I realize that given the demographics of this board, it's probably been a while since most of ya'll have had to pay rent, but if anyone has recently rented a place, I'd be curious to see what places are going for in Portland, or wherever you live. I'm going to see some places in NOLA for law school this weekend, and I've traditionally paid $500-600 with 2-3 roommates sharing places right outside French Quarter. Now I'm looking for a single (don't want any distractions in my first year), and all the places I'm looking at are $800-1.1K a month. The $800 places are all in the hood and are small places, whereas the 1K+ places are in better areas but are just as cramped. Scholarships are going to cover most of my tuition, but my living expenses will be covered by loans, and the prospect of paying back $12K+ for a year of renting a shitty apartment is intimidating. So anyway, to the original question, what's the rent like that all ya'll have paid in the past or present, and where were you living at the time?
About $800 to $900 total for a decently nice two bedroom apartment in the suburbs. I recently almost moved into a house with 3 friends, it was going to be about $350 a month each.
$350?! Damn, you should've taken your friends up on that... that's dirt cheap, regardless of the area. I was almost considering moving to the NOLA suburbs and making a 20-30 minute commute every day for law school. Some Metairie apartments are only in the $600-700 range and are lavish, to say the least. I can't commute like that though, every single day for a year... What does a "downtown" Portland single go for...? My sister's going to school in Carbondale, and her apartments are a quarter of the price I'm looking at (not to mention a lot bigger). I'm trying to get a feel for how landlords gouge the prices around the country. You'd think in an economically depressed city like New Orleans, you could get quality apartments for dirt cheap, but the exact opposite is seeming to be true.
750 for a 2 bedroom condo near Lake Oswego 6 years ago. Now we have a 500 sq ft. Apartment above our garage that we would charge around 800 if we were to rent it out.
I used to pay 950 for a nice 2 bedroom in a nice area. Before that I lived in the hood for 600 a month. To me, it was definitely worth the extra money to live in the nicer area.
We pay just under 2k for a 750 square foot studio in San Diego. Our old place was a 2 bedroom and was about the same, but we moved out when they tried to raise it to $2400. Downtown kills your wallet. Hopefully someone here lives in Manhattan so I can feel a little better about my rent.
I pay $950 for a 475square foot divided studio (bedroom separated from living room) in LA. Right near LAX, about a mile from the ocean. Its rent controlled so its a pretty sweet deal for me.
My wife and I were going to move into a 2 bed 2 bath place in Gresham for $850 plus a mandatory $35 for water/sewer/garbage. We were supposed to move in tomorrow actually. Instead, we're reluctantly relocating to Salt Lake City for work and we're probably looking at closer to $900 or $950 for the area near South SLC. There are places nicer and more expensive than these, but we felt comfortable enough in places in that price range. We haven't really considered anything smaller than 2 bed 2 bath and at least 1000 sq ft. Our place in Spokane was $700/mon 2 bed 2 bath 1050 sq ft. I lived about 15+ minutes from campus all three years of law school and never felt like the drive was eating too much of my time.
Holy F Indeed. The sad thing is, we could live a little further out, but I think we'd still be paying $1500 for a decent spot. And then my wife couldn't walk to work, which is a huge perk since she works crazy hours. It's one of the reasons we're trying to get out of SoCal.
In SE portland in a trendy/hippy area 900 for a nice 1 bedroom. I have two friends like in nice spots downtown, the smaller of the two is 1450 a month and the bigger one in a new building is 3500 a month, but that one is really nice.
In my area, if you want to rent near downtown Palo Alto, is about $2400-$2600 for a 1-bedroom (600-800sqft) or $3600-$4200 for a 2-bed, 2-bath place (~1000-1200sqft). Those aren't really nice places, and typically older buildings.
$2500ish in Akasaka Japan in the late 90's, that's roughly downtown Tokyo. It was a shitty cockroach infested studio which couldn't be more than 600sqft with a one element burner and no oven and a little dinky bathtub that was more vertical than horizontal. When I say cockroach infested that was an understatement by the way, it took almost a week of sticky traps under the bed to see a trap that wasn't completely full in the morning. Luckily I was young and full of drugs so I didn't care. The one bonus was that the appartment building next to us was where all the foreign strippers and hostess girls stayed so I could watch them dress for work from my balcony while having an evening cig, since I worked at a strip club though it wasn't as big of a bonus then as it seems now.
Yeah, I rented a place in Kawasaki for a time. Appalling what you had to cough up to get a place to sack out.
Ever make it into Rappongi-dori? I was at Gas Panic and Private Eyes, made close to $30 an hour under the table as a bartender at age 20. Not bad for a migrant worker though.
My freshman and sophomore year I lived in Palo Alto, CA. 1650 a month. This past year at Gonzaga, it was around $500.