First, a job.
I've skim thru the salary poll but here are the questions.
34 y.o F, 8 yrs exp., BSArch, MArch, licensed. Starchitect firm offer.
How much should I negociate?
Second, tax.
I heard there is City tax, State tax, + Fed tax.
How many % are they?
Third, living cost.
How much is renting a decent 2-bedroom in downtown/midtown? (like south of Central Park..)
I'm considering this city for work experience.
Any comments welcomed.
hmm...how do you define "decent" for a place to live? most that i've seen in that part of the city rent for 5 times as much as other parts of the country and are probably half the size.
You probably can't afford downtown or Midtown, so get that idea into your head as soon as possible. Luckily, there's much more to NYC than those areas. Get a job first, and then look for neighborhoods that offer the best commuting options to work.
Salaries and rents will vary widely, and it's almost impossible to make generalizations. Due to rent stabilization laws, identical apartments in the same building might have widely varying rents. Check craigslist to get an idea of how far your money will go. For salary figures, check the most recent AIA compensation survey.
Landlords expect your gross salary to be at least 40 times the monthly rent, and there's a good chance you'll have to go through a broker to find an apartment. The broker will expect a finder's fee of about 15% of your annual rent, due when you sign your lease. If your credit is less than perfect, expect to find many landlords unwilling to rent to you unless you have a guarantor (co-signer) or are willing to put down an extra month or two for a security deposit.
As for taxes, federal taxes are no different here than they are elsewhere, and state/local taxes are only a few percentage points above that. NYC sales tax is 8.375%.
I would echo what others said. Check out Brooklyn for sure. Far more affordable, and very convenient to subways. My wife and I were renting, until last year, a large 1 bedroom near Prospect Park for $1,900 which I would say was a great deal. Two bedrooms in Park Slope and other parts of brownstone Brooklyn will run you between $2,500-$3,000.
It's very unlikely that you're going to find a 2bdrm in downtown/ midtown Manhattan for less than $4,000/ month. Unless you're willing to spend that kind of money, the sooner you get the idea of living in Manhattan out of your head, the better, or you're in for major disappointment. For comparison: I have friends paying $2,000-$2,500 for tiny, tiny studios in midtown (just south of Central Park).
Just for the record, Manhattan doesn't end at 59th Street. There are some beautiful areas of Harlem, Washington Heights, and Inwood that are comparable to Brooklyn and Queens in terms of rents, and are within east commuting distance to Midtown via express subway.
UES is a nice area, but still fairly expensive compared to the neighborhoods I mentioned... Plus, you'd have to deal with a commute from hell on the 4/5/6 subway.
I'll take another look at the UES once the Second Avenue Subway is finished.
I second Living in Gin's comments on the upper reaches of Manhattan. You could definitely find some incredible deals up there. I would say compared to Brooklyn (Park Slope, Williamsburg, etc.), you get more square footage but less variety of amenities for your money.
I live in the Upper East Side and the commute is really not that bad on the 4,5,6. It is a bit crowded, but the trains are very constant, never havign to wait longer than 5 minutes for a train. The price is right too. You can easily find a nice sized one bedroom for less than $1800. The restaurants in the area are great, but unfortunately the people in the area are the negative. Lots of kids with parents money running around. I would definitely check it out though, as it was the only neighborhood in Manhattan that my wife and I could afford. I used to live in Windsor Terrace, and this area is much cheaper, and a 20 minute subway ride vs. one hour is much better.
living in midtown means you arent really in a residential neighborhood anyhow - much nicer to live somewhere NOT in the center of the action, so you can escape when you want! the greatest thing about the subway system is that you are only a train or two away from whatever you want - y ou dont have to live in midtown to work there.
....if you are willing to forgo some amenities (elevator, laundry in bldg, etc) you can find some nice 2 brdms in hell's kitchen, or even on teh UWS (two subway lines, vs. the UES for commuting) for under $3000/mo. if you want to go cheaper than that...check out the brooklyn options mentioned above, or washington heights/inwood. in wash heights you can get a GREAT apt for a great price. and as long as you are near the A-train, your commute will be fine (that train runs express from 125th to 59th, thus jetting you straight to midtown rather quickly).
as for salary....when i started my job in NY i asked for too little...don't do that!
