Manhattan real estate, watching HGTV and can not believe what

[nicktom]

I am seeing. Over a thousand dollars a square foot for living space in a shared wall residence? I thought housing costs here in SoCal was bad. The thing is that it is bad here but at NY prices my place would go for over $2,000,000.00. How in the world do these people afford it? Do they offer 75 year mortgages? I just do not understand. Having 500 square feet to these folks is HUGE. Color me spoiled from this point on.

[grasswire]

1. wow, the last apartment I rented...

...from which I moved two years ago....was an 1100 sq. ft. four plex with a garden patio, a beautiful park-like common greenspace beyond the patio, a heated swimming pool, a fireplace, etc., and it cost me $535 per month including water and sewer. Pacific Northwest.

[halobeam]

7. please tell me in my ny bubble, that it is NOT norm....

I am having a hard time with that. The last time I looked around here, in 1988 the apartments were 650 or so, with maybe 700 sq feet. Never realized those would be the good 'ol days here. This is on Long Island, too, not the city.

[grasswire]

10. I don't understand.

What isn't norm?

[halobeam]

17. The price you are paying is soooooo great

I live in a nasty bubble here in NY.. I didn't think you could even get such a fine place to live for that price anymore, anywhere. I need to get out of here. It sounds like heaven where you are.

[Dem_4_Life]

27. My apt in Texas is 1100 sq ft and $780/month

I can't imagine how people in NY can afford those prices. I guess that is why people live outside the city and commute in to work.

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. LOL! No, you will never understand the pain of NYC real estate

without living there.

For me to live in a kinda nice apartment (I was lucky and got a 3 bedroom rent stabalized, ~900 sq. ft.) in a shitty neighborhood in Harlem I paid more than twice a month ($1150, which in NYC is CHEAP, and for a 3 bedroom is INSANELY CHEAP) what my sister paid for the mortgage on her 3-bedroom house with a basement, a garage and a pool and a large yard... (she was in WI)

NYC is outta control with rent/real estate prices.

[nicktom]

3. OK, I know it is expensive but why would someone want to pay those prices?

Is it just a matter of location? And what kind of financing is offered?

[Rabrrrrrr]

4. They pay it to live in NYC.

Specifically, to live in Manhattan.

There is no greater place in America. To live in Manhattan is to live at the pinnacle of everything. To have that 212 area code - for those lucky enough to have gotten one - is to define yourself as being on top of all other people.

maybe not quite as arrogant as that sounds, but there is a certain arrogance attached to being able to say that one lives in Manhattan. And, it's just a really fucking cool place to live, in a way that even the boroughs don't offer.

It was worth every penny to live there, IMO.

[nicktom]

5. I find that quite amazing.

Perhaps I am missing out on life. I mean I grew up in L.A. which was O.K. as far as experiencing diversity and fun things to do (Miracle Mile district) but the housing costs are still less than half of Manhattan. I some day hope to experience your great city, I just hope I don't have to pay to live there. :toast:

[amitten]

6. When I lived in Manhattan, I didn't feel above anyone else.

Just more tired and WAY more ripped off! And yes, at the center of the world.

Got out when things started going kaboom.

[smirkymonkey]

15. I used to think it was worth the money and the stress, but I am not

so sure anymore. I am just getting too old to live like a college student anymore.

[amitten]

18. I say get out while the gettin's good, smirky.

Life's too short to live in constant panic.

I don't regret moving.

[Wcross]

8. I guess you are on top of other people.

If living on top of one another is a plus. I have a prestigious (931) area code, I am not on top of anyone. It pays to have NO neighbors! Here is my "neighborhood"......



I never was one for city life.

[cobalt1999]

19. I'm with you.

Although way back when, I did have a year long business project in NY City. Lived in a Marriott and had an expense account. Enjoyed it immensely, but still was thinking "no way would I want to move here".

My town is at 20,000 people and I think it's too much.

http://www.city-data.com/picfilesc/picc8829.php

[grasswire]

9. the odd thing is...

...that the "status" you speak of exists largely in your own minds there. Most of America considers your location a liability, not something to be desired, even millions of people who are highly educated or glamorous or accomplished or cooler than cool for some reason. It really is an interesting social phenomenon, but largely an artifice. Landlords rejoice.

[Rabrrrrrr]

14. Oh, absolutely!

I never said that the attitude was a right or a proper one. I just pointed out that it exists, and thus that's part of the reason are so willing to pay the high insane prices to live there.

And my apologies to the others who responded to my note for feeling like I was shitting on everyone - I wasn't trying to say that NYC *is* better than everywhere else in the world and that people who live there are better and more intelligent and blah blah blah than everyone else in the world. I was only pointing out the attitude of a number of the people who choose to live there.

[TommyO]

22. This NYC visitor would move there in an instant

given a large enough lottery win to do it well! That "artifice" called NYC has a great deal of cultural goodies to keep most people busy for the rest of their lives.

[sir_captain]

25. Wow, that's an unbelievable deal

I'm in a rent stabilized 1BR on the UWS and with utilities, I'm well over $2000 a month.

[grannylib]

11. I can never understand those prices either... here in the upper midwest,

I am pretty spoiled. We got 1500 sq ft, with another 1500 which could be finished, attached 2-car garage, a 35x60 outbuilding, and 3.5 acres total on wooded riverland, for $132,500...
No complaints!

