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I lived in Sunset Park for years. My 2600 square foot house on 10 acres of land has the same combined payment for mortgage+tax as my apartment from ~10 years ago and that neighborhood was worse then than it is now.

My washer and dryer are enormous, I have a car, and I live 5 minutes from the interstate on a beautiful wooded property with faster internet than I ever had in New York.

I am originally from NYC and I think the time to buy a house there was around the 1980s. If you have no hope of affording a good property there now in 2018, you have no business living in NYC because you are on the wrong side of the trade there. All of your surplus is going to be captured by the hyper successful alliance of landlords and the government. Renters are just asking to be tag team bodyslammed. Every time you get a raise, your landlord also will give himself a raise.

I recommend looking west -- there are $2k 1BRs in Jersey City and Hoboken with 35-minute door-to-door commutes to most tech companies in Manhattan. Many even with central air, dishwasher, and in-unit laundry! PATH's reliability numbers are better than any subway line, and in case of issues there's bus, ferry, NJT rail as alternatives. And best of all, no NYC city income tax.

Shhh - I live and work near Grove St in Jersey City. Life is sublime here.

Can concur on the shushness and sublimation.

However, PATH is meandering near the border of MTA's hellish confines and looks drunk enough to stumble in. Couple that with the incessant development (there are 4 towers in constructions near Paulus hook) and already stressed PATH infra and you can guess what can happen next.

On the whole, JC is better than BK for a myriad of reasons.

PATH's infrastructure is mechanically sound and improving. I would not be concerned about it following in the MTA's tracks in the signal delay/equipment failure sense.

Overcrowding is certainly an issue and while I know there are some capacity improvements in progress (CBTC signaling, more cars), I have never seen a clear timeline from the PA as to when more capacity will actually happen.

> there are $2k 1BRs [..]. Many even with central air, dishwasher, and in-unit laundry!

I'm trying to decide if this is a tongue-in-cheek post or not.

Why would it be?

Because that's a terrible price for what you get anywhere in the US except for a few metro areas.

"There are $100k used cars, many with functioning windows, heaters, and airbags!"

> Because that's a terrible price for what you get anywhere in the US except for a few metro areas.

Yeah, but those metro areas are where the good income opportunities are disproportionately located.

This entire thread is specifically about the NYC metro area. My reply was about Jersey City and Hoboken, which are directly across the river from Manhattan. The apartments I'm describing are literally only 1 to 3 miles from Manhattan, hence the short commutes I also mentioned. I really don't see why my reply would be interpreted as tongue-in-cheek.

Cars can be moved around (that’s pretty much the whole point of them) so their prices tend to be pretty similar in different areas. Housing can’t move so the price can vary enormously from place to place. This shouldn’t be a surprise at all.

People with teenager-level jobs outside of NYC can afford the kinds of basic appliances that you need a fancy job to get in NYC. New Yorkers are just really numb to it.

The original article complained about not having these amenities in NYC. Much of the housing stock in the 5 boroughs is too old.

It's not tongue-in-cheek. This is a real issue in NYC, less so the further out you go in the boroughs. To break it down further:

* Dishwasher is much more common these days.

* In-unit laundry: Sometimes you'll find an in-unit washer, but no dryer. If there is an in-unit dryer, you have to ask whether it's a 110V electric or a true 220V vented. If it's the former, lower end models can take up to 4 hours to dry a small load. We had an in-unit washer, but just hung our clothes to dry and saved money instead of buying an in-unit dryer. Often times, you'll have no washer or dryer and simply take your laundry to a neighborhood coin-operated laundromat. If you're lucky, you might have coin-operated laundry facilities in the building.

* Central air is still a rarity. Most of the older housing (i.e. apartment) stock use radiator heating and window AC units.

I would actually recommend to most folks the slightly less commuter friendly areas west -- namely the Fort Lee, Palisades Park area and down to Edgewater. Especially if you can bike or motorbike or pay for the ferry.

That's exactly where I would move to if I had to leave my place in midtown.

But it's still New Jersey.

People used to say the exact same thing about Brooklyn and Queens. Not that long ago, even.

I would like to suggest that there are other parts of NYC to live, in addition to what evanelias mentions above.

Many who complain about high rents, and feeling poor, for reasons I do not entirely understand, have a stigma of living in the other boroughs other than Manhattan.

In Queens, in a well connected (express subway line) area, one can get the same 400 sqft "dump" the author cites, for less than 1000$. And commute-wise, about 30 minutes to midtown.

Having lived both in Queens and Manhattan over many years, I find this "Manhattan or broke" attitude with largely people who move from outside NYC.

I moved to Manhattan from Queens, when I was able to afford it and not when it became affordable.

Disagree about your $2k take on a Sunset Park or Jackson Heights apartment. I've lived in the latter, and that's not the case.

Your "daily grind" doesn't have to happen at the same time as everyone else's. If the cramped subway bothers you, commute before (almost everyone can do this) or after (maybe not everyone can do this one though) the on-peak hours.

NYC is an expensive and densely populated city to live in. Your quality of life hinges on the set of compromises you make, which are unique to the city and have a higher impact on your day-to-day. Some people don't like to make compromises and decisions that affect their everyday lives to this degree, and that's fine. But to pretend that options don't exist is ridiculous.

