# $900,000 Pre-Tax Income Needed for Reasonable Life In NYC!



## MikeHunt (Nov 28, 2004)

GETTING BY ON 500G 

By BRADEN KEIL 

WHAT IT COSTS TO LIVE WELL: Half-mill after taxes needed to live 'well' here.

June 22, 2005 -- It costs plenty to live in New York City — but how much does it cost to live well? 
The breadwinner of a Manhattan family of four looking to achieve an affluent lifestyle — not private jets and chauffeured limos, but no public school, either — will have to earn nearly a half-million dollars a year after taxes, according to a survey by forbes.com. 

The online survey looked into the expenses of several cities in the Northeast and factored in costs that included housing, education, cars, entertainment and health care to come up with their ballpark figures. 

After-tax salary totals ranged from $215,000 in Portland, Maine, to $483,000 in the Big Apple. 

This well-living fictional family of four has a four-bedroom residence, a vacation home, a Lexus and BMW, one child in a private college, another in a private high school, a liberal expense account and three vacations per year, including a trip abroad. 

The New York numbers are based on a family living on the Upper East Side in the 10021 ZIP code with a primary home cost of $3.9 million and annual mortgage payments of $215,000 a year. 

The "family" has a "modest" Hamptons vacation home valued at $1.9 million (not the $90 million beachfront model) with yearly expenses of $105,000. 



Other annual bills include $30,300 for college, $26,000 for private school, $18,000 for cars, $12,480 for dining out, $22,000 for vacations, and $22,000 for incidental expenses. 

"I think $500,000 will give you a comfortable lifestyle, not an affluent one," said Dolly Lenz, a top real-estate broker with Prudential Douglas Elliman. "To live affluently, not extravagantly, you'd have to make at least $2.5 million a year." 

John Herman, a single Wall Street banker, agrees with Lenz. 

"I don't believe that I could possibly have a wife and two children and have any kind of privileged lifestyle," he said. 

According to study author Sara Clemence, it doesn't take into account different habits in different places. The imaginary family dines out once a week. 

"How many affluent New Yorkers only eat out once a week?" she asked. "And if you live in Manhattan, you're probably going to spend far more on clothes and things than if you live in Baltimore." 

"It may allow them to keep up with the Joneses today, but it doesn't give them much wiggle room if they hit any financial bumps in the road," said Corcoran Group CEO Pamela Leibman. 







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## WeasteDevil (Nov 6, 2004)

There is a quite simple answer:

Move out!


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## WeasteDevil (Nov 6, 2004)

MikeHunt said:


> not extravagantly


...



> $22,000 for incidental expenses


:lol:


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## WeasteDevil (Nov 6, 2004)

Incidental
in·ci·den·tal
adj. 

1. Occurring or likely to occur as an unpredictable or minor accompaniment.

2. Of a minor, casual, or subordinate nature.

:bash:

Have these people ever heard of a 'kin budget?


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## sean storm (Nov 18, 2004)

this is such a stupid article.....who the hell thinks they have the right to define how an "affluent 4-member family" lives????

whatever. :stupid:


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## MikeHunt (Nov 28, 2004)

I don't think that a four bedroom home, a Lexus and a BMW is extravagant. It's simply a nice lifestyle. Extravant is a 10,000 square foot townhouse, a Bently and a Ferrari....

As it so happens, a four bedroom apartment in Manhattan costs about $4m. Nonetheless, two cars are not necessary, and neither is the $1.9M beachhouse. In that regard, a New Yorker could have a $400,000 condo in Miami and be quite happy with it.


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## Talbot (Jul 13, 2004)

You don't need to send your kid to private colleges, high schools, have vacation homes, and 2 luxury cars to live a decent lifestyle. Hell my family gets by without that stuff.


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## MikeHunt (Nov 28, 2004)

Talbot said:


> You don't need to send your kid to private colleges, high schools, have vacation homes, and 2 luxury cars to live a decent lifestyle. Hell my family gets by without that stuff.


I disagree. Most people in NY send their kids to private college, and if you live in NYC (as opposed to the suburbs), private grammar and high schools are essential. With extremely limited exceptions, NYC's public schools are not good. I do agree that the vacation home and 2 cars are not essential. One car is useful, however, and a Lexus or a BMW is not extravagant -- a Bentley is.


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## Talbot (Jul 13, 2004)

MikeHunt said:


> I disagree. Most people in NY send their kids to private college, and if you live in NYC (as opposed to the suburbs), private grammar and high schools are essential. With extremely limited exceptions, NYC's public schools are not good. I do agree that the vacation home and 2 cars are not essential. One car is useful, however, and a Lexus or a BMW is not extravagant -- a Bentley is.


Well in NY maybe a public school is preferred because the schools aren't good. But having a Lexus and a BMW brings you a nice monthly payment for both of them which adds up.


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## Chibcha2k (Oct 19, 2002)

one can live like Trump with that amount of money here in Colombia... the described lifestyle here costs even less than 200,000 usd for income


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## MikeHunt (Nov 28, 2004)

Talbot said:


> Well in NY maybe a public school is preferred because the schools aren't good. But having a Lexus and a BMW brings you a nice monthly payment for both of them which adds up.


The car expense isn't that much out of the grand total:

Lease: about $600/mo for each ($1,200 total) 
Insurance: about $200/mo for each ($400 total)
Garage: about $500/mo for each ($1,000 total)

$2,600/ mo total for 2 cars (i.e., $31,000/ year, which equals about $50,000 of pre-tax income).


