2%
5
Washington, D.C.
$431,000
-4.1%
*Change over the past year
this is the link:
http://realestate.msn.com/Buying/Article_forbes.aspx?cp-documentid=4850945>1=10029
i think it's interesting to note the significant difference between miami-dade and broward county. that's almost double!
The Miami-Dade County Commission is responsible for providing water and sewer services to the residents of the County. In an effort to make themselves look good and enhance their chances for reelection they have failed to raise water rates that has led to the following:
1. Failed to build reuse facilities so that only 5% of our water is reused v. 95% for Collier County. Now the Commission has adopted a building program that is going to be very expensive (over a billion dollars) far greater than if we had started the program 15 years ago.
2. Failed to properly maintain our existing water and sewer system so that catch up maintaince, is another billion dollars short even though their are bond monies available for this purpose according to sources inside the water and sewer department.
3. failed to adopt a policy to provide water and sewer systems to the county paid for out of water and sewer fees. Both cities and the unincorporated ares have large areas without sewer and water lines, examples are East Kendall,Pinecrest, and Coral Gables.Septic tanks cause enviromental harm because of leakage and shoulg be phased out over the next 50 years.
And who chaired the oversite committee that recommends policy on water and sewer? Thats right---
Natasha Seijas
This years budget contained no increase in water and sewer rates--it was an election year.
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