Life in midtown is the pits, and i think people who live there typically have more money than sense, unless you're on Central Park South it a really expensive 'hood with crappy overpriced amenites.
As for all ya'll brooklyn cats, I love how living a couple of blocks east of the park slope area in Bed-Sty/Crown Heights means paying half the rent for the same exact apartment. I'm literally two blocks from Ft. Greene, my neighborhood looks the exact same, except there are more black people.
I know you could grab a 3 bdr apartment in the suburbs of Atlanta for 400 a month (from what my renter friends tell me). I imagine even in the cheapest 'hoods in NYC that would run at least $2000 a month, and a plane ticket between ATL and NYC can be around $200.
You'll also be making half the salary in Atlanta as you'd make in NYC, plus paying hundreds a month to own a car. It's all relative.
When I moved from Chicago to NYC last year, my housing costs nearly doubled in terms of the actual dollar amount. But as a percentage of my income, I'm spending less on housing here than I did in Chicago, and I'm able to put much more money into savings.
LiG, from what i've seen people in NYC only make about 25% at the most extra compared to what i've seen elsewhere. Cost of living is high as hell in NYC.
Did your job in NYC come with added responsiblities/promotion?
Slightly more responsibilities, but at a much better firm doing much better projects, with much better clients. I got about a 40% salary bump when I moved here, and I'm no longer spending $400+ a month on gas and car insurance.
Besides all that, some things are worth paying a premium for. Yes, I could probably live like a king in the suburbs of Atlanta (assuming there's still any drinking water left), but why the hell would I want to?
ja, i get the same feeling about far rockaway, like its some long-lost beach town at the end of the world or something. I've met one person in the city whose been out there and she says its pretty nice.
if i ever left detroit, i've always fantasized about getting a place in far rockaway. i can't imagine real estate being too expensive (the neighborhood isn't the best, no? but hell, i'm from detroit.) such a great location - on the beach, close to jfk, and 45 minutes to manhattan - ideal really. maybe i'll retire there.
Don't trust the cost-of-living calculators; I don't make anywhere near six figures, and yet I manage to live a reasonable middle-class lifestyle. I'd be living an even better lifestyle if I didn't have a mountain of debt and if I didn't eat out so often.
Let's say a registered project architect with an M.Arch. and 10 years experience is pulling in about $72,000, which I think is a reasonable average salary for somebody in that position at a good firm.
1/40th of that is the max you can spend on monthly rent. which gets you a $1800 apartment. You won't get a penthouse on Park Avenue for that much, but for example, you could get a beautiful art deco 2-bedroom apartment in one of the nicest co-ops in Hudson Heights, steps away from the A train. (I visited this particular apartment during an open house last month, and I can confirm it's a very sweet pad.) The neighborhood is very quiet and well-kept with an active community board, and has a few nice shops and restaurants down the street.
In addition to rent, let's say you're paying about 25% of your salary in taxes, you pay $80 a month for a MetroCard, $250 a month for cable and utilities, $300 a month in credit card bills, and $300 a month for groceries. For shits and giggles, let's also say you got your M.Arch. at an Ivy League school and you're paying $700 a month in student loan bills. That still leaves you with over a $1000 a month left over for drinking, movies, vacations, clothing, and/or savings.
Not a bad lifestyle for a nice apartment in a nice neighborhood, in a city that's supposedly unaffordable. If you're married and your spouse is also working, then you'll be doing even better.
And even if you're single and making much less than $72,000, you can mostly likely still eek out a decent lifestyle as long as you're not hell-bent on living in Midtown and going out clubbing every weekend. Back in 2004, I was making $48,000 and I still managed to afford a modest one-bedroom apartment in upper Manhattan.
As for Far Rockaway, I rode the subway out there a few years ago, and it's sort of an interesting area. To me it seemed rather bleak and dreary because of a few large public housing projects in the area (and maybe also because there was a tropical storm just offshore). I understand it's mainly a blue-collar neighborhood with a lot of tidy houses and a few small apartment buildings. It would be an interesting place to live, although the commute would probably be a bit long for my taste.
far rockaway is for beach getaways, or for those nights when you get so drunk you end up on the opposite end of you subway line and it's 4 hours from the last thing you remember...
