Rental rates and incomes: out of step, or is it just me? (Baltimore: affordable apartment, rental market)

[davecj]

Most people assume Baltimore City when you say move to Baltimore. With that said, rental prices are very high right now. I can't imagine there being a 'rental bubble' but with credit harder to come by, fewer people are purchasing homes thus driving up rental prices. I would say rents are about 25-20% higher than about 5 years ago. Ironically if you can afford to purchase, the monthly payment tends to be several hundred dollars less than many rentals.

In many parts of the county you'll be competing with Towson University students for housing if you move around the summer months and left with scraps if you move in the winter months.

[OutsideIn]

Originally Posted by GunsMass

There are many results under $800 in the apartments.com listings in nice areas (Cockeysville, Towson, Pikesville). The issue at hand is the personal washer/dryer hookup. I never saw that in my years of renting affordable one-bedrooms. This would be considered a perk deserving of a higher rental price.

And now you know why I was asking about duplexes. In most duplexes I've ever encountered, having a place for one's own laundry equipment is pretty standard. (It's usually in the basement. Often there's storage space there too.)

When I lived in places where I had to share coin-op laundry facilities, I can't tell you the number of skeevy things I saw people do to other people's laundry. You couldn't even leave to use the bathroom for fear someone would steal your wash cycle, or dump bleach in the wrong machine, or that weird dude in 5B would steal your underwear... Also, I'm a costumer in one aspect of my hobby life. I deal with some fancy fabrics and complicated germents I've put a lot of effort into making, so they're not the kind of thing I really trust to a public machine very often.

[OutsideIn]

Originally Posted by davecj

Most people assume Baltimore City when you say move to Baltimore. With that said, rental prices are very high right now. I can't imagine there being a 'rental bubble' but with credit harder to come by, fewer people are purchasing homes thus driving up rental prices. I would say rents are about 25-20% higher than about 5 years ago. Ironically if you can afford to purchase, the monthly payment tends to be several hundred dollars less than many rentals.

In many parts of the county you'll be competing with Towson University students for housing if you move around the summer months and left with scraps if you move in the winter months.

Well then, what do you say if you just mean the general area? I've only had these conversations with my frends until now, and they *know* what I mean, LOL.

As for timeframe, I'm looking at the next couple of months. I actually did have a sublet lined up, in a duplex no less, where I'd have been taking over as a placeholder for someone who was going out of town for 6 months so I would have had the entire 1 BR apartment to myself. It fell through when the landlord announced a decision to convert the home back to single family to accommodate an adult daughter. 6 months would have given me time to really look for that "hidden gem" to rent next (can't afford to buy and don't want to anyway) but since it fell through I'm scrambling.

[mrboltonman]

Well then, what do you say if you just mean the general area? I've only had these convversations with my frends until now, and they *know* what I mean, LOL.

-Baltimore is Baltimore City
-Baltimore County is Baltimore Country

A lot of people say this incorrectly.

[OutsideIn]

Well, when someone doesn't actually live in a place yet, it shouldn't be surprising that they use the general term. Expecting specificity straight out of the box is a bit much. If I were to say to someone that I was moving to Cincinnati, 9 out of 10 people would assume the suburbs were in play as well. And Cincinnati doesn't even share a name with its county.

[davecj]

Which is why we were correcting you.

[OutsideIn]

So I should probably give you the email addresses of my friends who actually do live in the area and have all their lives, and who just refer to the whole shebang as "Baltimore" in conversations with me, right?

[OutsideIn]

Anyway, none of this is really helping me. I'm moving from my current city (and its environs) to Baltimore (city or county and/or its environs, void where prohibited, your mileage may vary, contents may have settled during shipping, as is, no warranty implied). Is there really as sharp a disconnect between incomes and housing prices as I'm seeing with the admittedly limited information I've found thus far, or is what I'm seeing primarily an artifact of those limitations on my informational resources?

Anybody? Bueller?

[DillThePill]

Originally Posted by OutsideIn

Anybody? Bueller?

Myself and others have given you an explanation: people who earn salaries in the 30's and want to live alone are doing so in the outer suburbs. You can earn a modest salary and live alone but you probably can't do it in nice neighborhoods in or near the city.

[OutsideIn]

So, just the "outer suburbs". Nobody knows anything more specific than that, or whether every last damn office support job in the area only pays in the 30's?

I don't suppose there's anyone around who's actually read the questions I asked, rather than the ones they'd like to think I asked?

I'll try again:

I'm not looking for jobs that pay 30k a year. (I don't want to take a pay cut.) That figure was given as an example of the threshhold at which people are getting by reasonably in some cities in which I've lived or have friends living. I'm seeing jobs advertised in the Baltimore area for 24k or less that would probably pay around or above 40k or at least the high 30's in those same cities, and wondering if I should take this as accurate... because if it is, then that's scary.

I'm not looking to live in the city if I can help it, unless it's in a decent neighborhood and not in the core.

I'm making the (possibly rash) assumption that people who actually live and work in and around Baltimore (city and county, I'd better specify that) just might have some clue whether the info I'm seeing wrt payscales is accurate, and also some clue as to which outer areas are likely to have rents at or below $800. Just maybe some of you have friends who do secretarial work, and have some idea whether these friends live stacked like cordwood with seventeen roommates or are able to afford a decent if small place of their own? Or possibly know people who actually have rented affordable apartments in the suburbs, and know the names of these suburbs?