If you were in charge of your own monthly rent, how much would you charge yourself?

Just wondering, so my apartment buildings landlord is now stepping down and We are now getting a brand new landlord starting next week? I’m just wondering, say if it was up to to you? What would be the absolute minimum you would be willing to pay every month to live in a building?

I’m thinking like 600-800 range myself? If left to my own device, and a landlord were to just flat out ask: “How much do you make right now and how much are you willing to pay for rent”? I’d tell them “no more than 800 a month please”

 

Nothing? As in, 0$.

Hey, don't blame me. The onus is on you for giving me the power to decide. ;p

 

Nothing? Go ahead, feel free, guess you’ll have to live under a rock or a tree or build a house for yourself I suppose???

 

1/3rd of my total income. and i'd love even more to build my own shelter somewhere i wouldn't have to indenture myself to a bank for land to build it on, but still close enough to groceries, or a transit stop to get me there. rocks, earth bermed, solar panels and batteries to run the computer. between what people throw away, what nature provides and what my modest income would buy me at the hardware store, basic shelter i could do if it didn't have to be too pretty or otherwise conventional, its finding a place i'd be allowed to build and stay in it for the rest of my life, keep adding and improving on to it, that's the hard part. if that part were easy, i mean still somewhere i could get to a store, or grow enough for the wildlife to eat and still have enough for myself too, you know that's something i would have done a long time ago, if i didn't live where the government would come along and tear down anything that didn't meet code, or some fascist punk wouldn't come along and tear it down and the government look the other way and not try and stop them if they did.

that's what i would call a free country if i could do that, you know, and not like everything else messed up and that be the only thing good about it,
but on this planet, i don't know if there's any place like that, or if they'd let an old man without a lot of documented advanced skills immigrate it there is,
and then i'm no good at learning languages, either as far as i know, so, i've just resigned myself that's not likely to happen. not now that i'm in my 70s.

 

Well, I noticed the other day looking at apartments in San Francisco that I didn't like the lowest rung on the ladder... the cheaper apartments were totally adequate, but I felt limited... I want to live in a place that's special.

I had an apartment in the Camarillo area a million years ago. Before the University there became more popular and well known, the adjacent housing was super cheap (compared to what? a Tesla?!)... and I snagged a nice studio with a washer and dryer in it at a lower than average monthly rate. Then, they changed the rent and I moved into something more affordable.


San Francisco is notorious for its expensive apartments among other things. But I can't find the one I was looking at for my wife and I (we haven't signed yet, but we're going to get married and I asked if I can call her "wife". She says that's fine). I don't like steel appliances, but modern is a must.


I can't find what I was looking at previously. Seems nice though. And I think it's known for its Asian community, as well as being an arts & liberal politics enclave. These are all over $3,000 for a 2-bedroom, and on a single income (I don't make as much as other people over 40...) we cannot afford anything remotely like that. In fact, one of the major problems I am facing is that when my fiance moves here, we will not have enough money to lease her a vehicle or much entertainment.

Anyway...:


this is nice, in spite of the silver fridge... I love the tile, and it has a washer and dryer. The stove is also important. It looks modern, but doesn't try too hard.

The apartment is $3,700. It's a 2-bedroom. There is basically no way to do that on a single income, unless you are at the head of your own company or something. It's extra pricey, and to afford that in addition to car insurance and the lease on a Tesla model 3 (I like them...Tesla is neat), utilities, health insurance, cat food, and cable, I would need somewhere in the neighborhood of $7,000 per month.

Right now, I work as an accountant making a pretty penny but less than other accountants my age. I have less than half that much money and can't afford the rent in a one-bedroom with other expenses, so... It's fun to dream.

 

i paid $450 as my share of the mortgage, when i first moved up to sparks, which was one big part of why i did. there were six of us living there and sharing the costs of doing so, which came out to that amount. that was before the person who'd name was on the mortgage, up and decided he didn't want the responsibility, sold 'his' equity to someone else entirely, who wasn't one of us, but was at least someone who shared the same interest we all had in common. so now i'm paying almost twice that, for less space then i had there, no yard and no washer and dryer, nor anything like a real kitchen. wifi is about the same here as there. which is to say rather limited. bay area is way out of any price range i can even imagine ever being able to afford. where i was living in roseville, near sacramento, after my wife died, before i moved up here, was about like where i am now. the weather is more to my liking up here then in roseville, but roseville had more of the kind of stores i'm interested in, which is to say had them at all, which reno doesn't unfortunately at all. though it did a decade or so previously. i'd love to pay no more then half of what i'm paying now, which would still be more then a third of my very limited income. i do understand the expenses of maintaining a place like where i live though. but given the choice, as the thread suggests, well, the stimulus checks were nice, but my pension is long overdue for an actual and on going c.o.l.a. and yes i'd love to be working too, though i'm not real sure how much use i'd actually be to anyone.

 

84 cents a month..................

 

I am. The rental market is so inflated now that I feel unethical about renting to others for market value.

 

I have owned rental properties for 30+ years. The math has to work or it's a waste of time and money. I had up to 7 units and spent ALOT of time repairing and maintaining them so I put 10% of the gross income aside for just this. Add a mortgage and taxes and it's minimal return on investment.

 

I would not charge myself any rent ..since I am really nice company and have an orderly and efficient space occupied ..I prosper in all I do .i stay merry unless I am making rain ...in fact the building would be paying me to live there

so in my guesstimate I think I should be paid at least a day worth of food ..the sun to shine to bring me light the moon to beam to bring me dreams and well that’s all I would need

 

if i were in charge of things like this, well no one would be or need to be, because none of these concepts, if people were honestly universally considerate, none of this would need to exist at all, and i would live in a space i constructed by playing with available tools and materials, for the fun of doing so. maybe even kept right on building enclosures, sheltered spaces, other people could live in, without cost in any sense of the word.

of course this might not be the only thing i would be enjoying doing if i could, if no one and no thing in this world prevented me from doing so.

but odd little houses and maze like palaces of strangeness, where all the dead ends in the maze would be rooms people could live in,
and everyone else could add to it too.

that's the kind of world, where no one hated logic or consideration, that my dreams take place in.
and perhaps, because none of us are purrfect, there aren't often people i interact with in either dream life or waking.

money is such an arbitrary and artifical thing. it does represent something real, but does so poorly when people mistake it for the value it tries to represent.

so yes i would build houses and trains. trains and houses.
but because i haven't done well i this world, largely do to my aversion to dealing with people who appear to me to have themselves and aversion to logic in the service of consideration,
i do my building in 3d images on the computer, which of course can't keep the rain off my head in real day to day waking life,

but that is my compulsion, to illustrate as i see it in my mind, would our world could look like, if every historical decision point had been based on logic in the service of universal consideration.

so its basing everything on the concept of symbolic value, meaning money, is kind of a total non starter for me,
but imagining what could be, if people based everything on logic in the service of universal consideration instead,
is my chosen perspective.

i know all about why we don't have what we don't have, why even people with nearly unlimited wealth don't,
but that doesn't sell me on the idea that we are hard wired to be incapable of thinking in those terms,
or capable only as long as we hold the hand of some big daddy or mommy in the sky either.