Forget it! I wouldn't even try to find something in the city! The cost of living in Midtown (East, Central or West?) is going to be so high that you are better off getting more for your dollar. Brooklyn is the place to be (especially if you are moving from another city). Brooklyn has access to a lot of trains, there is a diverse selection of neighborhoods and you do9n't have to deal with the same hustle of Midtown (or downtown for that matter).
I knew housing was expensive in NYC, but $1500/month for a 400sf closet in Brooklyn?!?
Contrast that to a friends place in Mpls, MN. He pays $1500/month for a 800sf open loft in a restored warehouse district building. That comes with in-unit laundry, 2 underground climate controlled parking spots and paid cable TV. He works downtown and walks to most necessary places, taking the bus or riding bicycle otherwise. He doesn't own a car so rents his parking spots out at $100/month each.
Granted the city living in Mpls isn't NYC, but there is a real expensive cost for it, no doubt there.
a friend just got a place in east williamsburg / bushwick...
2 bedrooms,
800 sf
1200/month
on the L (wilson ave), a few stops before it fills up with the williamsburg crowd (lorimer and bedford)...
Jun 23, 08 12:27 pm ·
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NYC - want to know the balance sheet to live there
Could some New Yorkers give me some ideas?
First, a job.
I've skim thru the salary poll but here are the questions.
34 y.o F, 8 yrs exp., BSArch, MArch, licensed. Starchitect firm offer.
How much should I negociate?
Second, tax.
I heard there is City tax, State tax, + Fed tax.
How many % are they?
Third, living cost.
How much is renting a decent 2-bedroom in downtown/midtown? (like south of Central Park..)
I'm considering this city for work experience.
Any comments welcomed.
Thanks.
hmm...how do you define "decent" for a place to live? most that i've seen in that part of the city rent for 5 times as much as other parts of the country and are probably half the size.
buy a van to sleep
get a gym membership to take showers
You probably can't afford downtown or Midtown, so get that idea into your head as soon as possible. Luckily, there's much more to NYC than those areas. Get a job first, and then look for neighborhoods that offer the best commuting options to work.
Salaries and rents will vary widely, and it's almost impossible to make generalizations. Due to rent stabilization laws, identical apartments in the same building might have widely varying rents. Check craigslist to get an idea of how far your money will go. For salary figures, check the most recent AIA compensation survey.
Landlords expect your gross salary to be at least 40 times the monthly rent, and there's a good chance you'll have to go through a broker to find an apartment. The broker will expect a finder's fee of about 15% of your annual rent, due when you sign your lease. If your credit is less than perfect, expect to find many landlords unwilling to rent to you unless you have a guarantor (co-signer) or are willing to put down an extra month or two for a security deposit.
As for taxes, federal taxes are no different here than they are elsewhere, and state/local taxes are only a few percentage points above that. NYC sales tax is 8.375%.
Try this cost of living calculator.
http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/costofliving/costofliving.html?step=result¤t_salary=60%2C000&fromStateMenu=MA&from_city=Boston+MA&toStateMenu=NY&to_city=&x=60&y=12
I would echo what others said. Check out Brooklyn for sure. Far more affordable, and very convenient to subways. My wife and I were renting, until last year, a large 1 bedroom near Prospect Park for $1,900 which I would say was a great deal. Two bedrooms in Park Slope and other parts of brownstone Brooklyn will run you between $2,500-$3,000.
It's very unlikely that you're going to find a 2bdrm in downtown/ midtown Manhattan for less than $4,000/ month. Unless you're willing to spend that kind of money, the sooner you get the idea of living in Manhattan out of your head, the better, or you're in for major disappointment. For comparison: I have friends paying $2,000-$2,500 for tiny, tiny studios in midtown (just south of Central Park).
Just for the record, Manhattan doesn't end at 59th Street. There are some beautiful areas of Harlem, Washington Heights, and Inwood that are comparable to Brooklyn and Queens in terms of rents, and are within east commuting distance to Midtown via express subway.
