Well, it is a home-based office arrangement where you work out in the field marketing products 4 days a week and do paperwork on fridays. I never thought of the parking ticket issue; I guess I’ll have to ask about that when the time is right.
I would second JC, given your price range and proximity to NYC.
Another possibility you might want to consider is Stamford, CT or Westerchester County NY. It’s only about a 45 min train ride.
Update: towaga84
Guest
Join Date: Feb 2007
Manhattan Apartment Advice
Hey,
The moderator closed my topic and said I posted this before but actually it was before I got the job and was when I thought I could live OUTSIDE of the manhattan area, rather than being required to live WITHIN it.
Here’s my issue:
So I am excited. I just graduated from the University at Buffalo and I have been interviewing for months for a Marketing Job with Bose. I got the call today that it’s mine
It’s about a 55,000 dollar job to start but they pay for the following:
Company Car
Gas
Parking
Internet
Cell Phone
So I am pretty excited. The only thing I have to be careful about is that I have to live in Manhattan (no ifs ands or buts). My boss wants me there. He actually raised the starting offer just to make sure I do live there.
My question to you: What areas would be good for a young recent grad with a salary like mine? I am looking for an area where I might have some more college grads around or something cool.
I want a 1 bedroom+bedroom+kitchen+main room
I understand that lots of my income will go towards rent. Give me some suggestions
You’re making $55,000 a year. That breaks down to about $4500 a month pre-tax. Experts say you should spend no more than 28% of that monthly salary on rent. 28% of $4500 is $1260.
So you’re really looking for a place sub-$1000. Honestly, a one bedroom apartment is going to be a stretch.
The best thing to do is to scale back a bit - and rent a room in a shared apartment. Look here at the New York craigslist. Try and find something close to work / close to a good Subway line.
Good luck.
Well, no, even if you believe the experts, he’s looking for a place sub-$1260, obviously including the cost of heat, gas, and electricity if that’s extra. Was that your calculation, subtracting utilities?
And, depending on his circumstances, it might not be unreasonable to go above 28%, depending on his debt level and his taste for fine clothes and fine dining.
That said, towaga84, you’d better be prepared for some serious sticker shock in moving to New York from Buffalo, and the advice of looking for a shared place rather than going it on your own might be well taken. At least until you get your feet on the ground.
I’m not a New Yorker but I hang out a lot there. My friend lives in one of those humongous tenement kind of buildings near East Broadway and Grand. I really like the area, you can walk to Chinatown and the Village. Some of my friend’s friends live around Allen and E. Houston and I believe that area is one of the cheaper places in the city. The places they live in are tiny cramped studio apartments.
It’s going to be a bit of an ordeal to find a decent 1 bedroom that is affordable anywhere in Manhattan. Don’t set your expectations very high. You might want to try to consider getting some roommates. Also, from what I understand it isn’t easy to get onsite parking in most places.
I don’t mean to discourage you. Manhattan is a world class place to live, and I am envious of any recent college grad who has the opportunity to work there.
There are young people all over the place in the divier neighborhoods. Except of course, my friends neighborhood which is full of 90 year old Jewish pensioners. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of having close subway access.
Yeah - I got the math down (I did it myself! :p) I was simply accounting for utilities + the fact that even though 28% is the maximum, you don’t have to spend 28%. Then I started thinking about the cost of everything in Manhattan and I was like “jeez - I know he’s just a guest, but we should probably save him enough money that he could buy a loaf of bread or a large bag of rice.”
So that’s why I ballparked it at sub-$1000.
heh, thanks guys. I have no debt, etc.
I will have to keep doing research. When I search for about $1200/month I do get quite a large listing of newly-renovated 1 bedrooms. Some are in Washington Heights/Harlem/etc.
Is that why? Is that a terrible area where I will be at major risk or something?
Thanks for this calculation-it’s valuable. So even with no debt and car/parking/cell phone paid for I should spend 28%? How would you say utilities play into this?
God I appreciate this help, it’s stressful heh!
There might be a few one bedroom apartments for 1200 in Manhattan. But, um, temper your expectations a bit.
I moved out of downtown (not a bad neighborhood, but not trendy or desireable) about two years ago. We had a 700 square foot one bedroom. We paid 2800 per month. And that was with the subsidy for living near the trade center. So, now that apartment would be 3300 a month (assuming rents haven’t increased since then, which I’m sure they have).
Yeah, those expectations in my first post were when I thought I could live outside of manhattan.
I really just want a 1 bedroom in manhattan with maybe a sep. kitchen area. on the New York Times Real Estate site that someone suggested I see a bunch of listings but who knows.
