I live in Manhattan, specifically Harlem. The neighborhood has good and bad points but on the whole it is okay. I wouldn’t want to raise kids here but for a young couple it isn’t bad at all. We have a 650 sq ft loft apartment with incredible ammenities for NYC (dishwasher, washer, dryer, back yard, etc.) and we pay $1450 per month. The building is,fortunately and unfortunately, going through a series of repairs at the moment so this time next year it will be awesome but until then there are occasional issues. We expected that with a building made in 1923 but it is still a bit of a pain.
$550 rent for a nice little two bedroom house with a decent sized kitchen and a huge fenced in back yard in a not-really-so-great area of Memphis, but in a quiet cove where we rarely see any trouble.
All I feel right now is pure envy. Envy is an emotion that I don’t often feel. Right now, I feel it in it’s concentrated form.
ETA: I live in a ghetto of Rochester, NY. I small 2 bedroom apt. 475 a month. I love my apt and my neighborhood. It is considered a bad neighborhood, but I love it, and it is really close to a ‘good’ neighborhood, so walking distance to a lot of good and fun and artsy stuff.
Small town, Middle Tennessee, nice part of town - -
$880 for 3 bedroom/2 bath apartment. ~800 square feet. Came with washer and drier. Utilities extra.
I live in Maastricht, Netherlands, an university town of about 100.000 people. My house is just outside the city centre. I own the two lower floors of an 1929 town house, 3 tiny bedrooms, 1 bathroom, and a decent back yard, and my mortgage is, after taxes, 600 euros. I make 1600 euros a month after taxes.
Before this, We used to rent the top floor of the same house, (2 bedroom 1 tiny bathroom) but it was a bit bare and neglected then. Our rent was very cheap then, even by Dutch standards, 350 euros.
In between, I lived in a beautiful loft apartment in the old centre of Maastricht for 900 euro’s a month including heat and amenities.
$6,500 for a 1,100 sq ft two bedroom in Manhattan. It’s on 72nd street, next door to the Dakota. Beautiful full service building, pre-war but completely renovated two years ago.
It’s a ridiculous amount to pay in rent. But - happy wife, happy life.
I rent a 1 bedroom house (950 SQ FT) with covered parking and a yard (backyard is fenced in) for $750 a month, which also covers all my utilities except internet. I’m in a blue collar neighborhood. We all know each other. One of my neighbors has lived on this street his entire life and can tell you who used to pay him to mow their yard 45 years ago. I’ve been renting here for 12 years now (I should mention that my landlords are awesome folks, too).
Phew, I’m jealous of you ALL.
At current exchange rates I pay $2,515.53 per month for a two bed, two story apartment with two large balconies overlooking a nice park in an urban area of London which is a mixture of being very rough and achingly trendy.
Just out of curiosity, roughly what percentage of your monthly income is spent on rent?
Milwaukee, right on the border between East Town (part of downtown) and the East Side, maybe two blocks from the lake. (So, good neighborhood. Also very walkable.)
One-bedroom apartment, 770 square feet. My own washer, dryer, and dishwasher. Roomy closets. 10’ x 6’ balcony facing west, with townhouses across the street (and I’m on the fourth–top–floor), so I get a great view (awesome sunsets), including some of downtown. Building includes a business center (computers, printer, fax) and an exercise center (treadmill, elliptical, stationary bike, free weights, etc.), a common room (giant TV, fireplace, etc.), and we’re getting a :rolleyes: tanning bed. The open patio space out back is nicely landscaped with screening foliage, and has lots of chairs and benches, a firepit, and a grill. There’s staff in the office all day while I’m at work who do things like bring my packages to my apartment.
$1250/month, plus I pay another $25 for a storage area in the building. That doesn’t include any utilities (I pay my own water, sewer, trash, electricity, gas) or parking (I don’t own a car or even drive). It’s pretty expensive for Milwaukee (though certainly not the highest by any means), but IMO totally worth it.
$900 for a decent-sized 1brm (750 sq ft?) in San Jose. Water and garbage is included. It’s quite a bit below market rate–most of the tenants are Sisters of Notre Dame (on fixed incomes). The rent is set to be affordable for them, and we haven’t had an increase in 4 years.
The area is okay; we’re on the border between an affluent neighborhood and a decidely less affluent area (lots of section 8 housing). The complex itself dates back to the 60s, so the fixtures, cabinets, are rather dated. Management (one of the Sisters) does an okay job of keeping the place up (the grouds are well kept), but maintenance is often deferred until things are really broken.
