Waking Up To the New Rental Caluclus

So often when you see articles about rents in Brooklyn, they focus on hot neighborhoods and scare you with numbers so crazy you'd think surely they're writing to someone else, not you, since you are a seasoned New Yorker who understands how to find a bargain, and you already know which neighborhoods are outside your range and therefore snobby and yuppy. Well...are there bargains anymore? And are there even neighborhoods that are "undiscovered," as they used to say before such words were deemed colonialistic? (Remember when they'd speak of "pioneers?" Wow, man. That's heavy, and not long ago.)

Finally, there's a simple way to plug in your income, credit and expenses to figure out where you could, in fact, live without a trust fund. Remember, these are averages, but they're pretty darn close. Markets have a way of flattening the outliers, and the fact is, few landlords are really going much lower than average anyway.

So what does it take to live around here? If you've been looking, you already know. But it's gonna shock a lot of you just the same.

TYPE: HOUSEHOLD INCOME

Studio: $79,000

1 Bedroom: $90,000

2 Bedrooms: $103,000

3 Bedrooms: $131,000

4 Bedrooms+: $137,000

Don't believe me? Try the calculator from Property Nest. If your household income is below $70K, you'll be looking at neighborhoods like Canarsie, East Flatbush, East NY, Mill Basin, Bensonhurst, as truly "affordable" and just barely. 

Here's the full article on the cheapest (ha!) and most un-cheapest in the borough. 

Next time when you're talking about "affordable housing" and someone scoffs, saying "affordable to who?" Remind them that the teacher-preferred word is "whom," and that basically anyone making normal starting wages of non-tech, non-finance jobs is going to be under water before they even dip their toes in. Or rather, dip in their toes. Gotta hate those dangling prepositions. They're something up with which I will not put.

Brutal.