"east" = easy
upper east side is probably your best bet for manhattan
UES is a nice area, but still fairly expensive compared to the neighborhoods I mentioned... Plus, you'd have to deal with a commute from hell on the 4/5/6 subway.
I'll take another look at the UES once the Second Avenue Subway is finished.
I second Living in Gin's comments on the upper reaches of Manhattan. You could definitely find some incredible deals up there. I would say compared to Brooklyn (Park Slope, Williamsburg, etc.), you get more square footage but less variety of amenities for your money.
I live in the Upper East Side and the commute is really not that bad on the 4,5,6. It is a bit crowded, but the trains are very constant, never havign to wait longer than 5 minutes for a train. The price is right too. You can easily find a nice sized one bedroom for less than $1800. The restaurants in the area are great, but unfortunately the people in the area are the negative. Lots of kids with parents money running around. I would definitely check it out though, as it was the only neighborhood in Manhattan that my wife and I could afford. I used to live in Windsor Terrace, and this area is much cheaper, and a 20 minute subway ride vs. one hour is much better.
Bushwick is affordable ,full of hipsters to make fun of and only 20 minutes to manhattan! L train it~~~
echoing the response of many.....
living in midtown means you arent really in a residential neighborhood anyhow - much nicer to live somewhere NOT in the center of the action, so you can escape when you want! the greatest thing about the subway system is that you are only a train or two away from whatever you want - y ou dont have to live in midtown to work there.
....if you are willing to forgo some amenities (elevator, laundry in bldg, etc) you can find some nice 2 brdms in hell's kitchen, or even on teh UWS (two subway lines, vs. the UES for commuting) for under $3000/mo. if you want to go cheaper than that...check out the brooklyn options mentioned above, or washington heights/inwood. in wash heights you can get a GREAT apt for a great price. and as long as you are near the A-train, your commute will be fine (that train runs express from 125th to 59th, thus jetting you straight to midtown rather quickly).
as for salary....when i started my job in NY i asked for too little...don't do that!
Life in midtown is the pits, and i think people who live there typically have more money than sense, unless you're on Central Park South it a really expensive 'hood with crappy overpriced amenites.
As for all ya'll brooklyn cats, I love how living a couple of blocks east of the park slope area in Bed-Sty/Crown Heights means paying half the rent for the same exact apartment. I'm literally two blocks from Ft. Greene, my neighborhood looks the exact same, except there are more black people.
for the difference in rent i could fly to nyc for three weekends a month.
for the difference in rent i could fly to nyc for three weekends a month.
^that is probably very true.
I know you could grab a 3 bdr apartment in the suburbs of Atlanta for 400 a month (from what my renter friends tell me). I imagine even in the cheapest 'hoods in NYC that would run at least $2000 a month, and a plane ticket between ATL and NYC can be around $200.
You'll also be making half the salary in Atlanta as you'd make in NYC, plus paying hundreds a month to own a car. It's all relative.
When I moved from Chicago to NYC last year, my housing costs nearly doubled in terms of the actual dollar amount. But as a percentage of my income, I'm spending less on housing here than I did in Chicago, and I'm able to put much more money into savings.
LiG, from what i've seen people in NYC only make about 25% at the most extra compared to what i've seen elsewhere. Cost of living is high as hell in NYC.
Did your job in NYC come with added responsiblities/promotion?
Slightly more responsibilities, but at a much better firm doing much better projects, with much better clients. I got about a 40% salary bump when I moved here, and I'm no longer spending $400+ a month on gas and car insurance.
Besides all that, some things are worth paying a premium for. Yes, I could probably live like a king in the suburbs of Atlanta (assuming there's still any drinking water left), but why the hell would I want to?
If you like doing outdoorsy stuff and actually owning property ATL ain't bad.
My gripe with NYC is I'm just starting out in my career, have been working at firms in this town for 8 months and it all seems really expensive.
On the plus side, meerly switching firms in the city I made a 50% salary increase to something I consider reasonable for my xp level.
