man what is the deal with rent rates here?! (New Orleans: section 8, apartments)
New OrleansNew Orleans - Metairie - Kenner metro area
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I've been looking for weeks now. I literally took a 4 hour bike ride around looking for "for rent" signs. I can't find anything I can afford! The few places I've looked at, walked through, are on the wrong side of $500 for what the are! The last one had 1 window unit to heat/cool the entire apartment, was missing window panes, the front door lock was falling off and non functional, didn't even have an oven, and must have had a leaking roof because the ceiling was stained brownish yellow! They wanted $700/month. I keep calling about places that are listd in a reasonable range for a room mate and me and they are all trickily listed as 2bdrm but end up being 1 bdrm shotgun style with a "second" no privacy bedroom/dining room, section 8 vouchers welcome and priced over $700/ month! WTF man! I mean, if that's all I get for 700-800, how much would it cost for better? These places are too small and lack privacy for 2, yet I couldn't afford them solo, and still I wouldn't want to live there because of the deplorable condition and horribly run down and historically dangerous neighborhood surrunding them.
I make too much to qualify for assistance, and can't afford to wait on the list, and yet not enough to drop $1000+ every month for someplace in a reasonable neighborhood and condition. Who of you all really thin this is a cheap place to live?! It really isn't, unless you are a transplant from a more expensive metropolis with years of experiencethat lands you an $80,000+ per year salary.
Christ! All the entry level positions I've been offered in the field related to my degree only pay half my current salary. Maybe I should take them and file for assistance? I need to be paid way less or twice what I'm making to live here. This definately is not a place for recent grads and young people trying to build a career.
Where do I live?
Don't tell me jefferson parish either, its too far from work, family, and my girlfriend. Dnt tell me family either, I'm too close to 30 to be living at home, and they don't have the room anyways. Do I need to look for like 3 other roommates and split the bill on a 4-5 bdrm? Do I need to suck it up and take one of the units in the ghettos and get some really good insurance? I wouldn't feel safe letting my girlfriend over in one of those places.
Katrina notwithstanding, you live in an area that many people come to to live and play in all the time. New orleans is the playground of the rich these days. Naturally rents will be higher. I'd like to make enough money to live in Hoboken NJ or Greenwiich village in NYC, but I don't make enough to live in those places.
I would recommend you try to advance yourself in your profession so that you will make higher salaries as $1000 for any apartment is not that much. Once an area becomes more popular, all prices naturally rise. This is just economics.
Yeah but how do I advance myself if I can't even get my foot in the door at a reasonable salary. I can't afford to leave here man! I didn't just move here by choice, my family moved here a good 23 years ago me with them. I'm not opposed to leaving but I just can't. I can't advance myself any farther in constrution without becoming a contractor! That requires incorporating,and massive amounts of insurance, not to mention a well paid client pool. Oh and I'm pretty sure Louisiana requires all state licensed general contractor candidate provide documented $50,000 positive net worth if I'm not mistaken. Shouldi become a sub, I tink not there is too much competition for work. I've figured id have to bill a minimum of $1000 per day to stay in business and keep my salary the same, not including material.
If I can't afford 700 per month where do you think I can get the money to drop on resume building services to dress up my irrelevant work experience, plane tickets to interviews in other cities, a freaking suit to wear to those interviews, a moving van for my stuff, and the deposits and rent on an apartent or hotel room while I settle in somehwere else?!
Moving isn't an option, and staying isn't an option... what do I do. My being here wasn't by choice as I was like 5 when I came. Staying here isn't by choice because I can't mak enough to leave here.
Yeah it is a playground for the rich, but you would think the working cass salaries would rise like they were in california. I could have made close to 6 figures in constrtion in cali t one point in time because the cost of living was so much higher. If thisplace here is a pla ground for the rich, why aren't the support level employment salaries high enough to live on? Do they all just want us on welfare? If so why is it so hard to get on it with the salary that I make? It makes no sense, its expanding the income gap!
A warning to anyone living here or moving here! If you don't intend to be a part time minimum wage servant of the wealthy, or if you aren't independantly wealthy, this place is not for you! I should have never come back after katrina, I should have joined the military and finished my education somewhere else less rediculously bourgeois! Marx was right!
Yeah but how do I advance myself if I can't even get my foot in the door at a reasonable salary. I can't afford to leave here man! I didn't just move here by choice, my family moved here a good 23 years ago me with them. I'm not opposed to leaving but I just can't.
If I can't afford 700 per month where do you think I can get the money to drop on resume building services to dress up my irrelevant work experience, plane tickets to interviews in other cities, a freaking suit to wear to those interviews, a moving van for my stuff, and the deposits and rent on an apartent or hotel room while I settle in somehwere else?!
Moving isn't an option, and staying isn't an option... what do I do. My being here wasn't by choice as I was like 5 when I came. Staying here isn't by choice because I can't mak enough to leave here.
Yeah it is a playground for the rich, but you would think the working cass salaries would rise like they were in california. I could have made close t 6 figures in constrtion in cali t one point in time because the cost of living was so much higher. If thisplace here is a pla ground for the rich, why aren't the support level employment salaries high enough to live on? Do they all just want us on welfare? If so why is it so hard to get on it with the salary that I make? It makes no sense, its expanding the income gap!
A warning to anyone living here or moving here! If you don't intend to be a part time minimum wage servant of the wealthy, or if you aren't independantly wealthy, this place is not for you! I should have never come back after katrina, I should have joined the military and finished my education somewhere else less rediculously bourgeois! Marx was right!
You can easily make $600 to a $1000 a week or more here in construction if you're qualified and have experience. With all the government work going on in St Bernard Parish you should be able to get on at one of the schools, levees, court houses, etc being rebuilt.
I would stay out of the residential construction as these guys tend to not pay well or even pay at all. A lot of fly by nighters around now. Stay with the commercial contractors and try and get on with a general and not a sub. Your pay will be better and you will be treated better.
The big floor wall project in Kenner at the St Charles Parish line is always hiring form builders and they pay good but will work you seven days a week sixteen hours a day.
Lots of good paying jobs here but you need to know what you're doing and they expect you to show up on time and work hard.
Unfortunately a lot of the rentals in the city core will be shotguns. Even with a true 2br shotgun, privacy is going to be limited if you're living with a roomate. You should be able to find something like this for you and a roomate for no more than $800. What area are you trying to stay close to?
I was just in New Orleans, and someone told me that part of the issue with rental rates ~ particularly in the Quarter ~ is that more and more people are licensing their homes for B&B's, which raises the rates for everyone. He said that, compared to the past, there are a lot less people who actually "live" in the Quarter anymore.
I remember being in a store and overheard one guy telling someone he knew that he found a place in the city (where exactly, I don't know) for $2000 a month. The other person said "Well, that's do-able!" Do-able for WHO? Certainly wouldn't be for me if I chose to move there.
Rental rates seeming "high" or "low" totally depends on what you're used to, I think. We made an almost seamless transition from Atlanta because the rates are pretty much the same. In both places (and probably everywhere else), the further you go out from the city, the cheaper it gets. I really think New Orleans has very reasonable rental and purchase prices for a major tourist destination.
Divide your monthly take-home pay by three. That is your target for monthly rent.
Is it impossible to find a place without paying more? Then you have a choice between two things (both of which I did when I was younger, as did many others):
1. Find someone for a roommate
2. Find a second job and moonlight
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