Rent is getting extremely out of hand.
You can spend upwards of $1500 for a tiny place that doesn’t even have anything new in it and isn’t in a good location.
Especially if you live in places like San Francisco or New York, it’s crazy what people will pay to live in places like those.
One NY lady, Manhattan to be exact has gone viral for her tiny apartment, which she pays $650 a month for. It’s only 80 square feet. Yes, that’s not a room or anything. That’s the whole apartment.
It’s also being called a steal for the location, even though it doesn’t have a bathroom. Luckily she has a sink and shares a shower and toilet with other tenants in the building.
Housing in New York City is brutally expensive. The federal government generally defines affordable housing as that which costs no more than a third of a household’s income, yet many New Yorkers spend as much as half of their incomes on rent. Still, there are stories of people whose lives changed forever because they found housing they could afford.
But how do you even track down these apartments? In New York, the process can feel opaque, with complicated eligibility requirements, hidden lotteries and waiting lists. Some cheaper apartments exist in older buildings under programs like Mitchell-Lama, while others are in shiny new towers in choice neighborhoods like downtown Brooklyn or Chelsea. The income requirements depend on the program, and the range of eligibility may surprise you.
For example, a family of four earning as much as $220,000 a year could qualify for an apartment on Housing Connect, the city’s housing lottery. A couple earning around $85,000 a year could apply for not only the city lottery, but also state lotteries, federally funded private developments and Mitchell-Lama buildings.
When people say you pay ridiculous prices for just a closet in NY, they genuinely mean it.
Flip the page to see the video for a tour.