[wildhorses]

12. 2 songs came to mind while reading this thread

Shattered, shattered
Love and hope and sex and dreams
Are still surviving on the street
Look at me, I'm in tatters!
I'm a shattered
Shattered

Friends are so alarming
My lover's never charming
Life's just a cocktail party on the street
Big Apple
People dressed in plastic bags
Directing traffic
Some kind of fashion
Shattered

Laughter, joy, and loneliness and sex and sex and sex and sex
Look at me, I'm in tatters
I'm a shattered
Shattered

All this chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter 'bout
schmatte, schmatte, schmatte -- I can't give it away on 7th Avenue
This town's been wearing tatters (shattered, shattered)
Work and work for love and sex
Ain't you hungry for success, success, success, success
Does it matter? (Shattered) Does it matter?
I'm shattered.
Shattered

Ahhh, look at me, I'm a shattered
I'm a shattered
Look at me- I'm a shattered, yeah

Pride and joy and greed and sex
That's what makes our town the best
Pride and joy and dirty dreams and still surviving on the street
And look at me, I'm in tatters, yeah
I've been battered, what does it matter
Does it matter, uh-huh
Does it matter, uh-huh, I'm a shattered

Don't you know the crime rate is going up, up, up, up, up
To live in this town you must be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough!
You got rats on the west side
Bed bugs uptown
What a mess this town's in tatters I've been shattered
My brain's been battered, splattered all over Manhattan

Uh-huh, this town's full of money grabbers
Go ahead, bite the Big Apple, don't mind the maggots, huh
Shadoobie, my brain's been battered
My friends they come around they
Flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter
Pile it up, pile it high on the platter

and then (another point of view)

High on a mountain top
We live, we love, and we laugh a lot
Folks up here know what they got
High on a mountain top
High on a mountain top

Where the rest of the world's
Like a little bitty spot
I ain't comin down no never I'm not
High on a mountain top
High on a mountain top

Where I come from the mountain flowers grow wild
The blue grass sways like it's goin out of style
God fearin' people simple and real
'Cause up on the ridge folks that's the deal
Well my daddy worked down in the dark coal mine
Shovelin' that coal one shovel at a time
Never made a lot money din't have much
But we're high on life and rich in love

Well down in the holler lived my uncle Joe
He'd pull out his fiddle and rosin his bow
We'd all sing and dance
And we ain't gonna stop
When the moon shine flows behind every rock

Well we lay on our backs and we count the stars
'cause up here folks heaven's not that far

High on a mountain top
High on a mountain top

[smirkymonkey]

20. I never really knew all the lyrics to "Shattered" but I can tell you

as someone who has lived in NYC for years, it's pretty much how I feel. Sure, there are great things about this city, but the daily grind here just drains you of all your energy and your ability to enjoy life. I work late and I am just exhausted and stressed out by the time I get home. And I STILL don't make enough money to have my own apartment in Manhattan.

However, I don't know where else I would like to live, besides Europe (which isn't practical right now) and I would like to stay in the Northeast.

[LibDemAlways]

13. My mother grew up on W. 48th St. in a

small, narrow fifth floor walk-up. About a decade ago she and her younger sister returned out of curiosity. A man was bringing his groceries in as they approached the building and he let them in. They knocked on their old door and it was answered by a young guy maybe in his thirties. They explained they had grown up in that apartment, and, I guess because they look like a couple of harmless, elderly sisters, he chatted it up with them for awhile and let them have a quick peek at their old stomping grounds. The apartment had been cut in half and two tiny units had been carved out of the space. He told them he was paying over 2 grand a month for his less than 500 sq. feet. They damn near passed out at that news.

As bad as Southern California rents and home prices are, they're reasonable compared to NYC.

[fudge stripe cookays]

16. Sounds like my dad's old home in Chicago...

When my grandfather lost his job in the Depression, he had to take odd jobs, and the family moved into an inner city "slum" in Chicago on Winnebago Avenue.

That neighborhood is now Bucktown, and some of the priciest real estate in Chicago. :eyes:

[NewJeffCT]

21. And, people I know have relocated to Manhattan from SW CT

because it's more affordable than the "Gold Coast" of CT.

[adriennui]

23. the brownstone areas of brooklyn are almost as high as manhattan

fort greene, bed stuy, clinton hill, and DUMBO which were considered slums 2 decades back have brownstones in the 2 millions and mediocre 1 bedroom condos for 600,000. real estate costs are insane. many people are able to afford this because of creative financing ARM mortgages, etc. look for foreclosures in a few years as the bubble bursts and people find they cannot afford those mortgage payments.

[NewJeffCT]

24. on either AOL or Yahoo a few months back...

they had a comparison of what would $1 million buy you in various locations. I think in Greenwich, CT, it bought the least.

[adriennui]

26. but you get more for your money....even in fairfield county

i guess it's a matter of lifestyle choice. you can sell your house in prime areas of ct., LI, NJ, and westchester to afford the coops and condos in manhattan.
i enjoy my acre of land, house and privacy even though we're empty nesters (but we do have 4 kitties and a pup) and they love it out here.

[ldf]

28. this whole week of house hunters and "star"

has been really bad pr for manhattan.

not star (?), since she apparently really boosted their viewship. (she doesn't even look like herself...)

but you can NOT afford a NICE, semi spacious apartment in a good neighborhood (south of 96th street), unless you are willing to spend 3000 or more for rent, or pay 2,000,000 or more to own.

it sucks. and i mean that in a BAD way!

:shrug: