This is similar to the stats about Manhattan apartments though. Normal people aren’t paying 3k/mo to live in Manhattan. The 3k/mo people are the same ones that would be spending 1k/mo on their cars if they lived somewhere else
I know. I live in an area where it is below $50k. All I'm saying is that $2000 for areas of Brooklyn that are very close to lower Manhattan is not expensive for new or recent residents. It probably is for businesses or families that have rented there for decades.
Saying you lived below a COO makes it seem like you lived in Manhattan. It is quite easy to live comfortably in the outer boroughs (one hour commute to Manhattan) on far less - I would be comfortable with even $40,000 a year.
First, I'm looking at apartments on the market RIGHT NOW that are under $3k. You can apply for these right now.
We're also using an extreme, living in Manhattan is a luxury. It is one of the most expensive places to live on the planet. Even using this extreme your argument doesn't hold water. You would do well on $200k paying $3.5k/m in rent. That's high, but shouldn't kill you.
I would argue that using the median or average in an area that has so much luxury housing is also dishonest. I know people paying over $5k for STUDIO APARTMENTS in NYC.
They love the building, I dunno!
JC median 1br is $3k, north bergen nj 2br is $2,400.... but there are plenty of 1 and 2br in JC and NB that are under $2k on the market right now. Thousands of units, actually.
Including kids, or if you have a stay at home spouse or something, you're right. You can't really live in the area on $200k. That is a problem. Your wife needs to work and bring in at least $80k, especially if you have more than 2 kids. But we're kind of moving the goalposts here, aren't we?
the fact there exists 2 bedroom apartments for under $3k doesn’t mean that’s the norm in Manhattan. there’s very few and it’s clearly nowhere near the median when the median 1 bed is over $3800.
and you’ve mistaken what I said if you think I’m suggesting it’s “hard” to live on $200k in NYC. the point is more that it’s just a normal salary in a high cost area at this point, and after taxes and retirement savings and regular monthly expenses you’d be lucky to save $30k a year. hard to save for a house or start a family and care for dependents without being close to paycheck to paycheck at that income.
I'm not a New Yorker but I'm having a very hard time believing this. Poking around online I get the strong sense any non-roommate living space at all in Manhattan is going to be very well over $2000.
> In 2011, while primarily working on pandas, I was paying $2000 per month for a ground-level "1 bedroom" apartment in the East Village. It was less than 500 square feet and had none of the above amenities.
You know, you can always tell when a non-native New Yorker lives in New York, because they all choose one of five neighborhoods to live in, and then complain about their poor living conditions.
My guy, you can live in one of the other boroughs, have an average commute to work, and have good living conditions that satisfy at least half of your list of requirements there for $2000 in 2011.
Like other commentators here have said, people of a certain class (and age) want to have their cake and eat it too.
They are for several reasons. They are lying about the price of rent, saying it is higher than it is. They are insisting that you need to live in Manhattan, when there are places about half as cheap very close to Manhattan.
I'm not saying the area is inexpensive. Don't argue with a strawman.
>you can easily find a 2 bedroom in Jackson Heights for under $300k
I agree with your overall point, but home prices are somewhat misleading in NYC. The "affordable" places tend to have lots of fees. That $300k 2b in Jackson Heights that's within walking distance to a subway line is probably going to have a $900 HOA.
According to the article, NYC residents should only be spending $3,271 per month on basic living expenses to live 'comfortably'. I find that a little hard to believe?
> Nobody I know pays more than $3k/m for their apartment.
Few people I know pay under. We live in parallel dimensions I guess.
> In my case, I chose to go for a non-luxury apartment for $1.8k/m.
I don't know what NYC you live in, but this is non-existent AFAIK. I know someone who went all the way to Rego Park (this is really far from Manhattan) to rent a 1BR for $2.5k.
As a data point, I pay $2310/mo (total, not individual) for a 3-bedroom apartment in a safe, vibrant, reasonably commutable part of Manhattan. The NYC residents you're talking about are making poor decisions with their money.
However, that's not a reasonable long-term salary. [..] you walk away with 100K [..] It's like making less than 50K at a job with benefits
I'm glad that there are people who believe that 50K isn't a reasonable salary, because if you get used to spending less than half that, you can deal with almost any crisis while everyone else gets into panic mode as soon as they're out of work for a month or can't pay for fancy private schools or bizarrely structured retirement funds :-)
NYC's expensive, sure, but 50K is above even the NYC median personal income (and to the best of my research, just above the median NYC household income too).
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