When people don’t want to buy houses (or are forced out of their houses because they can’t afford them) that means one thing: rental costs are going up. It’s a simple law of supply and demand. Reis Inc’s quarterly report showed the vacancy rate dropped to 6.2 percent in the first three months of the year, down from 6.6 percent in the fourth quarter. It was the steepest fall since the commercial real estate research firm began tracking the market in 1999.
Increased employment, especially for 20- to 34-year-olds, is spurring demand for housing. Many of those newly employed younger people, however, cannot come up with the tens of thousands of dollars often needed for down payments, turning them into renters. — Reuters
However, not everyone is letting rising rents get to them, even in the world’s most expensive cities. Renters, for frugal inspiration, 40 Year Old Felice Cohen — a professional organizer in New York City — shows that you don’t need to spend a lot to live in an expensive area, you just need to be, well, extremely organized. And be willing to sleep 23 inches from your ceiling. This woman spends $700 a month in NYC on a 90-square-foot closet apartment… closet. You have to see this (if you haven’t yet)…
I watched that video a few days ago and I've been thinking about it ever since. One of my first reactions was "why in the word does she have so much clothing!?" Eliminate half of that and she'd have so much more room! my second though was that it really is like a closet. I wonder if was part of one of the adjoining apartments at some time and someone decided to partition off the bthroom and closet and turn it into an "apartment"… All in all it doesn't seem to be a terrible living situation. somewhere between cramped and cozy I'd say!
Mercedes recently posted..Progress Bars Update – March 2011
Yes, in NY it's not that bad of an apartment — if all she does is sleep there. But I can't really imagine working in that place, it's just so tiny. The sleeping arrangement would creep me out.