Posted on 10/08/2009 1:33:49 PM PDT by Niuhuru
I was going through, calling apartment complexes, and despite the fact that rents are sky high, they don't include electricity and heat! It's disgusting! With one place, they charge up to seven hundred and they also make you pay 1/3 water bills and heat and electricity. As if they were helping, they said they didn't charge through garbage services! Has anyone else had bad times finding a place that doesn't bleed you alive?
Here comes the worst part: this place that has a one bedroom, small apartment requires that you have an income of 1,660 in order to be able to rent and I have SSD, which limits what I recieve and how much I can pay! It's obscene! Considering what they offer, it's stupid. A one bedroom apartment shouldn't cost any more than five hundred at MOST with everything included. It's like these places are out to take you for all they can get!
So many of these places are all the same really, same structure, same amount of room space, same everything and yet they demand you also pick up the tab for heat and electricity. This is total gouging!
Acorn might be able to offer some suggestions.
Leave Michigan. Rents are better elsewhere
Where is this located? You may want to move to a more suburban (heartland) area where housing costs are lower.
Seven-hundred dollars a month is cheap in Jersey.
Rent something as small as you can month-to-month for the next few months. Vacancy rates are going up sharply, and in six months you should be able to get a much better place at a price you can manage.
You need to look at Craigslist.com for your city.
Plenty of options there.
Apparently you’ve never looked at apartments here in Taxachusetts.
My fiance’ and I just got a place that was a deal, heat and hot water included, though we have to pay electric.
It’s a 2 bedroom, 965 sq ft, it’s costing us $1225 a month...
So, $700 for a 1 bedroom isn’t bad in my eyes, out here that wouldn’t even get you a studio, unless you’re willing to live in a really, really shady neighborhood.
Rent a room in someone’s house, you can probably knock 20-25% off that price.
I rent my 2 bedroom townhouse in NC for 1150/month.
1600sf, 2 car garage and a underground concrete bunker. There is still an indent in the carpet there where I had my gun safe.
I’ve been reading articles about how rents have been falling in these difficult times.
I’ve paid over $700 for a 1 bedroom more than ten years ago. And nobody paid my utilities for me. Time to move to the country.
That rent amount is cheap compared to other areas.
Here in San Diego, one bedroom apt. can start at $1,200 on up, you also pay the utilities. 2 bedroom at least $1,600 on up.
Condos in my neighborhood are $500,000 to $4 milion a unit.
Around here, (L.A.) a one-bedroom apartment, (I’m talking basic— no central air, dishwasher, fireplace or washer/dryer hookup)— is about $1,000 a month, and that’s for the barrio, where you’ll hear gunshots at night and police copters flying overhead and will be afraid to walk down the street. For any kind of decent neighborhood, it’s about $1,800 a month.
Nothing new...except sticker shock(which isn’t new either)...there are programs out there that help on heating. Some rental prices are out of line which means you have to investigate bunches to come up with a deal(note; low priced units usually have waiting lists and some are not in the best of locations and tend towards unsavory tenants).
It will when you buy a building and rent the apartments for that amount. See how easy that was?
BTW don't worry about making your mortgage payments, paying property taxes, supplying trash pick up, paying for house utilities, etc. you probably won't have enough income from the building but you will go to heaven for losing your ass.
20 years ago it was over $1,000 for an apartment in Boston. So get 5 roommates.
I'm paying $1700/mo for a decent two bedroom in Coronado, trash and water included. Street parking only. Deposit was 125% of the monthly rent. My landlord just *lowered* his rents due to too many vacancies. I could pay half that if I moved down the Strand to Imperial Beach. But then I'd be living in I.B. verses Coronado.
Yep. I'm paying out my rear for location. But I know my family is safe when I go to work or out to sea.
Move to Houston.
I hear ya. For Coronado, that is not bad.
This isn’t a surprise. People who are still working but cannot afford to pay a mortgage have to go somewhere.