The location is convenient to everywhere I want to go, I can walk or take light rail to the store, my dentist, movies, even work if my car is in the shop. The absolute best thing about the complex, though, is that it is quiet. Noisy neighbors never last more than a couple of weeks–they either learn to tone it down or get evicted.
I live in the Boston area with my fiancee, and we pay $1100 a month for a large studio/small one bedroom (it’s got a separate bedroom and bathroom, but the rest is all one room). It’s in a decent area (east Somerville to be specific)-- very residential and not very trendy or exciting, but it’s quiet and close to public transit, so it’s pretty easy to get to shopping or nightlife when we want to. Some of the surrounding area is pretty industrial, but since I used to live in the Detroit area I’m still pleasantly surprised to see that “industrial” does not necessarily equal “burned down warehouses full of crack dens”.
If we wanted to pay much less for a similarly decent apartment, we’d have to look in fairly dodgy areas or out in the 'burbs.
I live in a nice middle-class area near the centre of Padua, Italy. I have a huge room and share bathroom and kitchen with one other woman. I pay 415 euro (about 590 dollar) but that’s including all charges except internet.
However, I would love to live in Maastricht’s house and town. There or Den Bosch. (I’m from between those two, Maastricht)
Upper East Side of Manhattan, NYC, big studio apartment with eat-in kitchen and dressing room (which serves as the music room), doorman building, the street dead-ends at the east river promenade (iow quiet), a block from a nice park. Rent: $866.89. Yes, I’ve been there forever (well, 19 years).
$825 for a nice 1 bedroom in a good part of inner-city Houston. Typical of the area in that its a small 20 unit complex across the street from $700k-1mil homes. 3 blocks down from the new mayor, actually.
The last place I rented was $975/month, this was a 700 sq. ft. 1BR, in Chicago (Hyde Park). I really didn’t need that much space, it was a top floor unit, I already lived in the building, and my lease renewal date snuck up on me. It was so big that I moved into the living room and rented out the bedroom for a few months, just because I could. The area is fine by Chicago standards but it’s isolated. People complain about that but I prefer it that way, I used to go the university that was in the center of fucking everything and no one could afford to live there.
One bed, one bath, front half of a duplex that was built in 1930. Small, homey, cottage-like - wood floors, 9 or 10 foot ceilings, plenty of windows. Slightly run down - the bathroom is moldy, I could use a new stove - but literally right downtown and within walking distance of everything. Tallahassee isn’t a big city, but it’s not a small town, either. My nearest neighbors on this street live in 300K - 500K condos. I have a small kitchen, a decent living and bedroom, and an average bathroom with a larger than usual tub. Large, private parking lot in the back, plus probably the only downtown bonfire pit. My unit is one of 5 (there is a triplex next door to us). I pay $370 a month, and they’re going to have to pry me out with a crowbar to get rid of me.
I live near Burlington, VT and pay $425 (no utilities included) for one bedroom in a four bedroom house, We also have living room, dining room, large kitchen, downstairs office, laundry room+half bath, full basement, attic, about 1/8 acre backyard, and detached garage. It’s not a bad deal, about average for the area. Parking is the sucky part…four cars in a single lane driveway, and we can’t park overnight on the street between Dec and March because of snow and plowing.
I’d like to live by myself, but if I wanted a one bedroom in this area, it would be ~$650 -$750 for a studio, and $750-$1200 for a one bedroom (again, utilities probably not included. Possibly just cold water and sewer.) The cost of living in this area is actually very disproportionate to the average income. I don’t want to even get into what mortgages and housing prices are like (let’s just say that a friend in Tampa Bay, Florida was looking at houses, and similar ones up here were 2.5-3 times the price.)
I live in Southwest Atlanta (my son calls it the hood) and I love my neighborhood.
I live about 2 blocks from a MARTA (mass transit) station.
I live in a one bedroom duplex - no dining room, but I have a nice sit down bar between my living room and kitchen, I have a tiny washer/dryer set (my own) and a dishwasher. Everything is electric - I have a great glass top stove and my rent is just $735.
I don’t smoke inside my home and I luckily have a big covered front porch where I can smoke.
Down the block from me there’s a full house for rent for $980. Pretty good deal.
I pay a $580 mortgage for a 1,800 sq. ft. 90 year old house in the heart of an historic district in Indianapolis. 3 bed, 1.5 bath, 1 car garage, 40x210 ft lot.