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Curbed L.A.: You Have to Make $145k a Year to Afford Rent on a Two-Bedroom in LA

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Tripon

Member
http://la.curbed.com/2016/5/17/11692852/los-angeles-rent-affordability
Los Angeles has already taken its place at the top of the ranks of cities where it sucks to be a renter, but it's only rough if you don't bring home a hefty paycheck, says a new survey from personal finance site SmartAsset. Using the 30 percent metric (the rule of thumb that says that no more than 30 percent of income should go toward housing, including utilities and rent, and that any more makes rent unaffordable and burdensome), SmartAsset calculated what a household would need to make to meet that requirement, spending 28 percent of their income on rent alone (with 2 percent left over for other for utilities and related expenses).

SmartAsset looked at the average cost for an available, market-rate, two-bedroom rental, and what they found was that the average rental in that category cost $3,398 a month. With a pricetag like that, the average household would have to bring in $145,629 annually to pay the rent.

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luoapp

Member
So, why do you need 145629 - 3398*12 = 104853 to live in LA besides rental? That's 105k for what exactly?
 

Eusis

Member
So, why do you need 145629 - 3398*12 = 104853 to live in LA besides rental? That's 105k for what exactly?
It's recommended to have a third of your income go to rent. There's still got to be bills, and frankly if you're paying that to live in DTLA you may as well live it up some or try to.
 
So, why do you need 145629 - 3398*12 = 104853 to live in LA besides rental? That's 105k for what exactly?

Say 30% goes to taxes. So you're actually only bringing home 101,940. After rent it's 40,776. Divided by 12 is $3.3k / month. That needs to cover car maintenance, food, gas, utilities, and everything else.
 

Striek

Member
Because it's assuming you only want to spend 28%
It's recommended to have a third of your income go to rent. There's still got to be bills, and frankly if you're paying that to live in DTLA you may as well live it up some or try to.

The rule is pretty bullshit lol. Expenses don't scale with income like that.

More like 150k and you are rich, saving good money whilst living it up, even in LA, if you rent a 2BR appt.
 

SpecX

Member
What surprises me even more is seeing Riverside on this list. Who would pay that much rent to stay in that shithole.
 
I wonder if many people are even spending 30% of their income. They gathered some data where I live and more people than I'd thought spend around 50%.
 
Honestly anyone paying that much in San Francisco needs to have their head examined. You can buy a 1.2 million dollar house in San Jose that's 3-4 bedrooms in a nice area, and pay the same amount per month except you own the house and in 10 years you'll double your money
 
Honestly anyone paying that much in San Francisco needs to have their head examined. You can buy a 1.2 million dollar house in San Jose that's 3-4 bedrooms in a nice area, and pay the same amount per month except you own the house and in 10 years you'll double your money

it's not about money, it's about time. Yes you can live in san jose for less money, but how much of "your time" is lost in commute between SJ and SF
 
it's not about money, it's about time. Yes you can live in san jose for less money, but how much of "your time" is lost in commute between SJ and SF

Don't work in SF then? There's thousands of jobs in the peninsula and south bay. Mountain View, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, tons of jobs everywhere
 
Don't work in SF then? There's thousands of jobs in the peninsula and south bay. Mountain View, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, tons of jobs everywhere

And the reason those jobs exist no one want give up their time commuting to those jobs. People move to where the work is if they can afford to move there, and that's problem is we allow businesses to group together creating these out of control rent prices.
 

Tagyhag

Member
That's honestly less than I thought for LA, but it really depends on what kind of area of LA they're talking about.

There's Compton, and then there's Porter Ranch. What kind of average are they using?
 
Downtown LA? Sure...but I would never live there and certainly not at those prices, there are tons of other good places you can move to that won't cost you that much and everyone already drives in LA so distance is hardly an issue.
 
I have a two bedroom in Hollywood at $3,050. Unfortunately we have four people living in there and we are three 27 year olds and a 22 year old. :( Need to pay off student debt.
 
3400 bucks for a 2 bdr in LA?

That gets you a pretty nice place in most areas tbh, that average seems a bit high.

Edit: I'm talking about apartments though.
 

Poody

What program do you use to photoshop a picture?
i live in dtla and I can say i pay around $2700 for a 1050sf loft. part of this is driven by a lot of chinese investors, silicon valley moving here, and the new apple store that was just announced on 8th and broadway.
 
i live in dtla and I can say i pay around $2700 for a 1050sf loft. part of this is driven by a lot of chinese investors, silicon valley moving here, and the new apple store that was just announced on 8th and broadway.

The expansion and upgrades of the metro is going to make Downtown much more attractive as well.
 
The price of rent sucks in a lot of those cities but I don't think you necessarily need to budget 30% of income for rent. It makes sense in a city that's functioning normally, but these places have completely warped economies. The cost of groceries is not linearly related to the cost of rent, the price of iPhones is the same everywhere in the USA, etc. You could increase the % of income you pay for rent and leave most other stuff the same, which is surely what most lower income people living in high rent markets are doing.

That said, I feel pretty smug about my choice to live in a comparatively affordable city with no signs of the property market going insane any time soon.
 
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