How the hell does anyone with a modest income manage to live in Manhattan?

[Gogi]

Getting really frustrated with hotel prices! For comparison I looked at at what it costs to rent an apartment. If you don't make a million a year it seems impossible.

[elsiesummers]

1. What do you mean by modest?

It is possible. Many young professionals (NY natives) live at home until thirty so they can save for a place.

I lived in a building in Brooklyn (ok not Manhattan) where in the apartment below me there were 10 people living there, and it was only 800 square feet. I think this is how illegals manage it.

I also rented a walk thru (no privacy) bedroom in Manhattan 8 years ago for 500 a month.

[Gogi]

4. What income range qualifies as modest in Manhattan?

I live in an area that's not even classified by the state as a 4th class village. The average yearly wage is probably about $25,000 for a single woman.

[elsiesummers]

7. Well, here's my opinion on 25K...

I grew up in the South and I know what a paycheck much less than 25K looks like. I worked as a typist/administrator for 14K, my husband made 20K when he first received his bachelors (Bush 1 recession). My parents have a lovely suburban home and my father, retired, never made over 25K in his lifetime.

In Manhattan, I believe that my father, fixing tvs and making calls, would currently pull in 45K a year.

If two people in the household are earners, then 70K is lower working class in Manhattan, and you could make it on that.

Currently in my building, a walkup, there is a woman on disability, a cop, a couple of federal employees, a couple of lawyers. People do get by, and they manage on less than you'd expect.

They also do weird and unusual things for money. Many people have an angle, or a job on the side.

I have a friend who worked as a personal trainer and a modern dancer and an art model. Her apartment, twenty years ago, was 360. Now it's 520. It's a dinky dinky walk up studio.

But there you have it. People do ok.

A lot of working people in this city, with no special abilities but some sort of specialized skill or knowledge (some sort of career) make 60K to 150K. Salaries are higher and peoples expectations of their living standards are lower. When you get cabin fever you go out a lot.

[Wcross]

14. What does "walk thru"? people can walk thru you room?

I am really curious??? Is it like renting a hallway or something? I admire your tolerance if thats the case!

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Mulitple roomates...or you live in one of the outer boroughs and commute

[Chovexani]

3. They don't

That's why their asses are all running to Brooklyn and driving up our rents. *grumble* (No, really, I'm not bitter!)

Edit: Okay, I should explain. I have no problem with Manhattanites moving to Brooklyn. What I have a problem with are Manhattanite yuppie asshats who move to Brooklyn, displacing longtime residents (usually working class and/or minorities), and saying shit like "we moved here because we love neighborhoods" while they proceed to drive out every local business to replace them with cafes that sell 5 dollar cups of coffee. Especially when 99% of these people have treated Brooklyn and the other Outer Boroughs like Outer Timbuktu for years. These same people lament the loss of their 212 area code and during the whole controversy with Giuliani wanting to censor the Brooklyn Museum, said shit like "Brooklyn has an art museum?" (FYI, yes we do and it has the most extensive collection of Egyptian art outside of the British Museum. Yes, more than the Met.)

THOSE people are like the freaking Borg and it's like we can't escape them. They can go to hell as far as I'm concerned.

[NYC]

8. I've been to the Brooklyn Museum

and the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. (I still live in Manhattan, though.)

[elsiesummers]

9. Brooklyn Museum - land of the infamous elephant dung art brouhaha.

Yeah - did Giulliani get enough press over that shit or what?

I lived in Brooklyn at that time, Park Slope (live in Manhattan now). We left Brooklyn in '96 for Chicago. Rents in Brooklyn have soared since then, but in Manhattan they are the same as when we left, but coops and condos are far more expensive.

I think back to a loft we looked at on Varrick Street that was for sale at 225K then, unfinished. It has to be well over a million now.

If hindsight were foresight we'd all be millionaires.

[tjdee]

15. Live in Jersey, ditto to that.

There is a darling of a town in NJ in particular I'm thinking of, and the Manhattanites are taking over. In a few years all but Manhattan transplants will be driven out.

[fleabert]

5. I agree, I don't know how regular folks with kids buy a house here in Sac.

Housing is thru the roof! My dh makes a pretty good living and I refuse to buy here since we'd be in debt up to our eyeballs to do it!

[FreepFryer]

6. Rent Stabilization (as long as it continues to last)

Get a place, pay thru the nose. Look at it as a sort of investment.

Over the years, your rent only goes up ~5% a year max. Within a decade, you're 20-30% behind the curve and have a rent that is appreciably better than folks can get just moving in.

It creates neighborhoods - it's a good thing.

[mcscajun]

10. There's much more to Manhattan than Midtown.

If you want to live there, yes, you need a small fortune to start, but you don't need to be a millionaire unless you want a 'good address'. I lived in upper Manhattan for many years. (I grew up in The Bronx so I'm not one of those out-of-towners who thought of Manhattan as some magical magnet I was drawn to…I just did a little slide west of south of where I started.)

Rent stabilization was still in force then; hell, some apartments (very old ones) were rent-controlled. Where was I? The very northern end of the island: a little neighborhood called Inwood that the NY news anchors still misplace in The Bronx. That's how far up it is. A one-bedroom apartment in 1989 was just under $1000 a month, but my spouse and I were pulling in (together) almost $80,000 before taxes. It was a 45-minute trip on the subway to work every day.

Somebody with $25k a year today trying to live in Manhattan? I don't see it, unless you're talking roommates, second jobs, or a daddy that sends checks to bail you out from time to time.

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. I lucked out and found a rent stabalized in Harlem

So that my hunny and I could live there, and didn't have to have roommates, or live way the fuck out in Brooklyn or Queens. And I was working for a consulting company and later an investment bank, making more money than I ever had, and likely ever will for quite a while. We made it, but we couldn't have done it without occasionally subletting one of the bedrooms. And that was $1000 month - dirt stinking cheap for a 3 bedroom.

[sir_captain]

12. Several possibilities

One moves to Brooklyn

One lucks into rent control

One becomes very good friends with debt consolidation

I use a combo of the second two. Despite the utter lack of money, I'd still rather be here than anywhere else.

[smirkymonkey]

13. I sublet a rent controlled apartment, however I have to move

out in April. Will have to look for a roommate situation or find a job that pays more. It's insane. I could never afford to buy here or even live on my own in anything bigger than my studio.

To be honest, I think a lot of people spend more than 50% of their income on rent alone.