Editorial Standards

Our Editorial Mission

CostByCounty is a data-journalism site. Our job is to take the housing-cost statistics that the federal government already publishes — median rent, home values, owner costs, and affordability ratios — and present them in a form that someone planning a move, comparing places to live, or researching housing trends can actually use. We are not a financial-advisory resource. We do not provide investment advice, mortgage recommendations, or relocation consulting.

Every page on this site is grounded in a primary-source dataset from a U.S. government agency. Where we compute composite scores or rank counties, we publish the underlying formula on our methodology page. Where we draw on AI assistance for prose, we say so on this page and on the page itself.

Who Writes and Edits This Site

CostByCounty is published and edited by Logan Johnson, Founder & Data Editor. Logan designs the data pipeline, sets the methodology, reviews published prose for accuracy against the underlying data, and signs off on every methodology change. Logan is not a financial advisor, real-estate professional, or licensed appraiser, and CostByCounty does not present itself as a financial-advisory resource. Logan's role is the data-editor role: ensure statistics on this site match the source datasets, ensure prose stays inside what the data supports, and decline to publish anything that strays into financial-advice territory.

Long-form features and reported pieces, when published, carry an explicit byline naming the writer and — where relevant — a named subject-matter reviewer. The byline appears at the top of the article.

Where Our Data Comes From

All county-level statistics on this site come from primary government sources. We do not republish data from third-party aggregators. Our active source is:

• U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates — the most comprehensive source of county-level demographic and economic data in the United States. Provides median gross rent, median home value, median monthly owner costs, median household income, rent burden (GRAPI), and related housing-cost metrics for every U.S. county. We use the most recent 5-year release available.

Each source's URL, release date, and pull date are documented on the methodology page. Census data is in the public domain (federal works).

How We Use AI

Per-county pages on this site include a short, AI-generated narrative summary that contextualizes the statistics for that county. The narrative is produced by Claude (Anthropic) from the same source data shown in the statistics tables on the page. Logan, as Data Editor, reviews the underlying prompt and spot-checks output before publication; the prompt is constrained to forbid causation claims, financial advice, and any prose that goes beyond what the source statistics support.

We do not use AI to:

• Generate financial advice, investment recommendations, or mortgage guidance.
• Invent statistics, sources, or quotes.
• Write methodology, editorial standards, or correction notices.
• Generate cause-and-effect claims about housing markets that aren't grounded in the source data.

When the underlying data is updated, narratives are regenerated to stay consistent. AI-generated prose is always paired with the source statistics so readers can verify the numbers themselves.

Corrections Policy

If you spot a factual error — a wrong statistic, a misattributed source, a broken citation — email logan@costbycounty.com with the page URL and the specific issue. We aim to acknowledge every report within five business days and to publish a correction or update the page within ten business days for substantive issues.

Substantive corrections (changes to a statistic, methodology, or claim) are noted in a "Corrections" entry on the page itself with the date of the correction and a short description of what changed. Typographical and formatting fixes are made silently.

How CostByCounty Is Funded

CostByCounty is independently owned and operated. It is part of the ByCounty Network of data sites. Funding comes from two transparent sources:

• Display advertising served by Google AdSense and similar networks. Ad placements are clearly labeled and do not influence editorial decisions or which counties we rank where.
• Affiliate links, currently limited to moving-service and mortgage-comparison referrals. Affiliate links are labeled "Sponsored" and never determine which counties we feature on data pages.

We do not accept paid content, sponsored statistics, or advertorials. No data source, advertiser, or affiliate has any influence over the methodology, rankings, or editorial choices on this site.

Update Cadence

Underlying data is refreshed annually, on the release schedule of the U.S. Census Bureau (ACS 5-Year Estimates release in December). Narratives are regenerated when the underlying data for a county changes. The methodology page displays its own "Last reviewed" date and changelog. This editorial-standards page was last reviewed on May 14, 2026.