Apartments

[Paragon Fury]

I feel like everyone has forgotten that apartments are supposed to be cheaper and more affordable then houses, not just as if not more expensive. Especially when you're not looking in high-quality, luxury apartments.

Looking today and all the options are like, hey, you want a single bedroom small apartment? Well, either they don't exist or they start a like, $1,500 a month before utilities which it should be noted is more than what many people would pay for per month for a semi-nice house. Even the Affordable Housing rooms are like $837 per month which means that at the maximum income you can have to be in one of those (Approx. $34,000 per year income) you'd still be spending 1/4th your income per year on just the rent, not even utilities - made even worse of you make less than that.

And the States that do have cheap rent? Either they have no jobs...or there is a reason no one wants to live there.

I always hear the Governors and Senators for different States saying they're trying to keep young people there to boost the economy instead of them just getting and education and fleeing the State...but never hear them say or do anything about affordable housing or rent control; something that would be a pretty strong driver for young people who don't have a lot of money to stay in your State for, because they could actually make those $8 dollar an hour, $12 an hour starter jobs actually get them decent shelter and living quarters.

Oh wait. Is that that logic thing we're not allowed to do?

 

[DefunctTheory]

Housing cost are typically tightly bound to midian/average income in that area/state.

I'd like to respond more deeply, but I'm fairly certain most of your post is hyperbole. 1,500 is the cheapest you can get? I doubt that. I really, really do.

 

[tippy2k2]

I live in a shit hole studio apartment at $515 per month (easily the cheapest I could find). As stated, it's a shit hole but you get what you pay for.

The cheapest 1 BR I've been able to find is $575 (before utilities) with the average in my area being about $950 (again, before utilities).

I'm not sure where you live but unless it's New York City or Silicon Valley, you should be able to find plenty of options. Craig's List is a surprisingly great resource for apartment hunting if you're looking to move right away.

 

[gsilver]

I used to rent rooms inside of houses
And now I own a house.


**** apartments. Way more expensive than renting rooms (and even mortgage payments sometimes...) and I always had trouble with noisy neighbors, poor maintenance, parking, receiving packages, and tons of other stuff.

 

[seventy two]

My apartment is ~800 a month after utilities for a two bedroom apartment. This is in Boise, Idaho a large city with low crime and a decent variety of industry(And lower than average unemployment). There are plenty of places where rent is still reasonable, so I find it unfair to say that rent in unbearable in all desirable circumstances.

 

[Zontar]

I used to rent rooms inside of houses
And now I own a house.

Pretty much doing the same (currently in the "renting rooms" stage) but 1500$/month on a 20 year mortgage in my town will get a fairly nice house with a lot that suburbanites could only dream of (though then again living as far out from the city as I do tends to bring down costs). Guess I'm lucky in that regard, cheap properties in the place I want to live coupled with the line of work I'm entering's entry level salaries I could realistically afford a family home with a 15 year mortgage on a single income.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Housing cost are typically tightly bound to midian/average income in that area/state.

I'd like to respond more deeply, but I'm fairly certain most of your post is hyperbole. 1,500 is the cheapest you can get? I doubt that. I really, really do.

It completely depends on where you live. $1500 monthly rent here is considered extremely low, for example, most apartments are much more than that. Here home values are also high, but due to your mortgage, you can get a home for less than apartment rent. The median home value here is $340,000 about the same as Beverly Hills though.

Now of you travel out to the middle of nowhere where my sister lives, you can pay $200 a month for a 1500 sqft house.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Housing cost are typically tightly bound to midian/average income in that area/state.

I'd like to respond more deeply, but I'm fairly certain most of your post is hyperbole. 1,500 is the cheapest you can get? I doubt that. I really, really do.

It completely depends on where you live. $1500 monthly rent here is considered extremely low, for example, most apartments are much more than that. Here home values are also high, but due to your mortgage, you can get a home for less than apartment rent.

Now of you travel out to the middle of nowhere where my sister lives, you can pay $200 a month for a 1500 sqft house.

Here's a list of the top 10 median places in the US.

