that brokers fee on the apt.?

40x the monthly rent. Not yearly.

I thought I heard 40 as well, but 4 makes a lot more sense. I could see a person according the apartment Jason looked at on $139,200 a year.

It was 4x when i rented my first place in calif. However she did say 40x. I rewatched it with closed captioning. Also 40x2900 is $116,000. She just rounded up.

In NYC, brokers, a 15% fee of a year's rent, and the requirement to make 40x the monthly rent are the norm when it comes to renting an apartment. It's a challenge to find an apartment without a broker here - you really have to hunt and save up a good chunk of change before you move regardless. And apartments go lightning fast, and a fee-free one goes even faster. Even if you don't actually deal with a broker during your search, a landlord will often work with one to run the paperwork and screen potential renters, and so you will end up paying the broker's fee anyway even if the broker did absolutely nothing for you. It's just the way it is.

In terms of wage adjustments, the median yearly income is also just above $52,000 for all of NYC (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/18/nyregion/gap-between-manhattans-rich-and-poor-is-greatest-in-us-census-finds.html). It's a really tough city to afford and wages are also fairly stagnant. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that most people in NYC do not have cars - we are not making car payments, paying property tax on a car, or making insurance payments. So that is one cost we don't have (though a monthly metro pass is $116 and we pay three taxes - city, state, and federal). We also have rent stabilization in which the rent increases on designated apartment buildings are regulated in terms of how much of a percentage a landlord can raise the rent for a lease renewal. With these kinds of apartments, heat and water are usually included in the rent.

Manhattan is out of reach for most people, and the parts of Brooklyn and Queens nearest Manhattan are getting to be just as expensive. I'm curious to know what neighborhood the girls who lived way uptown is - my guess is Washington Heights or Inwood. They are definitely more rough around the edges (I live there) than lower Manhattan but people there are no more dangerous than in any other part of the city. Is it rich and white? No. But that doesn't equate to unsafe. In fact, it has a more neighborhood-y, community feel than the commercialized, gentrified parts of the lower half of Manhattan, and it is really quite lovely. And the apartments are relatively spacious and affordable! "Upstate Manhattan" (as I call it) is a feasible area for Jason to set his sights on.

And I, too, grew up in and am from the DC area, so these prices are still crazy to me as well! But here I still am, 10 years on...

I was born and raised in CA but when I moved out my parents house, I moved to MS. To have the same apartment I have here and live a similar life, my fiance and I would have to make $65-70k a year. At the moment we maybe make 40K (and that's optimistic.) I soo want to move back but it's not looking like that'll happen any time soon.

Even knowing all that, I think the numbers that the Realtor threw out were INSANE. I knew NYC was expensive but hot damn.