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I am curious about what first years in different cities spend on rent. I'm a 3L and just starting to look at housing.

Obviously you should pay enough that you are comfortable but no more than really necessary, but as someone from the sticks who went to law school in a smaller city I'm just looking for some data points.

$2400ish

i spent 2250

It's gonna run you 1800 a month in Chicago or so and significantly more in NYC and SF (almost 3000).

JohannDeMann wrote:It's gonna run you 1800 a month in Chicago or so and significantly more in NYC and SF (almost 3000).

nyc will be closer to 2K unless you insist on living in a trendy area

You can easily find a good apartment in SF for 2500. Just don't live in SOMA or the Mission.

Im targeting 1800-2000 for the first couple years.

Dallas, can easily find nice downtown bedrooms for <$1500. Some brand new buildings are starting to go up to around ~1800-2000. Probably could have lived farther out and paid ~1000 but thought I deserved the amenities and lack of traffic.

I rented a studio on the UES of Manhattan for $1950/month and re-upped for another year.

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sublime wrote:NY people, what area were you living in? Looking for a $2kish studio/1BR and not really concerned about being in a trendy area and working in midtown.

I'd def look in LIC. You can probably find a really nice studio with awesome subway access for that price. I live in LIC and I'm in my Midtown office, door to door, within 25 min.

I don't get it.. are all these nyc $1900 1 bedrooms on zillow bait and switch apartments?

mvp99 wrote:I don't get it.. are all these nyc $1900 1 bedrooms on zillow bait and switch apartments?

I haven't looked on Zillow. However be sure to look at Google street view of the place. I have seen apartments for that price that are walk ups over dry cleaners or bars.

NY - 2800 for a studio in Murray Hill

NYC - 2500 for 1br (UWS). You won't get 2K or less unless you're okay with a studio in a non-popular part of town and/or roommates.

sublime wrote:NY people, what area were you living in? Looking for a $2kish studio/1BR and not really concerned about being in a trendy area and working in midtown.

UES. You should be able to manage that (idk about for a 1BR, but definitely for a studio). Plus it's walkable to midtown east.

e: eberhart bros is good for non-broker apartments if you don't mind living in an older place

A 2K studio in UES is feasible but it's most likely going to be a 1st or 6th floor walkup and it probably will be on 1st Ave so you are looking at a 10-15 minute walk to the subway, which will also probably be a non-express.

Those are all first world problems and not particularly cumbersome, but just know those are sacrifices that will probably be made.

mvp99 wrote:I don't get it.. are all these nyc $1900 1 bedrooms on zillow bait and switch apartments?

Yes, probably, unless they're both (1) shitty and (2) above W 125 / E 96 or in the Bronx or deep Queens.

Honestly I think it's silly to spend $2500+ for some tiny shitty place in UES/UWS for yourself when you can grab a few roommates and spend less than $1500 each on a fancy relatively huge place in a trendy part of Brooklyn. Especially makes sense if you're working downtown, but you can do LIC if you're in Midtown.

Plus side is that you save more for when you eventually burn out and take a 50% paycut to have a life, and you always have friends at home to talk to without having to go out after a long workday (godsend for extroverts). Down side is that you can't ugly cry and eat a grilled cheese sandwich seasoned with your tears on your couch at 3am.

Associate at an SF firm living in the Bay Area.

As a first year: $1900/mo - split a nice 2 BR with a roomie 15 minutes from my firm's SF office.
As a second year: $1600/mo - picked up a third roommate and moved into a house farther out (think Sunset/Richmond/Glen Park type neighborhoods), 35 minute commute by public transit.
As a third year: $1300/mo - moved across the Bay to Oakland, have a great 2 BR apartment that I share with a roommate, 35 minute commute by BART.

SF prices are truly ridiculous, and if you're near the 19th St./MacArthur/Rockridge BART stations the commute from the East Bay is often shorter than the commute from within SF.

buddhabelly wrote:Honestly I think it's silly to spend $2500+ for some tiny shitty place in UES/UWS for yourself when you can grab a few roommates and spend less than $1500 each on a fancy relatively huge place in a trendy part of Brooklyn. Especially makes sense if you're working downtown, but you can do LIC if you're in Midtown.

Plus side is that you save more for when you eventually burn out and take a 50% paycut to have a life, and you always have friends at home to talk to without having to go out after a long workday (godsend for extroverts). Down side is that you can't ugly cry and eat a grilled cheese sandwich seasoned with your tears on your couch at 3am.

Second this. Also, if you live with other associates, the odds of you being home at the same time are slim enough that you'll probably be able to ugly cry and eat a grilled cheese sandwich on your couch. If they walk in on you, they'll probably be ready to join you anyways.

buddhabelly wrote:Honestly I think it's silly to spend $2500+ for some tiny shitty place in UES/UWS for yourself when you can grab a few roommates and spend less than $1500 each on a fancy relatively huge place in a trendy part of Brooklyn. Especially makes sense if you're working downtown, but you can do LIC if you're in Midtown.

Plus side is that you save more for when you eventually burn out and take a 50% paycut to have a life, and you always have friends at home to talk to without having to go out after a long workday (godsend for extroverts). Down side is that you can't ugly cry and eat a grilled cheese sandwich seasoned with your tears on your couch at 3am.

this is tcr if youre single + have trustworthy roommates

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sublime wrote: My current plan is to fly to the city after the bar, and try to find an apt to move into like two weeks later. More concerned about the viability of that plan.

Get a broker and you'll be fine, when I moved to manhattan after college it took two days with a broker to find the perfect place (we must have looked at a dozen places, I knew nothing about the city so I just told her where I'm working and what my price range was).

The downside is broker's fees, which can be 1-2 month's rent, plus security and first/last month...it's a lot of money to have on you at once. Also you're probably not going to get the best deal going through a broker.

$2200 in a luxury doorman building. You need to circumvent a broker to get these places, but from a building's perspective, you're close to a perfect tenant. It's very unlikely you'll get fired, very unlikely you'll miss a rent payment, you will live normal hours, etc. A lot of times buildings that don't go through a broker are cheaper, because the brokers fee is often 2 ways. I'd also recommend going for luxury - it's worth a few hundred extra month. It covers my gym, I can get packages delivered and I haven't had any bug issues because they have a maintenance staff. NYC is notoriously bad for roaches. Even when I was spotlessly clean, I'd always have a small to moderate roach problem in non-luxury buildings.