Unsurprisingly, their all in high income areas. All of them also have a modern transportation system, with cheaper places to live well within commuting distance.

There are, of course, places where rent is higher. Maryland, California, and Washington are all states with high rent, and as the chart shows, it gets worse in cities. But here's the thing.

Seattle - Found a place with 1000 dollar rent in less then a minute.
Los Angeles - Found a place under 900 in less then a minute.
Chicago - 750 in under a minute.
Miami - 750 in under 2 minutes.
Oakland - 1,100 in under 2 minutes.
Washington, DC - 840 in under 30 seconds.
San Jose - 825 in 3 minutes.
Boston - 740 in 1 minute.
New York - 900 in 30 seconds.
San Francisco - 1595.

The only place on the top 10 list of expensive rent cities in the US that stumped me (And believe me, I wasn't working too hard) was San Francisco.

You may not like the place, and it may not be in the right neighborhood, but you can find a place 1000 or below to live just about anywhere. If the place doesn't stack up to your standard of living, well, their hundreds of major cities in the US. Just because you can't make it in a number of cities that can be counted on one hand doesn't mean there's some sort of rent crisis, and that there are no good places anywhere and everything is shit.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Housing cost are typically tightly bound to midian/average income in that area/state.

I'd like to respond more deeply, but I'm fairly certain most of your post is hyperbole. 1,500 is the cheapest you can get? I doubt that. I really, really do.

It completely depends on where you live. $1500 monthly rent here is considered extremely low, for example, most apartments are much more than that. Here home values are also high, but due to your mortgage, you can get a home for less than apartment rent.

Now of you travel out to the middle of nowhere where my sister lives, you can pay $200 a month for a 1500 sqft house.

Here's a list of the top 10 median places in the US.

Unsurprisingly, their all in high income areas. All of them also have a modern transportation system, with cheaper places to live well within commuting distance.

There are, of course, places where rent is higher. Maryland, California, and Washington are all states with high rent, and as the chart shows, it gets worse in cities. But here's the thing.

Seattle - Found a place with 1000 dollar rent in less then a minute.
Los Angeles - Found a place under 900 in less then a minute.
Chicago - 750 in under a minute.
Miami - 750 in under 2 minutes.
Oakland - 1,100 in under 2 minutes.
Washington, DC - 840 in under 30 seconds.
San Jose - 825 in 3 minutes.
Boston - 740 in 1 minute.
New York - 900 in 30 seconds.
San Francisco - 1595.

The only place on the top 10 list of expensive rent cities in the US that stumped me (And believe me, I wasn't working too hard) was San Francisco.

You may not like the place, and it may not be in the right neighborhood, but you can find a place 1000 or below to live just about anywhere. If the place doesn't stack up to your standard of living, well, their hundreds of major cities in the US. Just because you can't make it in a number of cities that can be counted on one hand doesn't mean there's some sort of rent crisis, and that there are no good places anywhere and everything is shit.

When you talk about a city, it isn't like all parts of the city are even comparable. Are you going to find an apartment in Beverly hills for that amount? You will not find one here for that amount either.

Simply because you can find a Piece of crap apartment where your car is going to get broken in to full of rats in an expensive city does not mean you found some place livable. Brings me back to my college days.. where they showed me an apartment that had blood in the hallway on the walls down a long hallway full of doors with no doorknobs on them.. so many closets on both sides of the hall just closed without doorknobs and a sawed off shotgun leaning up against the wall outside the door of the apartment directly across the hall from it. Just because you can afford it does not mean you should ever move in there. You would be safer living in a dumpster behind a business in a safe part of town than living in one of those places. They block apartments from being built at all here is why the ones that do exist are outrageously priced. It is most definitely less expensive to buy a home here than it is to rent.

 

[LetalisK]

You may not like the place, and it may not be in the right neighborhood, but you can find a place 1000 or below to live just about anywhere. If the place doesn't stack up to your standard of living, well, their hundreds of major cities in the US. Just because you can't make it in a number of cities that can be counted on one hand doesn't mean there's some sort of rent crisis, and that there are no good places anywhere and everything is shit.