Based on that Cost of Living calculator, I would need to make close to 6 figures to live in NY (not Queens). Ridiculous...
does anyone live in far rockaway, last stop on the a train? i always imagined there was something romantic about that place.
i'm off for a moderately priced martini.
ja, i get the same feeling about far rockaway, like its some long-lost beach town at the end of the world or something. I've met one person in the city whose been out there and she says its pretty nice.
it is pretty nice for sure, sort of cool to get out of the subway and have a beach right across the street. not as many syringes as coney.
if i ever left detroit, i've always fantasized about getting a place in far rockaway. i can't imagine real estate being too expensive (the neighborhood isn't the best, no? but hell, i'm from detroit.) such a great location - on the beach, close to jfk, and 45 minutes to manhattan - ideal really. maybe i'll retire there.
Don't trust the cost-of-living calculators; I don't make anywhere near six figures, and yet I manage to live a reasonable middle-class lifestyle. I'd be living an even better lifestyle if I didn't have a mountain of debt and if I didn't eat out so often.
Let's say a registered project architect with an M.Arch. and 10 years experience is pulling in about $72,000, which I think is a reasonable average salary for somebody in that position at a good firm.
1/40th of that is the max you can spend on monthly rent. which gets you a $1800 apartment. You won't get a penthouse on Park Avenue for that much, but for example, you could get a beautiful art deco 2-bedroom apartment in one of the nicest co-ops in Hudson Heights, steps away from the A train. (I visited this particular apartment during an open house last month, and I can confirm it's a very sweet pad.) The neighborhood is very quiet and well-kept with an active community board, and has a few nice shops and restaurants down the street.
In addition to rent, let's say you're paying about 25% of your salary in taxes, you pay $80 a month for a MetroCard, $250 a month for cable and utilities, $300 a month in credit card bills, and $300 a month for groceries. For shits and giggles, let's also say you got your M.Arch. at an Ivy League school and you're paying $700 a month in student loan bills. That still leaves you with over a $1000 a month left over for drinking, movies, vacations, clothing, and/or savings.
Not a bad lifestyle for a nice apartment in a nice neighborhood, in a city that's supposedly unaffordable. If you're married and your spouse is also working, then you'll be doing even better.
And even if you're single and making much less than $72,000, you can mostly likely still eek out a decent lifestyle as long as you're not hell-bent on living in Midtown and going out clubbing every weekend. Back in 2004, I was making $48,000 and I still managed to afford a modest one-bedroom apartment in upper Manhattan.
As for Far Rockaway, I rode the subway out there a few years ago, and it's sort of an interesting area. To me it seemed rather bleak and dreary because of a few large public housing projects in the area (and maybe also because there was a tropical storm just offshore). I understand it's mainly a blue-collar neighborhood with a lot of tidy houses and a few small apartment buildings. It would be an interesting place to live, although the commute would probably be a bit long for my taste.
For some real "You'd Never Believe You're in NYC" neighborhoods, check out Broad Channel, City Island, Gerritsen Beach, or Riverdale.
far rockaway is for beach getaways, or for those nights when you get so drunk you end up on the opposite end of you subway line and it's 4 hours from the last thing you remember...
Forget it! I wouldn't even try to find something in the city! The cost of living in Midtown (East, Central or West?) is going to be so high that you are better off getting more for your dollar. Brooklyn is the place to be (especially if you are moving from another city). Brooklyn has access to a lot of trains, there is a diverse selection of neighborhoods and you do9n't have to deal with the same hustle of Midtown (or downtown for that matter).
You do have to take cost of living into consideration.
I knew housing was expensive in NYC, but $1500/month for a 400sf closet in Brooklyn?!?
Contrast that to a friends place in Mpls, MN. He pays $1500/month for a 800sf open loft in a restored warehouse district building. That comes with in-unit laundry, 2 underground climate controlled parking spots and paid cable TV. He works downtown and walks to most necessary places, taking the bus or riding bicycle otherwise. He doesn't own a car so rents his parking spots out at $100/month each.
Granted the city living in Mpls isn't NYC, but there is a real expensive cost for it, no doubt there.
i hear sunnyside in queens is a hidden gem.
a friend just got a place in east williamsburg / bushwick...
2 bedrooms,
800 sf
1200/month
on the L (wilson ave), a few stops before it fills up with the williamsburg crowd (lorimer and bedford)...
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