How fah from the ‘T’?
A one bedroom apartment rents for as much as the landlord acan get. It is called the Market. Where rents are held artificially below that market, you still can’t find an apartment because they are all ocupied and new ones aren’t getting built because landlords can’t make maone.
My mortgage for my house is cheaper. Its not that big only about 1700 sq feet but its mine.
I have friends who moved in to a senior citizen complex just outside of Syracuse, NY and they pay $900 a month for a two bedroom. None of their utilities are included and it has electric heat. All they have is one wall unit air conditioner, and no dishwasher. The laundry facilities are just down the hall from them. They also have a balcony off their living room area. I don't have a balcony at my place.
$700 a month gets you into a 1br/1bath “luxury” apartment in my area (Idaho). Luxury as in it has a pool somewhere, maybe a weight room and they are really good about keeping up the maintenance and landscaping.
If you are really lucky they actually have decently sized parking spots and there is enough for 1 1/2 spots for every apartment.
Still have to pay utilities except water/sewer/trash.
This is total gouging!
So are you calling for rent control?
Are you caught in a time warp?
I’ve looked at rental prices across the country
as I traveled and 700 is a typical starting point
for nice places.
Are you wearing platform shoes as you type...?
I am on a fixed income as well, although much more than yourself and I would suggest that you move to a smaller, poorer community.
The rents are lower and your meager income will go further.
This is easy...Buy a place and rent it out for $500 and include everything...Then, at least ONE place will be available at that price. If you can afford more, I welcome you renting them out at that price as well.
It's like these places are out to take you for all they can get!
Yeah, and so does the grocery store, the video rental store, the car dealership, the laundry, the electronics store, etc. And you do the same to them expecting to take them for all you can get for your dollar.
So many of these places are all the same really, same structure, same amount of room space, same everything and yet they demand you also pick up the tab for heat and electricity. This is total gouging!
Why is it gouging? You will either pay for your own electricity and heat, or else the landlord will figure the total for all of his units, divide by the number of occupied units and add that to the rent. I would rather pay my own bill than have to split the bill with the pot grower and all of his grow lights next door, or the guy who likes it 85 degrees in winter, but still wants the fresh air from an open window.
I paid $885 for a 2 bdrm apartment just a couple months ago. I paid all utilities.
1 bdrm apts in the same division were $745 plus utilities.
First and last and deposit (plus an additional pet deposit)
$700 or so will get you an OK place here in Columbia. I see some nice ones when I have to go on Virtual Tour photo gigs that hit 4 digits.
Here’s a hot news flash for you, Sport: You would be well advised to get up and get the hell out of Michigan as fast as you can carry yourself along with anything that you hold dear.
Have you been paying attention to what your neighbors in Detroit have been up to lately? If not, then you are already way too late...
actually, usually you pay your own utilities
Holy smokes! $1225.00 per month?
In Bend, Oregon you can now buy a condo for $50K. There are several on the market that feature 2 bed 1 bath 760 sq. feet. Monthly payment around $260.00 for P & I.
For $60K you’re looking at 900 sq. feet.
That's pretty average for New England...without heat, of course. :-)
I paid >1000 for a 2 bed, 1.5 bath in Seattle. Moved to Iowa and for $1000 have a house w/patio, deck, 2 full, 2 half baths, 3 beds, office, family room, and separate storage and laundry areas. And I’m in the expensive part of Iowa!
I paid $750 10 years ago for a 2/1 in another college town. Ten years later, a friend is paying $990 for a 1 beds w/den in a nice complex in the same town. My mother is paying >$2000 for a 2/2 outside of DC. Sometimes you gotta move.
Crawl to the border and exit Michigan, if at all possible.
Do you have any “unusual” practices or habits that prevent you from finding a two bedroom and getting a roomie?
Where in Michigan?
There will come a day when the average rent is $452,000 a month.
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