Should I consider Washington Heights or Harlem not a good idea?
Thanks for all of the help!
no way you’re going to get a quality 1-bedroom in a good neighborhood for 1200 a month. I second a roommate situation, or changing your minimum standard to shoebox-sized studios.
My question: why do you get a car and gas stipend if you’re living in MANHATTAN? That doesn’t seem to make sense, unless your job is going to be driving all over the place in the five boroughs.
Washington heights has some nice places, but you have to check them out first- I have friends who live up there and it’s absolutely gorgeous around columbia, but if you get too far from the campus then it turns very heavily minority, black and/or hispanic depending, and also a bit dirty-looking, which is still a safe area but many people aren’t comfortable with it, especially if you haven’t lived in a big city before.
It seems dumb for your boss to insist that you live within manhattan, where 90% of it is prohibitively expensive for recent college grads, many of whom tend to have debt up the wazoo ANYWAY. I live right over the bridge in astoria, I live two blocks from the subway, my commute is 15 minutes flat, and I’m paying $750/mo rent. I would assume he expects you to find a roommate.
If you insist upon living alone, in a one-bedroom, you better go through a good broker and pay the goddamn fee. If you try to find the deals yourself, you’ll be looking forever and getting nowhere.
If you’re talking about Columbia’s main campus, where it is nice in the neighborhood, that is in Morningside Heights, not Washington Heights. No chance of getting a low rent place around there.
Washington Heights holds Columbia’s Medical campus, where I spent several years, and never saw anything nice. The only benefit of Washington Heights is that it has the 168th street station which has an express A train; you can get to other parts of Manhattan easily.
If I understand correctly, these areas are being renovated and don’t have the stigma they used to. They may still be predominantly non-white, if that’s important, but I certainly have white friends who live there and haven’t had a problem.
Back to this driving samples around thing…how much stuff do you have to carry, because public transportation or even cabbing it with a wheelie bag might be preferable to trying to keep a car in Manhattan.
Forgot to mention a reference point. My brother lives in a studio (plenty for one person, not the shoebox size) in a doorman building in Kips Bay (near Murray Hill) in the 30s on the East side. He pays $1800 plus utilities.
FYI, it’s also illegal for him to insist so.
Washington Heights or Harlem is better than it used to be. It’s still kind of far though. People forget that it could take them an hour to get someplace within Manhattan.
Yes, the thing with Washington Heights is that its not any closer to midtown or downtown than parts of Queens or Brooklyn. Really, you’d probably be closer to your clients if you lived in Brooklyn Heights. Harlem is closer to midtown, but more convenient apartments are more expensive. Morningside Heights is not a budget neighborhood.
Also keep in mind that many of the ads are put up by brokers, who are going to be advertising their cheapest listing, which even then may be a fictitious bait-and-switch. Even in Queens I often didn’t get to see the apartment I called about. The ads get you in the door, and then they take you around to whatever is in your price range (plus some on the high side). Don’t get me wrong, I do believe there are honest brokers out there, but even the honest ones have to manage expectations.
Having worked in NYC real estate for a year, I know that most places require you to gross 40x the rent, therefore, you’re looking at $1375 tops to get your own place. You won’t find a decent (or any, really) one-bedroom anywhere in Manhattan below 125th St. at that price. However, quite a few places will rent you an apartment at a higher rent, if you have an excellent guarantor to co-sign the lease with you.
As for the Washington Heights area (155th to Inwood), I lived on 135th and Broadway (known as Hamilton Heights) for the year of 2005. As others have said, it is still mostly Hispanic, but it is perfectly safe, and I never saw any violent act or evidence thereof, and I walked the streets there at all hours. I wouldn’t characterize it as any dirtier than, say, the East Village. Of course I’m sure you know that the best thing to do is check out as many neighborhoods as possible, and at different hours.
And yes, I was a broker and thus may be a bit biased, but you will get a better apartment and make better use of your money if you bite the bullet and pay a fee to find a place. The brokers have the nicer apartments (if you were a broker, would you want to show sub-par places to your clients?), you can quickly see a number of places in different neighborhoods, and building up a relationship with a good broker is a great idea, especially when you get that first raise or bonus and want to move up to a better place, or even buy!
Interesting; I hadn’t heard that but it fits. When I was making $24K and living in The Bronx, I paid just under $600.
By subway though, since there is the express train stop at 168th, it’s less than 15 minutes to 42nd Street. Much faster than Brooklyn, and infinitely faster than Queens.
Thank you for the advice guys. My cousin lives in Queens and she is going to have me stay with her until we find a place. She knows Manhattan really well, in terms of neighborhoods, so it should be easier.