starting slow
i signed up at (the slightly misnamed) westside rentals, and have been scoping out craigslist los angeles apartment listings.
one thing i’ve been thinking hard about is how much i’m willing to spend. if i were buying a house, apparently a lender would expect at most 29% of my gross income. what’s reasonable for rent? 15%? 20%? 25%? 30%? should i be thinking in terms of net income?
here's an interesting list of downtown los angeles residential buildings i stumbled upon. poking around on los angeles downtown news, i get the distinct impression that downtown los angeles is a hotter residential market than i imagined. lots and lots of loft projects.
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If I were working from home, I'd move to Tahoe. The Nevada side.
Just to get away from LA landlords. And the CA DMV, who is my sworn enemy at this point. But I guess that's not a problem for you.
For any place you're considering moving to, hang out outside and ask people who live there how responsive their managers are. I'm not kidding about this. My last (and I mean LAST) managed apartment experience turned out to be a constant fight between me and the lazy geriatric putz of a manager we had.
When I went to LA for school for a semester, the above-mentioned apartment services milked me for my money and left me to rot. Screw them. I went with Apartment Hunters after giving up on everything else. Fortunately, they weren't BSing when they said that they could get me a place in 3 days: as it was I was already way behind schedule in setting everything up before starting classes.
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At least on this side of the globe, the total housing costs (mortgage/rent + utilities) are expected to be somewhere around 30-33% of your net salary.