Rent questions

I guess that means I've never been out from under the poverty line in my life. I spend well over half, possibly almost two thirds of my check on rent. :-( Which is good considering that the first flat I had in the UK, I spent over three quarters of my paycheck on rent. Gah, this is depressing me.

nonetheless, after bills (esp. bad when you live alone), this is k-high and unacceptable. i gave notice on my apt. last night.

If I move into that place in Brooklyn, it will jump to approximately 32.5%.

i cant even begin to imagine all the cool shit i'd have if my rent was 25% of my paycheque

i think i'm paying too much for what ive got though, its not worth the money

Really?!

*Then again, I am a wuss, and freaked out last week when I found two empty cans of Tennant's Super on the windowsill looking out into our back garden.

i'm paying the equivalent of $750 right now for a big room in a reasonably sought after area (though condition of room is sub-trifean at best), which is kind of high for a shared house maybe. what would that get you in nyc?

and NOWHERE is more expensive than London to live surely

I pay $650 a month which is not really a reasonable approximation of NYC at all.

I pay 1/6th of my paycheck in rent if you assume that my boyfriend and I split the rent, but what usually happens is that we split the rent and then he runs out of money and I float him about that much anyway (note: he's not using me because he's a year away from being a high-paid lawyer plus he's good in bed and generally awesome so I'm getting paid fo sho).

seriously, American's got $249 fares from JFK to Heathrow for next weekend.

I'm at like 45% of take-home.

80%

25% of take home which isn't bad except another 25% goes to childcare so i'm back at that post-collegiate just barely breaking even level. shit gets old.

how tough will it be for me to absorb a $150/month rent increase? have you ever? did you learn to cook or give up drinking?

About 50% but my rent also includes food, house hold items, utilities and maintenance because I live in a coop.

Like a chicken?

Our mortgage comes to just over 1/3 of our combined monthly take-home pay, but we actually pay double that (i.e. 2/3s) into the joint account to also pay for food, bills, etc too. I think we budget pretty generously for food (£300pm for two people). I sense another thread. Which leaves approx 1/3 of my salary for "me", plus whatever extras I make writing (after putting some aside for tax).

The joint account also covers stuff like car insurance, MOT, and extra to offset service / repairs should we need any, plus a tenner a month put aside for potential vet bills for Bob should he ever get ill.

Wow. Organized. We're paying about 50% of our combined on three mortgages and its making me hyperventilate daily.

Em does ALL the organising. I just pay a few hundred quid into the joint account every payday.

I think we're actually paying less than 1/4 of our combined take-home in rent. No rent control, just nicest landlord ever.

morbs - can you ask your boss for a cost of living wage increase or something?

i absorbed about a $400 increase last time i moved and it wasn't too hard to adjust.

My mortgage is less than a quarter of my take home.

Sunny, I would hyperventilate as well.

Rent is about 60% of net. Live in Brooklyn.

yeah my rent is exactly half my take home. brooklyn as well.

Jersey City makes a big difference, although our rent is cheap even for our neighborhood.

Actually at this point I don't know if my neighborhood is much cheaper than most of the neighborhoods bordering Williamsburg.

my neighborhood is one of the cheapest in brooklyn - crown heights. if i were willing to live with roomates i could pay much less than half, but it's worth it to me now.

Jersey is getting expensive as hell. Rents for a 1br in East Rutherford close to the train are pretty much what they are for a 1br in Greenpoint.

labs, I get that COLA raise once a year. maybe just pray I get Midwood instead of Ocean Pkwy doorman bldg.

Xmas payrise means I'm now down to 39% of take home! Assuming my wife gets taken on permanent at her job I won't be the only one paying for it soon as well.

Jersey is getting expensive as hell. Rents for a 1br in East Rutherford close to the train are pretty much what they are for a 1br in Greenpoint.

-- burt_stanton, Wednesday, May 7, 2008 11:26 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

lol @ hipstercentric worldview

Suburban North NJ BEEN expensive. It's not like most commuters prioritize record stores and the availability of Zywiec in local convenience stores.

Oddly enough East Rutherford has a huge Polish-speaking community. It's only been in the past 10-15 years these parts of New Jersey have gentrified ... they used to be mega working class like North Brooklyn.

Yeah, admittedly I don't know E. Rutherford. Just that in general the suburbs have been expensive. It's the rents in cities that are the surprise.

Still, it's funny to use Greenpoint as a standard. Like a lot of New Jerseyans who left Brooklyn a generation ago would probably be more shocked at Greenpoint rents.

Looking at getting a house with a friend who moved back from NYC, trying to figure on a fair split. Her take-home after 401k/insurance is about 3.5x mine, which is irrelevant to the split itself, but she leans toward nicer areas than I'm used to living in.

