So is spending ten thousand dollars per month to live here in new York City Worth it....
yes... it is
Recently i filmed a video on my channel touring our brand new 2 000 square foot loft here in
manhattan and the two biggest questions asked in the comments were number one did you buy it or
are you renting and number two what is the cost and as you can tell by the title of this video
we are renting for $10,000 per month. Now the purpose of this video is to give you some insights
on renting in New York City it's not to brag or anything like that because if 23 year old Erik
was sitting at home eight years ago watching this video with hopes and dreams of moving to New York
City it would have been one pretty inspirational and too insightful and that's because in life i've
experienced having nothing financially having nothing and by that i mean living paycheck to
paycheck making 12 per hour after taxes and also in a pretty short period of time i've
been fortunate enough to experience some degree of success before we jump into this video make
sure to give it a thumbs up if you enjoy this kind of content and please consider subscribing to my
youtube channel for all things real estate and new york city and with that let's get into the video
Our new apartment is 2 000 square feet it's a two bedroom fully renovated loft here in
soho and to my fiance and i it's our dream home this is when we think of our perfect apartments
this this is it and i recently gave a full tour of the empty apartment and i highly recommend
watching that video before getting into this one so you can actually see what that ten
thousand dollars per month is getting us as far as an apartment goes and just for context it's
important to go over some renting basics here in new york to rent an apartment you have to
be making 40 times the monthly rent annually for example if you're looking to rent a place for two
thousand dollars per month you have to be at least making eighty thousand dollars per year to qualify
and if you don't meet that forty times the monthly rents you can either one get roommates or two get
a guarantor and the guarantor needs to be making 80 times the monthly rent so in our situation
that 2 000 per month rent your guarantor needs to be making at least 160 000 per year but back
to paying 10 dollars per month for rent there was a time six seven years ago where that number
would have made my head spin what am i even saying it still does and to move forward in this
video i need to give a bit of perspective when i started on youtube six years ago i used to vlog
and i made around 700 or so vlogs all of which i've deleted from my channel for many reasons
but of those vlogs i kept three of them and these three videos are very they're special to
me because they documented at the time i didn't realize what i was documenting but it was the
beginning and it documented the struggle i was thinking about this earlier before i sat down to
film this and i don't think there's many people in the entire city of new york who have footage
like this that is such uh it is a total 180 and even when i look back and saw this footage
i was honestly i was i was a bit in disbelief that that this was the beginning so i'm going
to show you parts of a vlog from 2014 when i was paying a whopping 700 per month for rent probably
biggest piece of advice that you will ever hear on this channel about living in new york city listen
to this that is apparently ultrasonic um rodent repelling noise that they can't stand to listen to
last night i was awake until about 3 a.m because i kept hearing mice
running across my floor behind the corner of my bed and this is because when it gets cold out
they need someplace warm to go and also i live above a sushi restaurant and right down there
is where the employees throw all the extra scraps of food and they go back out there and eat and
smoke the restaurant has like a b or c health rating for sanitation and that's really really bad
so the biggest piece of advice that you will ever hear on this channel is when you're
looking for an apartment don't get a place above a restaurant especially one that has a bad health
health rating because you will have mice and they will be loud and they will poop everywhere
and it'll be disgusting i've been putting off cleaning for a long time as you can see
i mean it's uh it's pretty surreal looking back at that footage back then i couldn't even afford
a gym membership now i'm gonna go down to the river and show you guys where i work out
you know my my workout routine because gyms in new york city are anywhere from
50 to 200 a month so why pay that much money when you can just go work out for free outside
it's that feeling of just being able to scrape by week after week it's one of the reasons why
to this day i still prefer working out in public parks versus the gym i prefer getting down
there on the asphalt doing my push-ups doing pull-ups on the basketball court wind sprints
just because it keeps that that point in my mind shame is a very powerful motivator and it keeps
that time in my mind fresh when i i wanted to make it so bad where it was all consuming
whatever that that means make it because you never really make it i'll tell you that much if you can
wake up and you're better than you were the day before that's making it but in 2014 that 700
i paid per month for rent at the time was that was so much money but that was an investment
in the hopes that working hard and working smart in new york city would one day pay off
i'm not gonna lie some mornings it's not fun getting up at 5 45 to go work at a day job you
hate mornings like today you just have to tell yourself that it's worth it i said i tried to
the age-old question to rent or to buy if you're fortunate enough to be in a position
to buy right off the bat buying here in the city it is extremely expensive for not that much space
and of course paying that monthly mortgage toward the equity and owning a home versus renting every
month you can't be building that equity to one day fully own a house if you have that long-term
vision and you have that house you have that apartment you're looking to buy you buy it but
when your future isn't that clear renting becomes a very very attractive option and when renting in
the city it all depends on what you're looking for you have to be super specific on exactly what you
want for example this apartment is a co-op meaning there's a co-op board which ultimately decides
after you're approved financially if they want you in the building or not and for every co-op you
apply to you have to submit a board package and the board package consists of a cover letter which
says a bit more about you and why you're looking to move into this specific apartment we had to
have six letters of recommendation three of them which were personal speaking about our character
our moral fiber things like that and then three of them were business related
speaking about our abilities to provide and earn a living and finally there's the co-op interview
where all the members of the co-op board come together they sit down and they decide your fate
they decide whether they want you in the place or not i still will never forget and i'm so glad that
we filmed this for our co-op interview hannah and i were so so nervous a little nervous the phone
is shaking so i'm so nervous we've dressed up we looked apart hopefully and show them the little
setup we have the ring light here's our little setup our little zoom setup we're ready to go
we got this we got this we've got this are you nervous yeah i'm nervous i'm like i feel like
i'm gonna throw up i know i'm literally my hands are shaking you can see why i've never had to do
this in either of you i've never had to interview to get into an apartment what are we joining club
okay wish us luck that was three months ago and it's so crazy looking back on that clip
normally they're in person but ours was over zoom just because of the situation in the world
if buying is just not an option and renting is make sure you know exactly i mean down to
everything exactly what you are looking for in a new york city apartment here we are back to that
original question is spending ten thousand dollars per month to live here in new york city worth it
yes the answer is yes renting in the past i've always seen as an investment i've always seen
it as an opportunity to level up in life and also when you're renting in the city you're
paying for a lot more than just the apartment for example i'm paying to wake up and be right in the
heart of soho just walking these streets every single day is one of the most inspiring things
on earth to me another reason is space i said this in the tour but 2 000 square feet is the biggest
home i've lived in in my entire life i work from home i cook the majority of my meals here i even
work out from home or like i said i work out at the park so this loft is serving many purposes
all bundled into one and most importantly renting in the city is only worth it if you have to be
in the city especially now with everything that's happened this year a lot of people have reassessed
and realized that hey i don't need to be living in new york city recently i started working as a real
estate agent here in new york state so physically for at least the next year or so i have to be here
when we did find this apartment we were looking for lofts to purchase as well as renting just
because of the uncertainty we weren't sure whether we were going to be here long term or just for a
year or two and that reason alone is why we chose to continue renting over buying i hope this video
gave you some understanding and insight into my personal renting journey in new york city over
the past seven years as always comment down below if you want to see more topical videos like this
one in future episodes on my channel i want to sincerely thank you for taking your time to sit
down and watch this video i hope you are well and with that i will see you in the next video