Question to those who rent

[guxx.livejournal.com]

The popular theory is apartment rent should not be higher than 1/3 of net income.

To those of you who rent, does this hold true?

Comments

[prog.livejournal.com]

This was true when I lived in Maine. Maine, unlike Boston, is not famous for having horrendously inflated rents (and property values).

My parents still live up north, where they are themselves landlords. Sometimes, over the phone, my mom'll forget where I am and ask me if I can believe that some apartments around her are going for $700/month, and they're still finding tenants, wow.

[joifulgurl.livejournal.com]

oh, *sigh*. if only...

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

My mom used to express astonishment at how rapidly real estate has appreciated in her town (in West Virginia). I would tell her to shut up because she had no idea what she was talking about and, also, it was hurting me. No, really! she'd say. It's amazing!

Then we thought about buying a house last year, and they asked us what we were looking at, and I said we thought single-family houses were just too expensive so you might as well get a two-family and offset the mortgage with the rent, and the cheapest you could possibly do that for was half a million.

You could hear my parents' jaws hitting the floor and breaking on the other side. Oddly, my mom has never once since then mentioned how expensive housing is in my hometown.