House is $930 for a 3/1/1 - she'd get the master and use of the garage (I'm not even sure my truck would fit in this garage, tbh). We'd split the third bedroom - she wants a futon for people to crash on, I want a desk for school/work. Yard work split. She's talking $515/415, 50/50 on the cable/internet/electric.

Sound fair? We haven't seen the interior yet, so I'm not entirely sure how much better the master is. Use of the garage is a question for me. I don't want to park in it, but I feel like if she's got it for parking, her share should go up a bit.

Ha, I'm now paying the same as what I was upthread for HALF of the rent here, this place is a ripoff. I earn a bit more now but not much. We're moving when the lease is up because fuck $2,200 a month in rent.

http://www.splittherent.org/

Apologies if this is the wrong thread, I searched...

I rent out a house back in the UK, via a letting agent, to students. Some new tenants want to take it from September 2012 - the new academic year. Apparently students have to provide names/signatures of guarantors. The letting agent has let me know that one of them has suggested a guarantor who is not a homeowner and is not employed, and has told me it's my decision whether to accept this. The agents don't have/won't ask for info on savings. Apparently the student can offer no other guarantor.

Chances of something going wrong are minimal, but last lot of tenants were very difficult (house was burgled after they left the key in the lock inside a door with a glass panel; they insisted on moving out as they 'didn't feel safe'), and there's always the risk.

I'd feel like a total arse saying no - some people just don't have anyone in their lives who can be a guarantor. On the other hand there's a long time to go before Sept. and there will be other takers for the house. WWYD?

dnftt

Gotcha. Thanks. I forgot we had an actual expert.

If the non-guarantor student makes off without paying or steals the carpet or chops up the sofa for firewood, is it your responsibility or the letting agent's? And does that responsibility change if the student did have a guarantor?

You could ask for a credit check on the guarantor?

well i'm assuming when the agent refers it to you, that it's going to come back on you- those are fair questions otherwise.

Deposit in place etc?

dmftt=do not effing touch that? Urban dictionary says it's do not feed the trolls! Ljub!* If there are trolls living under this house, do not feed them!

*I should start calling you R as in my head, Ljub is pronounced 'lube'

heh sorry i've always had it as the other thing

it's cool, I had never seen it, either way! I will keep my eye out for this acronym so I can question whether the person using it is concerned about trolls, or touching.

do not fuck the trolls

do not touch the fuckers

aw I always feel terrible when I see prompt answers, I neglect ILX during working hours, I may change this.

'do not touch the fuckers' possibly otm here.

Darragh, yes, any problems (trashing, falling behind on rent etc.) would be my ultimate responsibility if the agent can't get the tenants to pay up. Now the agent is asking whether I'd accept rent upfront. Minded to say no as that doesn't preclude trashing, but still feel like an arse. But - there's a long way to go before the current tenants move out: I'm in no rush and there's no reason for me to accept these particular tenants, if I'm being selfish.

Also, the agency (and I think most agencies are like this) is crap, so don't trust them to resolve any given situation as it arises.

xp to FFM: you got to add that little 'y' sound (which is the 'j') and then it's all ok and distinguished from...other scenarios...

Hah! Yes, this I can do. Good call!

i mean it's really your call based on the info only you have re: what's the value of what's in the property, any deposit you can get out of them, what you think yr odds are of getting someone who'll have a guarantor if you turn em down, all common-sense stuff really

References and meeting them first to get a read on them are, unfortunately, not much good to you ime- i know you can feel arsehole-y, consider it an occupational hazard if that makes you feel better about it, but the concepts of deposits/guarantors didn't spring up overnight for no reason- they might be the most wonderful bunch ever lived, in which case any deposit gets returned and any guarantor is taking no risk.

just reading again- can the rest of them provide guarantors, is it just one that can't? Changes the odds a wee bit tbf....

there's my infamous attn to detail at work

We assumed that was your infamous heartlessness at work

Got back to the agents to say I would not go with it, even though only one of the tenants has the issue, because of the whole 'these concepts did not spring up for nothing' thing, and the fact that I think most potential tenants *would* have a guarantor. Agents asked if I'd accept rent upfront instead, I said no - firstly because it's a furnished place (not beautifully, but still) and secondly because if rent default were to be a problem it would likely be a problem over more than one month. Agents then got back to me and said 'ok, we'll go back to ask for a different guarantor' - hmmm, they originally told me they'd already done that and there was no-one available...

dunno if that's a serious zing or just a zing tom, but yeah, maybe....?

Just a zing tom

the zing tom, microsoft's new navigational device