This seems pretty on point. I have a friend who is in finance and did the math when they were moving from West Hartford CT to a cheap part of New Hampshire. There was only an $8,000 a year difference. They still wanted to live on west Hartford but their spouse wanted to live on NH. If they had moved to a more expensive part of NH, it probably would have been about the same. They had a lot less services where they moved in NH and NH likes to fee you to death.

Edit: it's like florida. We pay more to live in florida than we did to live in Fairfield county part of CT. Florida will fee you to death, property taxes go up every year because they add assessments last minute, then you have all the different insurances needed to have a house. It's crazy how much insurance and the types of insurances required.