To add on to this, it also depends on where you're looking too. For example, if you use apartmentguide, you're going to have a bad time. The filtering is garbage and the stuff tends to be overpriced. I've used the shit out apartment search engines the last several months and I can pull up the same place on both apartmentguide and trulia and get two different prices. Personally, I would go with trulia, padmapper, or zillow. Zillow tends to be on the more expensive side, but it has better filters, while trulia has a neat little mapper for crime, commute, etc, and padmapper includes listings from craigslist etc.

 

[Fox12]

Now of you travel out to the middle of nowhere where my sister lives, you can pay $200 a month for a 1500 sqft house.

Holy shit. If you don't mind me asking, where exactly is "the middle of nowhere?"

Living near Atlanta will net you around a $1300-3000 rent, if I'm correct. I think living in Marietta can be comparable as well. I've seen low income housing at around $500-700 though.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Now of you travel out to the middle of nowhere where my sister lives, you can pay $200 a month for a 1500 sqft house.

Holy shit. If you don't mind me asking, where exactly is "the middle of nowhere?"

Living near Atlanta will net you around a $1300-3000 rent, if I'm correct. I think living in Marietta can be comparable as well. I've seen low income housing at around $500-700 though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breckenridge,_Texas
In the middle of nowhere.. No jobs, no shopping, no crime... really the place is completely backwards.. scary backwards. I couldn't live there, the people scare me too much.. Think children of the corn. Their idea of education is going to church and the rodeo. Them womenz need to be barefoot, beaten and pregnant like the good lord intended

But hey if you can stand that.. here is a 2,352 sqft house for just $238 a month! XD

http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Breckenridge-TX/pmf,pf_pt/87550856_zpid/17152_rid/32.780347,-98.882919,32.72267,-98.959308_rect/13_zm/

 

[Fox12]

Now of you travel out to the middle of nowhere where my sister lives, you can pay $200 a month for a 1500 sqft house.

Holy shit. If you don't mind me asking, where exactly is "the middle of nowhere?"

Living near Atlanta will net you around a $1300-3000 rent, if I'm correct. I think living in Marietta can be comparable as well. I've seen low income housing at around $500-700 though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breckenridge,_Texas
In the middle of nowhere.. No jobs, no shopping, no crime... really the place is completely backwards.. scary backwards. I couldn't live there, the people scare me too much.. Think children of the corn. Their idea of education is going to church and the rodeo. Them womenz need to be barefoot, beaten and pregnant like the good lord intended

But hey if you can stand that.. here is a 2,352 sqft house for just $238 a month! XD

http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Breckenridge-TX/pmf,pf_pt/87550856_zpid/17152_rid/32.780347,-98.882919,32.72267,-98.959308_rect/13_zm/

Whelp, I typed it in and this was the first thing I got:

Spoiler

I think I'll stick to my crappy Georgia apartments, thank you : D

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

The median home value here is $340,000 about the same as Beverly Hills though.

Really?! I know house pricing in the UK is pants-on-head crazy, but that kind of highlights it. Those homes are worth more than mine, but mine is just a three-bed semi in the north-east of England, and the price difference isn't even close to what I thought it would be.

Because I fancied a laugh, I looked up the cheapest three-bed house in Lambeth, which as far as I know is one of the crappier parts of London (apologies if you live in Lambeth, feel free to tell me about crappier areas). £385,000!

It costs an insane amount to live in London, and for what you pay there for a rat hole, you can buy a mansion here with a ton of land, fresh clean air, no crime, no old rotting moldy buildings and sewer, no traffic; only trees, flowers, animals and sky as far as you can see... I will stick to the country. HAHA

For just a little bit over that Lambeth house you could live in this here :

http://www.trulia.com/property/3215444491-1703-Weiskopf-Dr-Heath-TX-75032

Can you imagine what 10 acres would cost you in London? D:
http://homesforsale.dianelipps.com/idx/details/listing/b018/13197518/460-Terry-Lane-Heath-TX-75032-13197518

 

[Cowabungaa]

I will stick to the country. HAHA

I'd do the same if the country weren't so damn boring. I lived in the country for 22 years, moved to the inner city a few years ago and I could not imagine going back. There's shit to do here! Cute pubs and every amenity around the corner, boardgame clubs, tabletop RPG players, girls to date, sporting opportunities, the list goes on. And all that within a 5-10 minutes bike ride. There's so much life here. The idea of having to go back to the country fills me with dread, I can already see myself slipping back into the depression I recently discovered from.

