# So My Wife Wants To Live in an Apartment **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 2, 2009, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-wife-wants-to-live-in-an-apartment/512390 "2009-10-02T20:18:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![sugar\_and\_spice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@sugar\_and\_spice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sugar_and_spice)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-wife-wants-to-live-in-an-apartment/512390/41 "2009-10-06T21:33:53Z")
**Balthisar** , was the Mexico City some sort of corporate housing deal? It sounds like it, since it included maid service, utilities, and furniture. Were the leases weekly or monthly? And I assume the maid service was included, ie, you didn’t go hire the maid yourself. If it was a corporate deal then it’s probably not a fair comparison, IME those type for corporate rentals can easily get a 100% markup in the US. Yeah maid service is cheap there but someone still has manage the place and deal with the occupants. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2009, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-wife-wants-to-live-in-an-apartment/512390/42 "2009-10-06T21:39:59Z")
> [@zweisamkeit](#): > > It sounds like you’re just not a city person, which is totally fine. My mom would love to move out to a more rural area, whereas I wouldn’t be able to stand it. Yeah, I felt obligated to point out all of the suckiness of cities, because the OP said: > [@Sundrop](#): > > I am a country boy from North Cackylacky. I have never lived in a large city. Beyond a period in college and shortly thereafter, I have never lived in an apartment. So, yeah, it’s significant to his decision that I share my perspective of not being a city person! > [@](#): > > And you pay over FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS A MONTH in MEXICO for an apartment? Yeah. > [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > Uh, $4300USD a month? You can buy a giant mansion on the beaches of Puerto Vallarta for a few hundred thousand dollars, meaning your mortgage would be significantly less for a beach front property than you’re paying for an apartment in one of the crappiest, dirtiest, most crime-ridden cities in the world. > > That and you said your apartment sucks. Eer, what? 4300 PESOS makes sense in this conversion, but not dollars. No, I said my apartment – objectively – is really pretty nice. The location sucks, but that’s subjective, because as mentioned above, I’m not a city person. And yeah, that’s the price in dollars, and it’s charged in dollars, as is most desireable real estate in Mexico. Remember, it’s a corporate apartment, and furnished, and includes all of the utilities, and maintenance, and a huge security staff. Despite the fact that everyone thinks that property in Mexico (in general) is cheap, it’s really not if you want to be in a desireable area. A masion in Vallarta right on the beach will cost you at least a million, and probably a few million, not merely several hundred thousand. Again, in dollars. I could purchase a crappy apartment in San Miguel de Allende for less than $100,000, but I wouldn’t want to live in a crappy apartment. Actually, I could purchase a humble home in Leon for about that, but I don’t want a house that takes up 100% of the lot, either. As for Mexico City (well, it’s actually in the state of Mexico, not the D.F.), consider that the old saying that they’re not building any more land, and that goes doubly for the “zonas nice” like where I’m at. ---
**Author:** ![Picard\_Kills\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/dec6dc/32.png) [@Picard\_Kills\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Picard_Kills_Kirk)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-wife-wants-to-live-in-an-apartment/512390/43 "2009-10-06T21:53:44Z")
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**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2009, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-wife-wants-to-live-in-an-apartment/512390/44 "2009-10-06T22:28:20Z")
> [@Sundrop](#): > > But out of curiosity, what would $2500/mo. get you in New York? 500 sq. ft in a bad part of town? NYC doens’t really have any “bad parts of town” anymore. $2500 can probably get you a decent studio or 1BR about 600 sq ft or less. You wouldn’t be in a bad neighborhood, but you might be in the less desirable parts of good neighborhoods. Possibly a walkup and not much of a view. For example, Midtown, Upper East or West Side away from the park, Murry Hill, Battery Park City (which is nice, but you are sort of isolated down by the WTC area), Alphabet City and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2009, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-wife-wants-to-live-in-an-apartment/512390/45 "2009-10-06T23:24:23Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > NYC doens’t really have any “bad parts of town” anymore. $2500 can probably get you a decent studio or 1BR about 600 sq ft or less. You wouldn’t be in a bad neighborhood, but you might be in the less desirable parts of good neighborhoods. Possibly a walkup and not much of a view. For example, Midtown, Upper East or West Side away from the park, Murry Hill, Battery Park City (which is nice, but you are sort of isolated down by the WTC area), Alphabet City and so on. Or a very nice 2 BR in very safe, family-friendly, not excessively hip part of Brooklyn or Queens. Which, ahem, are also in New York City. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2009, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-wife-wants-to-live-in-an-apartment/512390/46 "2009-10-07T00:56:00Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > Or a very nice 2 BR in very safe, family-friendly, not excessively hip part of Brooklyn or Queens. Which, ahem, are also in New York City. Yes, the term Bridge & Tunnel isn’t used so much these days since Williamsburg and DUMBO in Brooklyn became trendy places to live. Long Island City and Astoria in Queens are also popular places to live as well. And while Jersey City and Hoboken, NJ are technically not part of New York City (or state for that matter), for all intents and purposes they can be considered a sixth borough of New York. You don’t need a car to live there and you can get to some parts of NYC faster than you can from within Manhattan. Plus they have a much nicer riverside area and you can get great views of the Manhattan skyline. ---
**Author:** ![CBEscapee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@CBEscapee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBEscapee)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2009, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-wife-wants-to-live-in-an-apartment/512390/47 "2009-10-07T02:20:44Z")
> [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > Uh, $4300USD a month? You can buy a giant mansion on the beaches of Puerto Vallarta for a few hundred thousand dollars, meaning your mortgage would be significantly less for a beach front property than you’re paying for an apartment in one of the crappiest, dirtiest, most crime-ridden cities in the world. > > That and you said your apartment sucks. Eer, what? 4300 PESOS makes sense in this conversion, but not dollars. For one thing, you couldn’t touch a small house on the beach in Vallarta for a few hundred thousand. Houses in typical middle-class neighborhoods here in Guadlajara go for that and we’re 300km from the beach. And it is hard to find an apartment here in a good neighborhood for 4300 pesos. My daughter lives in México City and pays the equivalent of 2500usd for a 2 br apt. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2009, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-wife-wants-to-live-in-an-apartment/512390/48 "2009-10-07T02:22:08Z")
> [@sugar\_and\_spice](#): > > **Balthisar** , was the Mexico City some sort of corporate housing deal? It sounds like it, since it included maid service, utilities, and furniture. Were the leases weekly or monthly? And I assume the maid service was included, ie, you didn’t go hire the maid yourself. > > If it was a corporate deal then it’s probably not a fair comparison, IME those type for corporate rentals can easily get a 100% markup in the US. Yeah maid service is cheap there but someone still has manage the place and deal with the occupants. Missed this as we nearly simul-posted. Yeah, corporate deal, and that’s the rate for a 6-month minimum lease. IIRC, 1-month leases were about 25% to 33% higher. Quite honestly, I think it’s a waste of money. I know that it’s above the market rate if I were to “do it myself,” but probably not 100% above market rate. Frankly, I could do better renting a real house close to work, and have an actual piece of living plant matter on the property, but the company is worried about out physical security. It’s all baloney; the company doesn’t worry about the native employees that live close to work? It’s ironic that the locals oooh and aaah over where we live, and that I detest it with every ounce of my soul. I should consider subletting, and getting a real house in real Mexico instead of fake concrete Mexico where there’s no such thing as ethnicity. That would probably be worthy of firing, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-my-wife-wants-to-live-in-an-apartment/512390.md?page=2)