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Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

I'm not from the area so forgive my ignorance but, is it really that bad or are these just very in demand areas? Can you work in the area albeit with a longer commute for a reasonable price?

I'm from New York and people complain about real estate prices here as well. It is undoubtedly very expensive in Manhattan (small 1-br for $4k in nice building) but that's only in Manhattan. You can easily find rent for less than $2k if you're willing to increase your commute from ~30-40 minutes to ~60-75 minutes. I know people living in suburbs of New Jersey (Pal Park, Fort Lee) as well as suburbs of Queens or Bronx for even less than that.

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It's also not that as expensive in Manhattan as you suggest. I looked earlier this year, east village studios might run from $2000-2500. Half that for a 2bhk in Bed Stuy.

NYC has a huge problem with exclusionary zoning, but it's not quite as crazy as SF yet.

[edit: I was wrong on Astoria, my info is apparently a year out of date.]

2 bedrooms in Astoria are 2000+

We just rented a 1 bedroom in a nice building on the upper west side for $2500 a month.

Sure, there are 1brs for $4k; there are also 1brs for $1k and 1brs for $10k.

If you value your time at $50 per hour, a 60 minute commute twice a day costs $1900 per month (assuming you commute 230 days a year). And this doesn't count the direct monetary cost of the commute. Different people value their time differently, but it's worth doing this calculation consciously.

Not all commutes are created equally; I would rather ride the subway for 45 minutes than spend 20 minutes in stop-and-go traffic.

>a 60 minute commute twice a day costs $1900 per month

Only if you're comparing it to a 0 minute commute, which isn't realistic.

You could have a five minute commute on foot, in which case it's more just much needed fresh air and daylight.

That's a fair point but most people are on a fixed salary and don't think of their time value as marginal. So for instance, if you're earning $50 an hour, you're earning 100k per year, and if you're on a salary, you may think of having a budget of 8.3k, pre-tax, or a little over 5k post-tax. So if you're spending an extra 1.9k on an apartment that cuts down your commute by 2 hours a day, that's money you're not spending on other quality of life things, including saving and paying down any debt. In this light, spending an extra 2k, despite it saving you 2 hours, doesn't seem as feasible.

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