Of course, London is quite extreme in terms of price. Capital cities always are. Those I would probably avoid for economic reasons.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

I will stick to the country. HAHA

I'd do the same if the country weren't so damn boring. I lived in the country for 22 years, moved to the inner city a few years ago and I could not imagine going back. There's shit to do here! Cute pubs and every amenity around the corner, boardgame clubs, tabletop RPG players, girls to date, sporting opportunities, the list goes on. And all that within a 5-10 minutes bike ride. There's so much life here. The idea of having to go back to the country fills me with dread, I can already see myself slipping back into the depression I recently discovered from.

Of course, London is quite extreme in terms of price. Capital cities always are. Those I would probably avoid for economic reasons.

Where I am though it isn't boring because it is a 20 min drive to anything you want. As long as you are "in the country" right outside the city, you get the best of both worlds.

 

[CeeBod]

I used to rent rooms inside of houses
And now I own a house.

Pretty much doing the same (currently in the "renting rooms" stage)

Similar idea to this is to house-share. When I got my first (very poorly paid!) job, I moved into a shared house with 2 post-grad students, and 2 other poor ex-students that were just starting jobs like mine. Each of us had our own room and shared access to kitchen, lounge, etc in a nice big house in a decent area. When you're splitting the rent and bills 5 ways, your money goes an awful lot further!

 

[Paragon Fury]

Housing cost are typically tightly bound to midian/average income in that area/state.

I'd like to respond more deeply, but I'm fairly certain most of your post is hyperbole. 1,500 is the cheapest you can get? I doubt that. I really, really do.

$1200 was the average -so $1500 after utilities. $837 was the lowest and that was a low income housing, with a wait list and still half a months pay for me.

 

[Ryotknife]

It heavily depends on the area. For example, my city has dirt cheap houses (3 bedroom, two bath good sized house for 120,000), yet apartments are still cheaper than a mortgage. A mortgage for that house would be around 900-1100, whereas a semi-decent 3 bedroom apartment runs you 750 with a few utilities included. Not only that, but there are many additional expenses added on for owning a home compared to renting, in particular taxes (property, county, school taxes), which in my state is more than a mortgage.

My sister lives outside of DC (technically in Virginia), and her place costs 2k a month with utilities and its small. However, to buy any property (small house or small condo) you are looking at a minimum of 500k. For what my sister pays a month in rent, she could afford a upper-middle class house in my city.

This is actually a problem for many Americans. Ideally you should only spend about 33% of your income on your home a year, however for many people this is more in the 50-60% area, and it gets worse by the year when it comes to renting as they seem to jack up the prices every year by 5-7%.

It doesnt get much national coverage because there is just so much variance in prices, taxes, cost of living, utilities, etc. Seattle increased their min wage to 15 dollars a hour, and the people there are still worse off than many cities where the min wage is only 11. Granted, it should be solved at the state level rather than the federal level.

 

[LetalisK]

It doesnt get much national coverage because there is just so much variance in prices, taxes, cost of living, utilities, etc. Seattle increased their min wage to 15 dollars a hour, and the people there are still worse off than many cities where the min wage is only 11. Granted, it should be solved at the state level rather than the federal level.

To be fair, a lot of those houses only look like shit on the outside because the rain beats the shit out of everything and discourages yard work.

I must be an incredibly stupid person, though. I pay almost inner city prices and I live next to farm land. I should have left at the end of my lease. Granted, it's not like I could find anything significantly cheaper in the area that wasn't an hour from work.