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## Cheese Mmmmmmmmmmmm (Apr 8, 2005)

Chibcha2k said:


> one can live like Trump with that amount of money here in Colombia... the described lifestyle here costs even less than 200,000 usd for income


Better watch out, Trump might just BUY Columbia! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


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## parallax (Feb 25, 2004)

@ Mikehunt

You can jump up and down all you want, but the described 'lifestyle' is not the same as a 'reasonable life' it is NOT average in any way, maybe for downtown Manhattan it is, but not for the large majority of the population. You call paying $31.000 a year for 2-car ownership normal when the GDP is $40.000?
It may not be rich, but it certainly is luxurious.

This article is stupid, and the conclusions drawn even more. A typical non-talent MBA grad school article written by no-talent hacks, to keep the 'workers' from profiting even remotely off their hard labour.

Middle management dicks.


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## edsg25 (Jul 30, 2004)

the article is loaded with hyperbole. yet it does highlight an idea that most of us can relate to: Manhattan is a place that pretty well has been reisgned to people with a great deal of money. and that, more than anything else, manhattan is about making money.

NYC's self-proclaimed title of "world's greatest city" has not been generated due to Queens, Bronx, or any place that refers to itself an "outer borough"; it comes from Manhattan. "World's greatest city" is all emcompassing term. Personally I'm not sure any one city on this globe can claim such a title, but in my mind, if there were, I can't imagine it being a place that was designed for the rich and is mainly affordable only by them; it would be a place with a more diverse (economic) population, since diversity, a concept NY seems to give lip service to being incredibly important, doesn't only come in ethnic groups, but in pocketbook issues, as well.


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## Cee_em_bee (May 12, 2004)

That isn't reasonable living, that's unpractical living. Who needs 2 cars? In NYC? 1 would be more then enough. A holiday house in the Hamptons? More like a Timeshare flat in Coolangatta!


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## A42251 (Sep 13, 2004)

*


edsg25 said:



the article is loaded with hyperbole. yet it does highlight an idea that most of us can relate to: Manhattan is a place that pretty well has been reisgned to people with a great deal of money. and that, more than anything else, manhattan is about making money.

NYC's self-proclaimed title of "world's greatest city" has not been generated due to Queens, Bronx, or any place that refers to itself an "outer borough"; it comes from Manhattan. "World's greatest city" is all emcompassing term. Personally I'm not sure any one city on this globe can claim such a title, but in my mind, if there were, I can't imagine it being a place that was designed for the rich and is mainly affordable only by them; it would be a place with a more diverse (economic) population, since diversity, a concept NY seems to give lip service to being incredibly important, doesn't only come in ethnic groups, but in pocketbook issues, as well.

Click to expand...

*I disagree that the outer boroughs do not play a role in making NYC the "world's greatest city". A big reason why NYC is given that title is because it is the most diverse city on the planet and a huge percentage of that diversity is located in the outer boroughs. For example, Queens, not Manhattan, is the most ethnically diverse county in the country.


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## LA1 (Sep 12, 2002)

Dumb article, has absolultely nothing to do with about 95% of NYC popualtion.

I will say it again-NYC's per capita income is ONLY $38,000.


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## Sitback (Nov 1, 2004)

MikeHunt lives on a different planet to everyone else.


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## MikeHunt (Nov 28, 2004)

LA1 said:


> Dumb article, has absolultely nothing to do with about 95% of NYC popualtion.
> 
> I will say it again-NYC's per capita income is ONLY $38,000.


Hi... goofball. Check this out:

NEW YORK, April 1 (Reuters) - The average sale price for a Manhattan apartment topped $1.2 million in the first quarter, a new record, as the supply of properties for sale shrunk, according to the Prudential Douglas Elliman Manhattan Market Overview.

The average sale price rose to $1.21 million -- up 23 percent from the final quarter of 2004 and up 26 percent from a year ago.

In the condominium sector, the average sale price jumped to $1.55 million -- exceeding $1.5 million for the first time -- and surging 34 percent from 2004's fourth quarter, the report said. The average condo sale price went up 22 percent from the year-ago first quarter.

For Manhattan's entire apartment market, the average price per square foot climbed to $910 -- topping $900 a square foot for the first time. That's up 16.7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2004. It's a gain of 28 percent from a year earlier.

"Improving economic conditions, a tight housing supply, rising incomes and the widely held expectation of rising mortgage rates in the near future, caused housing prices to surge this quarter," the report said.

It was the first time the quarterly report included Manhattan markets above 116th Street on the West Side and above 96th Street on the East Side.

The median sale price -- the point where half the sales are higher and half are lower -- climbed to $705,000. That's up 16.5 percent from the previous quarter and up 18.5 percent from a year ago.

The volume of apartment sales fell to 2,028 units -- down 6.2 percent from the previous quarter and down 5.8 percent from a year ago, according to the report.

Limited supply kept sales volume in check.

The average sale price of a cooperative apartment, where an owner holds shares in the building and does not own the individual unit, rose to $988,746. That's up 15.5 percent from the previous quarter.

The average co-op sale price went up average sale price of a cooperative apartment, where an owner holds shares in the building and does not own the individual unit, rose to $988,746. That's up 15.5 percent from the previous quarter.

The average co-op sale price went up 25 percent from the first quarter of 2004.

04/01/05 02:22 ET

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.


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## MikeHunt (Nov 28, 2004)

LA1 said:


> Dumb article, has absolultely nothing to do with about 95% of NYC popualtion.
> 
> I will say it again-NYC's per capita income is ONLY $38,000.


PS: Whacky hick, the average income in Manhattan is over $100,000.


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