I live in Hell's Kitchen but I had a reverse commute to Sunset Park for 2 years, ending earlier this year.

My commute time ranged anywhere from 50 minutes to 2 and a half hours, each way, every day...more often towards the latter end of that spectrum. The situation of riding the yellow line to/from Brooklyn is atrocious and not something that I plan to subject myself to again.

The subway might be less cramped at off-peak times, but it's not more reliable or faster. It's still a long commute that's been getting longer and less predictable for the past ~2 years.

Anecdata vs anecdata.

In 2011, I rented a 2-bedroom apartment next to the beautiful Prospect park, within a trivial walking distance to 2 subway lines, 30 mins by train to my office in Manhattan, for $1500.

It's not a posh neighborhood, but I don't care.

I’m not sure that you’re disproving any point. You paid $1500 for a 2br apartment in a crappy neighborhood.

Depends on what you need in life. Some need night life, some need good schools, some need short commute, some need a park to walk / run, etc. Some even prefer Nashville.

I defy you to find a 2 bedroom apartment in a non-crappy neighborhood in any major American city for less than $1k. Even smaller cities won’t make that cut - it’s tough to find that in Columbus, let alone Denver or Dallas.

You can always trade off commute time or access to jobs and culture for lower rent. It’s pointless to complain about more desirable cities being more expensive; if you want to live in a popular area it’s going to cost you more.

Goalposts are moving quickly. $1500 in 2011 is closer to $1800-2000 in 2018. And where did under $1k come from?

I own a newer construction 2Br condo in midtown Atlanta with a 24-hour doorman, pool, dedicated parking, and skyline views and my monthly payment including HOA is about $1300. Brand new 2Br apartments in the building next door start around $1700. Just some more anecdata.

No they aren’t. I’m putting a baseline on hyperbole: at $1000 today, you’d be close to the bottom of the market for a 2 bedroom apartment in any desirable market in the US. The OP paid (in 2018 dollars) only twice the minimum, in a fairly desirable part of one of the economic, cultural and business capitals of the world.

Basically, you have ridiculous standards if you think Prospect Park is crappy, and your price expectations are irrational. Even you admit that your next-door neighbors will be getting roughly the same deal...but they’ll be in Atlanta, not NYC. It’s fine if you don’t like NYC, but you seem to have trouble accepting that a great many people do like it enough to pay more for it.

Also, let’s talk about moving the goalposts: you’re comparing ownership and renting as if they’re the same thing.

I paid $1450 for a 1 bed that was >1000 sq feet in Jackson Heights and it was _beautiful_. It's just not the Village.

Berlin is a very good analogue to NYC, I've found, except the rampant indoor cigarette smoking, which makes it unbearable for me.

Really? Indoor?

I just took a 2-week vacation in Bavaria, and indeed, the rampant smoking was shocking to me as an American. However, I did not see it inside, only outside. It was especially annoying when I wanted to look at a restaurant's menu outside and some idiot with a cigarette was standing in the doorway; I just went by and found another restaurant when that happened. I saw tons of people (usually male) smoking outside right next to doorways, in entranceways, on the sidewalks, etc., many times in the rain and cold. The level of cigarette smoking, plus the poor city air quality due to all the diesel cars, really made me question if I could stand living in Germany any time in the next 20 years (probably about as long as it'll take to become more like America now).

However, I did not once see anyone smoking indoors, and it seemed to be illegal in public places from what I could tell. Are things different in Berlin?

Indoor smoking is quite common here, but only in bars and clubs.

It's illegal in Berlin as well but completely unenforced in bars and clubs. Also in general the smoking population of adults is like 1/3 of men and 1/4 of women. I'm an occasional smoker and I even find it disgusting.

I never go to bars and clubs, so maybe that's why I never saw it indoors.

I was in Berlin exactly a year ago, and it is indeed unberable. Think bars so filled with smoke you can't see all the way across the room. Smoking outside just wasn't a thing, and it was in the 30s when I was there, so while there is in general a good outdoor drinking culture where you can avoid it for much of the year, in the winter you just can't.

I had to leave some places because it was so unbearable.

I never go to bars or clubs; for someone like me, is it a problem?

Personally, I was really annoyed by all the smoking on streets in Munich and Nuremberg, but again I didn't see it inside.

Probably not then? Restaurants were fine. I am not sure where the line is drawn between a bar and restaurant though, but you can likely see or smell the smoke long before you enter a place, so it shouldn't be hard to avoid.

I live in Sunset Park now and pay $2000 for a two bedroom apartment, though the second bedroom fits only a twin sized bed. It was mostly a bonus room and use it for storage.

My previous Sunset Park apartment, of just one bedroom, raised its rent to over $2000 before I moved out. Sunset Park, unless you live close to 8th Avenue, is not even that nice or quiet of a neighborhood to live in.

Because Sunset Park has a) high home ownership rates and b) tons of apartment exclusive to the Chinese community, it's actually not a very cheap place to live in. Or perhaps that's just how expensive NYC is now.

I've chosen to move to a nicer neighborhood next year because if I'm going to pay $2000-2400 I'd rather live closer to Manhattan, even if the apartment is smaller.