What you get for the money

[mistylark]

http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/shows_hgftm
Have you guys seen this show? They pick a dollar amount & usually 3 or 4 cities and tell you what kind of place you can live in for that amount.
It's pretty interesting to see the differences across the country.

I'll share what our apartment costs & what we get:
$510 per month (+$25 for the dog each month)
2nd floor, 2 bedrooms, full kitchen & dining room, fair sized living room, one bathroom. central air & heat. hardwood floors, antique wood mantel with mirror, antique woodwork throughout. (the place was built in 1885, but redone two years ago) water and garbage included. we have on street parking and a parking lot out back, and we have a balcony.


We used to rent a fairly big two bedroom, brick house with a three car garage & fenced in yard for $650 a month.

[Chi06Wed]

ha, ha , ha
we are about 10 miles outside of Los Angeles in "the valley"
we get a 1 bed, 1 bath, just a galley kitchen (not eat-in), dining area, living room and balcony for $1100 a month.

[Chi06Wed]

They only talk about rent? What about mortgages?
how much is your house or mortgage payment?

[firegirl6081]

Our mortgage is $495.00 for 1 1/2 story Cape Cod, 3 bedrooms (although 1 is a walk in closet now :p ), 2 baths, living room, kitchen, 1 car garage & 1.19 acres in the country.

[Chi06Wed]

How I wish to have a low mortgage like you, but I can't see myself moving away from NYC because I love the city. High paying jobs for Grumpy over here and California is another place he could make nice money. He was telling me Florida we can look into as well...

Our new house mortgage is alot higher than what we are paying for now, but that's the price we gotta pay to live next to the big cities.

I wouldn't suggest moving to Cali, houses here in decent areas start around $700,000. If you want something nice in a good area- $1M

[Chi06Wed]

FMIL rents a 2 bed/1 bath for $2000/month. pretty small house

[karenswain]

We pay £800 (i think about $1600??) a month for our 3 bedroom house....however, our houses are generally much smaller than over in the US. Our friends had a 2 bedroom house in St. Louis which was way bigger than ours....and you seem to have huge basements on top of that too!! I think we seriously get ripped off in the UK!!!! :( :( :(

[Chi06Wed]

FH has dreams now of working for EA Games...they are out in Cali and they pay well. ;) This guy is killing me. He finally got his dream job now he has another one.

The area is nice where your FMIL lives right? I think that's what really matters to me.

I have a friend who lives in Pasadena who has a 2bed condo paying $1000. I think that's very good.

I almost peed my pants when I found out what my father pays for his house in Princeton. :eek:

Pasadena is really nice, about 15 miles from where i live. they must have bought it a long time ago, because there is nothing that cheap there, their 1 bed apartments that are nice are about $1500/month

[karenswain]

Karen...do you guys pay property taxes over in the UK?

I don't know what that is? we pay council tax which is determined by the size of your house and is supposedly used to pay for dustbin men, street lighting etc etc. (is that the kind of thing you mean) Costs us about $3000?? (£1500) a year.

[Chi06Wed]

She moved in about 4 years ago.
right after 9/11...prices have almost doubled since then. FH's dad bought a house right around then for 500k and did about 50k in improvements, its now worth 850-900k!!!

[Chi06Wed]

I don't know what that is? we pay council tax which is determined by the size of your house and is supposedly used to pay for dustbin men, street lighting etc etc. (is that the kind of thing you mean) Costs us about $3000?? (£1500) a year.

thats equivalent to our property taxes- not too bad for a 3 bed house. ours also pays for public schools and such.

[karenswain]

thats equivalent to our property taxes- not too bad for a 3 bed house. ours also pays for public schools and such.

We pay about 25% tax on our salary for schools, national health service, roads and stuff like that. but then I supopse we don't have to pay medical insurance...unless we want to and go private.

[Chi06Wed]

Our property taxes is $7,000. Highway robbery!!!! Plus, we have to pay maintenance $300 per month because we live in a community.
HOLY SH*T!!! I don't know how much they are out here.

[karenswain]

Our property taxes is $7,000. Highway robbery!!!! Plus, we have to pay maintenance $300 per month because we live in a community.

Where our friends used to live they used to have loads of rules...like they had to put their cars in the garage (couldn't leave them on the drive unless they were being washed) and they couldn't hang out washing, stuff like that!!???

FH cousin lives in New York and she had to be interviewed by other residents of some apartment block, before she could buy her apratment!

[Chi06Wed]

schools are property taxes, about 20% of our paycheck is for Social Security, Federal and State Taxes.

[Chi06Wed]

Where our friends used to live they used to have loads of rules...like they had to put their cars in the garage (couldn't leave them on the drive unless they were being washed) and they couldn't hang out washing, stuff like that!!???

FH cousin lives in New York and she had to be interviewed by other residents of some apartment block, before she could buy her apratment!

I've never heard anything that bad. when my dad was looking for a house, the strictest thing he heard was no parking on the street overnight (it was a side street, not a busy one) well that wouldn't work since there were 4 cars at the house...so they didn't move there.

[karenswain]

schools are property taxes, about 20% of our paycheck is for Social Security, Federal and State Taxes.

basically taxes....what a pile of poo!!! :mad:

[Chi06Wed]

Yep, it's true...it's called "high society". They usually do that kind of stuff on the upper east and west side of Manhattan...where I live we put the trash out the night before or we get fined $150 and there are other stupid rules too.
weird!! i don't know of any stupid rules here.

[Jacoby2Seelen]

What we get for $475.00
Second level two bedroom apartment with one bathroom. We have a huge living room, huge kitchen/dining room. Balcony off the back. Road side parking in the front with a parking lot in the back. And our dumpster as well.

(Sounds a lot like what Tanya gets! :))

[Chi06Wed]

oh yeah, my apartment in AZ had weird rules, you could only put "outside funrniture" on your balcony, nothing else. outside christmas lights could only be on in december...

[mistylark]

They only talk about rent? What about mortgages?
they usually talk purchase price - but my example is rent bc i don't own

[Bianca]

In Miami, FL (near the airport, not the beach) our rent is $1165/month for a 2 bedroom/2 bathroom, full kitchen, dining room, living room and patio on the 7th floor.

In NYC (Manhattan) FH's temporary apartment is a 1/1 with a kitchen/dining area and a living room on the 14th floor and it goes for over $3000/month. I don't know for sure how much over $3k it is since the company covers it... but shesh, it's like half the size for twice as much.

And in Akron/Cleveland, Ohio, we could have an apartment comparable to the one we have now in Miami for probably around $600 or $700. Which is why our next move will be back home as opposed to NYC...