June 30th, 2009
Top 5 Places where you’ll be subject to Murphy’s Laws
It seems that Murphy’s are sprouting up everywhere which is making it very hard to determine which one is best. However, using our proven method that clients such as US News, CNN/Money, Business Week, and many others employ, Onboard Informatics was able to rank and determine the best cities in this country where Murphy’s Laws do exist.
Top 5 Places named Murphy in the United States:
1) Murphy, Texas (Collin County)
Area: 5.25
Population: 9,866
Median Household Income: $105,884 (State Median Household Income: $51,056)
Total Crime Index: 45
Median Home Sale Value: $280,000
2) Murphy, California (Calaveras County)
Area: 10.30
Population: 2,679
Median Household Income: $43,624 (State Median Household Income: $59,386)
Total Crime Index: 35
Median Home Sale Value: $315,446
3) Murphy, Missouri (Jefferson County)
Area: 3.96
Population: 9,684
Median Household Income: $55,073 (State Median Household Income: $47,532)
Total Crime Index: 31
Median Home Sale Value: $113,492
4) Murphys Estates, South Carolina (Edgefield County)
Area: 2.00
Population: 1,670
Median Household Income: $31,723 (State Median Household Income: $47,075)
Total Crime Index: 63
Median Home Sale Value: $72,740
5) Murphy, North Carolina (Cherokee County)
Area: 2.28
Population: 1,730
Median Household Income: $31,573 (State Median Household Income: $49,466)
Total Crime Index: 248
Median Home Sale Value: $103,000
Methodology:
Population, Median Household Income, Total Crime Index, and the Median Home Sale Value were the variables used to determine this list. The community data points (i.e. the variables) were indexed, weighted, and ranked for each place. Certain data fields were assigned a higher rank in order to focus attention on more important variables, the following weights were assigned to the corresponding data fields after being indexed:
- Population: 20
- Place-to-State Income Index**: 30
- Total Crime Index***: 50
- Median Home Sale Value: 40
The places with the top five highest scores made the list.
**The Place-to-State Income index compared the place’s median household income to the state’s median household income. This is done so places/regions with lower or higher income are not unfairly compared to the rest of the country; simply put, it keeps things fair. Just because a salary is high, doesn’t mean its relatively high for that state/region.
***The national crime index is 100, i.e., places with an index score of 200 have twice as much crime as the National Average, places with an index score of 50 have half as much crime as the National Average.
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Tags: best places article, content provider, data, Real Estate.
Background: One of our clients questioned our estimated sales prices for properties in specific counties in Texas. They wondered why some of the prices returned were estimated rather than actual prices.
