Most Expensive Places To Live In Mississippi For 2020

The 10 Most Expensive Places To Live In Mississippi For 2020

1. Oxford

Oxford is a city in, and the county seat of, Lafayette County, Mississippi, United States. Founded in 1837, it was named after the British university city of Oxford in hopes of having the state university located there, which it did successfully attract.

The median income in Oxford comes in at $39,886 and the median home value is $258,600 for 2020.

2. Starkville

Starkville is a city in and the county seat of Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, United States. The Starkville Micropolitan Statistical Area includes all of Oktibbeha County. The population was 23,888 at the 2010 census.

The median income in Starkville comes in at $33,942 and the median home value is $171,200 for 2020.

3. Bay St. Louis

The median income in Bay St. Louis comes in at $38,618 and the median home value is $170,400 for 2020.

4. Picayune

Picayune is the largest city in Pearl River County, Mississippi. The population was 10,878 at the 2010 census. Picayune was added to the New Orleans metropolitan area in 2014, however it remains its own town respectively. The city is located approximately 45 miles from New Orleans, Hattiesburg and Gulfport-Biloxi. The Stennis Space Center is 10 miles away.

The median income in Picayune comes in at $33,451 and the median home value is $117,000 for 2020.

Pass Christian, nicknamed The Pass, is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, United States. It is part of the Gulfport-Biloxi Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 4,613 at the 2010 census.

The median income in Pass Christian comes in at $46,779 and the median home value is $191,600 for 2020.

6. Biloxi

Biloxi is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, United States. The 2010 United States Census recorded the population as 44,054, and in 2016 the estimated population was 45,975. Along with the adjoining city of Gulfport, Biloxi is a county seat of Harrison County. It was first settled by French colonists.

The median income in Biloxi comes in at $44,972 and the median home value is $156,700 for 2020.

7. Natchez

The median income in Natchez comes in at $26,288 and the median home value is $108,000 for 2020.

8. Hattiesburg

Hattiesburg is a city in the U.S. state of Mississippi, primarily in Forrest County and extending west into Lamar County. The city population was 45,989 at the 2010 census, with an estimated population of 46,805 in 2015. It is the principal city of the Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses Forrest, Lamar and Perry counties.

The median income in Hattiesburg comes in at $33,792 and the median home value is $112,100 for 2020.

9. Columbus

Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Lowndes County, Mississippi, United States, located primarily east, but also north and northeast of the Tombigbee River, which is also referred to as the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. It is approximately 146 miles northeast of Jackson, 92 miles north of Meridian, 63 miles south of Tupelo, 60 miles northwest of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and 120 miles west of Birmingham, Alabama. The population was 25,944 at the 2000 census and 23,640 in 2010. The population in 2012 was estimated to be 23,452. Columbus is the principal city of the Columbus Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is part of the larger Columbus-West Point Combined Statistical Area. Columbus is also part of the area of Mississippi called The Golden Triangle, consisting of Columbus, West Point and Starkville, in the counties of Lowndes, Clay and Oktibbeha.

The median income in Columbus comes in at $33,917 and the median home value is $116,000 for 2020.

10. Cleveland

Cleveland is a city in Bolivar County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 12,334 as of the 2010 United States Census.

The median income in Cleveland comes in at $35,203 and the median home value is $115,800 for 2020.

How We Determined The Most Expensive Places To Live In The Magnolia State For 2020

The two most important things to think about when it comes to being able to afford if you can live comes down to:

1. How much do money do I make?
2. How much do I have spend to live there?

You need to understand your costs in the context of how much money you make.

For example, if the median household earns $100,000 and spends $40,000 on housing it's actually cheaper to live there than a place with a median income of $50,000 and housing costs of $21,000. You might spend more on housing, but you have more money overall to play with.

With that example in mind, we derived several statistics from the latest Census American Community Survey 2014-2018 around incomes and costs. They are:

• Median Home Price / Median Income (lower is better)
• Median Income / Median Rent (Higher is better)
• Median Home Price

We added simply median home price because high home prices generally correlate with higher expenses for all costs related to homes (heating, electricity, etc).

You can then compare these metrics in each of the places in Mississippi to figure out which is the most expensive.

What you are left with is a "Cost of Living Index" by taking the average rank of each of these metrics for each city.

So we used that cost of living index in order to rank all of the 62 places in Mississippi that have more than 5,000 people.

The place with the highest cost of living in Mississippi according to the data is Oxford. You can download the data here.