Yeah, I’ll admit I’ve been watching Sex in the City DVDs with my GF.
I’m curious about what the real world rent would be for Carrie Bradthe the shaw’s Upper West Side apartment. Unlike the Manhattan apartments inhabited by characters on other television programs – some large apartment on Central Park where a coffee house barista lives by themselves – the Carrie Bradshaw apartment seems more realistic. It’s an alcove studio, somewhat shabby, but with a large walk-in closet. Yeah, I’m guessing it’ll be expensive, but how much? $2K/month? More?
are ya hooked yet? I’ve been watching it on HBO On demand, that and The Soprano’s. Saw the final of the Sopranos, and now watching it for the first time from season one, I am hooked. so so funny! And I’m hooked on SATC, I have never seen the last episodes, only 4 episodes left in this cycle on HBO. I know about Carrie and BIg but what I really want to find out ( no spolilers please) is if Smith and Sam stick it out.
Her apartment was rent-controlled.
There’s a storyline where her apartment goes co-op, and she and Aiden buy it, but then she has to buy it from him.
When she’s looking around at other apartments, she complains about how small and crappy they are, and her realtor comments that if she’s got a rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan, she really should just stay there.
There was one my my favorite scenes during those episodes; she and Miranda are shoe-shopping, and Carrie complains about not having any money for a down payment. Miranda holds up a pair of Manolo Blaniks and says, “You have 100 pairs of these at $400 each? There’s your downpayment.”
Carrie says, “But that would only be $4,000.”
Miranda says, “No, it’s $40,000.”
Carrie is shocked; she had no idea how much money she’d spent on shoes.
She ends up borrowing money to be able to afford it. The other question would be, What would an apartment like that go for, as a co-op?
Not to hijack, but can someone give me a quick primer on rent control and co-op? These are concepts I don’t really understand. (I think the first time I encountered the term “rent-controlled” was when I read Rosemary’s Baby!)
I’m pretty sure Carrie lived on the Upper East Side.
I could never figure out if her apartment was a studio or 1BR. I’d say it wouldn’t go for less than $3,000 either way, because of the location. I think VCO3’s $5K is high but I’m not sure. Although on the show, it was rent-controlled for I think $750/month.
Rent control is a spectacularly stupid idea whereby the government attempts to make housing affordable by disallowing landlords from charging the market value of a small number of their properties, thereby raising rents for everyone else.
A co-op is similar to a condo building but with a different legal structure. A corporation (the cooperative) owns the building and you buy shares in the corporation which entitle you to a proprietary lease for a particular apartment. Co-ops are common in NYC but seem to be pretty unheard-of everywhere else in the country. I don’t know why.
I only watched Sex in the City once many years ago, so I don’t remember the particulars of the apartment in question. But a studio on the upper-west side can be had for a lot less than $4500 a month. I’m looking at several decent looking ones in the NY Times Real Estate section for between $1500 and $2500. But they’re not as big as studios are typically portrayed on television.
BTW, the monthly maintenance on my co-op in Brooklyn is a whopping $419.
I assumed it was somewhere between $600K and $800K, given that she put $40K down. I’d say even as a studio, it wouldn’t go for less than $600,000. Probably a lot more.
What I don’t understand is how a freelancer with zero savings and maxed-out credit cards qualifies for a mortgage for anything at all.
In a rent controlled appartment, the landlord can only increase your rent by a predetermined amount specified in the lease.
In a co-op, you own shares in the building. To purchase or sell a co-op appartment, you must be approved by the co-op board. It is unpopular outside of Manhattan because they are generally a pain in the ass.
Carrie Bradshaw lives in the Upper East Side brownstone on 79th (according to Wikipedia). The East Side is generally cheaper than the West side so I would imagine her studio appartment going for about $1500 to $2200 in 1999 - 2004.
My East Village studio appartment, by comparison went for $1800 in 2001 and then $1600 in 2003 (I managed to talk them down $200 after it came off rent control).
My neighbors appartment went for about $1200 a month.
You only have to give up Manhattan, you can afford the other Boroughs. My Brother had a nice place in Brooklyn for only $850* in the Bayridge area. This was only two years ago.
Hey, the CHUDS give it character. I mean, what no more bums pissing in the subways. No more stripping your car down on the Deegan, no more 20000 sex stores in Times Square or even the Squeegee guys. What, you want to take the CHUDS too? What’s next the sewer Gators?
We do have co-ops here, and they tend to be slightly less expensive than condos, but also harder to get into and harder to be “creative” about financing.
What I don’t understand is the concept of “apartment” in New York City. Here, it generally means you rent a small, self contained portion of a building that has many more small self contained portions. I’ve also never heard of anyone using a real estate agent for an apartment, because you’re not the owner, just a renter.
There, do you buy apartments? Do you buy them sometimes and rent them sometimes? Do they require down payments? Do they require agents? What does the word “apartment” mean?
That’s too much. You can get a two bedroom in a doorman building for around that. My boss and his wife had a one bedroom that was around $5000 a month, but that was a huge one bedroom with a loft, a full kitchen and rooftop access in a luxury building with a doorman, gym and everything in the West Village.
As much as I like 80s night at Joshua Tree, Murray Hill is not worth $5000 a month. It’s kind of in that no-mans land between the East Village and the Upper East Side.
With your attutude and price constraints, have you considered Weehawken?
An “apartment” is indeed a small (or large) self-contained portion of a building. It will have its own kitchen and bathroom, and its own electric and gas meters.
Yes, sometimes you rent and sometimes you buy.
A “condo” means you actually own your apartment. You physically own it, just like you would own a house.
A “co-op” means you own shares (usually in an amount proportionate to the size of your apartment) in the corporation that owns the entire building, i.e., the residents of the building are the shareholders of the company that owns the building itself. You have a proprietary lease on your apartment. To buy in, you must be approved by the other members of the co-op corporation, which is a royal pain in the ass, since a co-op can refuse you for any reason, or for no reason, which means that there are co-ops in NYC that will not accept Jews, or entertainers, or African-Americans (and, of course, co-ops that will only accept Jews, etc.). You must also obtain the approval of the co-op board to made modifications to your apartment (since you do not actually own the apartment, but rather shares in the company that owns the building).
Rent control is a law that covers a fairly small number of rental apartments, and keeps rents very low. At this time, I believe, once the current occupant of a rent-controlled apartment vacates (either by moving out or dying), the apartment becomes decontrolled and goes on the free market. It is not unheard of for New York City landlords to have rent-controlled tenants killed.
Rent stablization is another law that covers a much larger number of apartments. The rents for stablized apartments, as opposed to controlled apartments, is much higher, but in some neighborhoods still lower than what that apartment would fetch on the free market. Once the rent on a stablized apartment reaches, by means of legally permitted rent increases (which are determined by time and other factors such as the price of heating oil), $2,000 per month, it becomes a free-market apartment, which is the landlord’s dream.
Contrary to what **Friedo ** says, I belive that rent stablization is a law that prevents the middle class from being driven out of the city entirely (as they have been driven out, more or less, from Manhattan, at least below 96th Street).
