Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I know that NYC and burroughs are very expensive to live in. How do average people afford to live there? I know there must be poor people or even middle class folks who make it there, but how? Are the wages more in NYC? How do people other than the wealthy live there?
Average people can't afford to live in NYC. You have one of 4 options:
1. Make a working salary and live very far from the city and ride the subway for 45 minutes each way.
2. Spend most of your working salary on an apartment and live very sparingly
3. Get government assistance
4. Make more than an average salary.
Don't move to NYC if you're planning on making a "working" salary. You can just get so much more for your money somewhere else. NYC is a horrible place to be if you don't have the money for the restaurants, clubs, theaters, bars, sports games, and parties.
Average people can't afford to live in NYC. You have one of 4 options:
1. Make a working salary and live very far from the city and ride the subway for 45 minutes each way.
2. Spend most of your working salary on an apartment and live very sparingly
3. Get government assistance
4. Make more than an average salary.
Don't move to NYC if you're planning on making a "working" salary. You can just get so much more for your money somewhere else. NYC is a horrible place to be if you don't have the money for the restaurants, clubs, theaters, bars, sports games, and parties.
Average people can't afford to live in NYC. You have one of 4 options:
1. Make a working salary and live very far from the city and ride the subway for 45 minutes each way.
2. Spend most of your working salary on an apartment and live very sparingly
3. Get government assistance
4. Make more than an average salary.
Don't move to NYC if you're planning on making a "working" salary. You can just get so much more for your money somewhere else. NYC is a horrible place to be if you don't have the money for the restaurants, clubs, theaters, bars, sports games, and parties.
Sorry but I don't think you are right here.
I am a teacher and I live in NYC and don't fit any of your above categories.I spend less than 25 % of my income on my housing(which I own ), it takes me 15 mins to get to work every day and I don't feel deprived of anything .
Have you ever lived here in NYC ?
Sorry but I don't think you are right here.
I am a teacher and I live in NYC and don't fit any of your above categories.I spend less than 25 % of my income on my housing(which I own ), it takes me 15 mins to get to work every day and I don't feel deprived of anything .
Have you ever lived here in NYC ?
It always gets me when people suggest that anyone who posts something about NYC they don't think is 100% accurate has never actually lived in NYC. I have lived in NYC plenty and I think the person (tomonlineli) is generally right, if not universally so. How long have you owned your housing? Also, as a teacher, you've got options for work all over the city. So certainly you are proof that tom's post does not apply to everyone, but that doesn't mean it's wrong or he's some interloper who doesn't really know NYC.
The post, as I took it, was directed to people from out of town considering a move here, with a job in Manhattan and their heart set on living in the "middle of the action." A person just moving now to NYC, with an "average income" job in Manhattan, will basically have the options tom listed.
There are many lifers who won't fit in this picture. My cousin pays $250 a month for a rent-controlled place she's had in Brooklyn since 1965. Another guy in his 50's (actually I know several like this) has lived for free in his mother's house for his whole life and bums money and cigarettes off everyone he knows. Every night when the local pizzeria closes, he gets a call from his friend there who gives him some leftover food they were going to toss. So this guy is making it in NYC, without public assistance, on a couple hundred a month.
But living at home with mom or jumping into rent control is not an option for the average 24 year old midwest transplant. If their job is in lower Manhattan, living in your neighborhood will fit right into tom's "ride the subway for 45 minutes each way" option.
I was option 1 on his list until I became fortunate enough to enter option 4. I know plenty of people under options 2 and 3.
Right,but your average NYC resident neither lives in Manhattan nor works downtown.Maybe that is what people don't understand. The original topic of the thread asked about average NYC residents and how they live.
I bought the apartment I live in about a year ago.
On the tv show Friends, the character Monica inherited her rent control apartment from her grandmother. Was this just a thing they did for the show but couldn't happen in the real world? I can't understand why a landlord or owner wouldn't want to jack up the rent after the original tenant died.
This answers my question I had about the average NYC residents. NYC was on my list of places to move to but not anymore. The rents are crazy for the size of apartment you would get. I bet they charge a thousand dollars a month for a cardboard box in the park.
In order to 'inherit' a rent-controlled apartment two conditions must be met: The first is that the family member must have lived with the tenant for the two years immediately preceding the tenant’s death or departure. (That time is cut to a year if the person claiming the right to remain is at least 62.) In addition, both the occupant and the late tenant must have used the regulated apartment as their principal residence during that one- or two-year time frame.
On the tv show Friends, the character Monica inherited her rent control apartment from her grandmother. Was this just a thing they did for the show but couldn't happen in the real world? I can't understand why a landlord or owner wouldn't want to jack up the rent after the original tenant died.
This answers my question I had about the average NYC residents. NYC was on my list of places to move to but not anymore. The rents are crazy for the size of apartment you would get. I bet they charge a thousand dollars a month for a cardboard box in the park.
I cannot really understand this response. You may be trading a luxuriously spacious home somewhere else for a much smaller apartment in NYC for the same price, but the perk is you get NYC and all the amenities that come with being in such an amazing and unique place. Moving to the city is about a bigger choice in lifestyle than it is about the specifics of where you are living.
I grew up in the city and sure, I didn't have my own private back yard, but I had Central Park, maybe not the biggest kitchen, but my choice of virtually any cuisine I could want. My apartment was often merely where I slept whereas the entire city was my home.
I'm not saying its for everybody. But housing is all about location location location. And I would not have traded my experience growing up in a small apartment in the city for a larger house somewhere else.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Good post
