What do you guys think is a healthy rent ratio to income? Apartment complexes say 1/3 of gross income. Gross income is useless cause no one makes that amount. I was in the boat of 25-30% in post-tax, but have had to go to 33% recently due to just the overall increase of living.
This was the boat I was in, but I really found no other viable options for much cheaper that made sense. I cancelled a few things to hedge against the gain in rent; cancelled gym and using facility gym(save $50/mo), cancelling cable and going with SlingTV during NBA season(saving $70/mo during season, $90/mo during off-season), downgrading internet by $20/mo. Going to see what else I can do.
I believe New York is annual income to monthly rent of 50/1, shorthand of monthly income to rent of 4/1, which is what I've always tried to use. Try to minimize your rent with the long term thought of saving up for a down payment on a house after 5-10 years, which can end up being cheaper if you move far out enough from the city.
Annual income as in gross, or post-tax. That's the distinction I'm trying to make. For example if your gross is 50k, you shouldn't pay more than 1k in rent. If my gross was 50k(and when it was), I looked at $750 or under and foudn something at $690. It was a little out there, and dumpy. Thinking again about it, I would've paid $900 for a premium. I wouldn't value being outside at that savings, downpayments for houses aren't necessarily "assets" as noted on paper. It's still not liquid, I'd only "save up" for a house to flip it in the upcoming years. I'd treat any house like a leveraged buyout, and flip fast. I don't see the value of home ownership for years upon years, except for when you are retired and everything's "paid-off". That's the only thing that gets to me.
