Rent is high but food, transportation and entertainment are fairly cheap. In most neighborhoods you can walk to everything you need and if you are sick or lazy you can have everything delivered. No car, no car insurance, no gas tires oil, no parking tickets.

Great food, great history, great conversations, and resilient multi-cultural people.

But what does $1200 buy you?

I always here the horror stories about $1200 for a closet or worse.

I am not knocking New York, it is a cool city. I only want to visit from time to time.

An apartment in Queens or the Bronx isn't nearly as ridiculous.

Keep in mind even jobs like waiting tables in Manhattan can make an absurd amount of money.

LOL

of course, if you want a lawn INSTEAD, then you want a lawn. Yawn.

But you couldn't pry me out of Portland at gunpoint...

And I can do it like a local minus the accent.

The Castle description:

This late 19th-century 7-bedroom, 7-bathroom, 8,611-square-foot castle can be found in Vienne on 66 acres of jaw-dropping countryside. Good news, horse lovers: This property comes with a newly roofed farmhouse, two barns, stables, and an enclosed courtyard.

The NY counterpart description:

This 3-bedroom, 2-bedroom house is located in Jamaica, Queens. It has a gate.



#4 looks like the Disney castle.

take a look at London real estate.

It takes time though. Prices were not like that 30 years ago when many of those buildings were built.

Personally, these megacities have their own charm, but I would rather live someplace in 100-200k population range.

It's the 3-dimentional space above it.

The problem is that in Manhattan, you can only build really tall buildings in two sections (lower and central) of the city. The remainder of the land does not have the bedrock necessary for building large buildings.

In the picture below, you can see what I mean. Those sections in the center and northern portion of the island do not have bedrock to support larger structures.

EDIT: Sorry, posted this in wrong place. It's a response to LOL at #3

Take a look at house prices in Jamaica, Queens. They're nowhere near those prices. I think he added a zero. $320,500 is more like it.

Compare at http://www.trulia.com/NY/Queens,5142,Jamaica/


$359,000



$399,000

can cost that much.

Here's what you get for over a million right now in Jamaica Estates, a fancy, spacious 5 bedroom brick Tudor, not a little run-down cottage. And it's not over $3 mil. It's $1.3 mil:


http://www.trulia.com/property/3128826422-17705-Croydon-Rd-Queens-NY-11432

Here's what the median $850,000 buys you in Jamaica Estates. Still way nicer than the supposed $3 million+ property in that article.


http://www.trulia.com/property/3128055139-8106-190th-St-Queens-NY-11423

but not many.

And that was about 12 years ago.

She and her husband were so excited, and I just couldn't believe that what she bought was worth more than $50,000 or so.

I lived in Queens and worked in the city, which sucked in its own way.

are all overvalued by up to 10x.

$2 million for a townhouse in Bed Stuy is headline news. The place in the Bronx costing more per square foot than the one in the village? The author is an idiot.

Homes in Manhattan are about $900 to $1100 per SF, eg. 1000 SF is $1mil.

That house in Queens (#3) is never going to sell for $3.2mil, more like $300 - $400K (still no bargain I grant you). That article has no credibility. The headline is bogus -- those aren't "apartments" except the first one.

IMHO the writer should have gone for humor instead of claiming his bogus pairings are "sadly...real"

I decided to do some snooping on my own after reading the comments, especially on the last listing and tried to find actual NY apartments based on cost that are more than the 22,000+ square foot castle listed as number six and found this:

http://www.trulia.com/property/3088544112-Condo-New-York-NY-10013#photo-3

A 1,100 square foot condo in Tribeca for $17 Million!!! I can't imagine paying those prices.

the Jamaica estates section of Jamaica that cost that much, you can find a townhouse in Bed Stuy that costs that much, and Manhattan, well, you can find really expensive apartments in the eight figure range pretty easily.

But those are far from the norm. You can buy a studio in Manhattan in a nice area for $300K.

If I'm going to spend that much for a place to live I sure want more than just a studio apt.

I can be happy in a place like the Tampa Bay area where for $300K you get a mansion essentially. But I am happier in NYC. And the jobs that can get you to where you can pay $300K are much more plentiful here than there.

the 1% makes somewhere around $350k. So you're talking about everyone paying a ton of money because a really small number of people will end up with $350k a year.

But they have to drive everywhere, so they are nesters. Huses are gorgeous and spacious- but there is nothing to do compared to NYC. Their social life is barbecues and most likely, way too much drunk driving.
Not my thing.

But that is only because a) she has a roommate and b) roommate's parents own the apartment, so they charge the girls basically what it costs them to maintain the place, and pay their taxes on it.

An identical apartment in the same building is nearly 4k/month. And these are pretty small apts, but it's all about the location, I guess. Its not far from NYU and Union Sq.

not actual RE listings from, like, real RE agencies.

Methinks someone's not in on the joke.

If employers cared about their employees well-being, they'd move operations to Walla Walla WA.

They don't because they don't want to see the value of their broadway apartments decrease in value.

So they can they show off their wealth at all the fancy restaurants, nightclubs, expensive shopping, etc.

Those bastards deserve what they get

Till I'm very old and losing my mind, then I max out my credit cards and disappear someplace Tahiti esque, never to be heard from again.

There really is a cool vibe about the place. My daughter loves it!

As for me, I could never live there. It's a little too overstimulating for this country bumpkin, but I always have a great time when visiting.

That is one of my favorite things. It can be overstimulating, LOL. But most of the time it feels just right.

There is always something going on.

And the food choices! So much to choose from!!!

Over one of those NYC dwellings. Shit, if I won the lottery, I would seriously look into buying a castle.

It doesn't reflect the neighborhood, which is mostly standard-issue raised ranches, capes and colonials, and horse farms. It is located in a town with very little zoning, obviously (our property only has a yurt on it). Last I heard the owner had spent $53,000,000 on it, and it still isn't finished. It it surrounded by a full moat connected to a lake in the back. Note in the far right of the picture...there is an old decommissioned fighter jet. To say this guy is eccentric would be understatement. half a mile down the road from his castle, he build a farm to house retired circus animals -- before he found out that wild animals weren't allowed in a residential neighborhood.

those castles have been?

in California. And people wonder why I choose to live in Small Town, Texas. My house here:



3 bedroom, 2 1/2 baths, 2800 sq ft, 1/3 acre and an above-ground pool out back. The cost? $77,000 in late 2006. My mortgage payments including taxes and insurance is $650 a month. That's my sister on the porch.