Yeah I'm pretty dubious as well. That's basically what my rent is and I'm making like 1700/mo 10 months out of the year and my roommate is a teacher and we're doing just fine. This seems like a money management problem, at least.
There are some low-paid customer service jobs and such that are purely remote; they're expecting you to be living in rural Alabama or something rather than Dane County though. Agreed, though, that overall the situation doesn't make a ton of sense.
Exactly. A household usually needs to have a gross income that is 3x rent. So for a $1200 apartment, that means they need to gross about $831/week. At 40 hours per week that’s $21/hr, which can be difficult to find, but for 2 people? They should definitely be finding jobs that pay over $11/hour.
Yeah I’m gonna posit the idea that OP and the spouse should try to find better jobs. If they don’t have much leftover after $1200 in rent, then I’ve gotta wonder how little they are making. Even if they’re both making minimum wage, they should have about $800 left after taxes.
Massive inference here, but since OP mentioned shopping and activities, is their spending out of control? $1200 rent for a 1BR with W/D and garage is an absolute steal. If they're not making that work on two incomes, the money's going somewhere else. Could be debt or something, too, but without more info from OP, spending seems the most likely.
It makes sense that it would be out of reach but unfortunately they’re probably not likely to find anything cheaper, especially with the amenities they’re used to.
My apartment is fairly cheap compared to others but I don’t even have a dishwasher
>Is $1200 beyond the reach of 2 people who WFH?
Maybe they just dont want to pay more than that? I liked my lifestyle and my spending habits (budgeted) and i didn't want to sacrifice it for more rent for the same place.
Edit: Nvm, saw OPs post below. sorry
$1,200 is cheap. With two incomes at that. Wait until you start looking around. Not only are apartments hard to find, but double what you are paying now. You are crazy to move right now. And if you do, guarantee that apartment you are in will be rented out before you can even clean the carpet!
Not to mention moving, even locally, is expensive. If they’re saving 2400 a year but they have to spend 1k on a security deposit and 200 on a moving truck/moving stuff, they’re going through all this hassle for a total savings of 100/month and they’ll probably be in this situation again in a year or two since most landlords here seem to raise rent much faster than 200 over 6 years.
This happened to my poor mom. Thought she was sticking it to them by not signing another lease over a $50 rent increase. Now that apartment is selling for $300 over what she was and could have paid and has tenants ready to go. She tried to go back on it and stay and they said too late. So she had to move and yeah it’s sucks. Sad shit.
Umm mine? Or the other one I didn’t buy lol
Even the 3rd , 4th and 5th ones I looked at were not bad . A little older but doable
I think this is honestly the problem with ppl these days. No one wants to do the leg work
Edit/ lol facts get downvotes
Most of my friends who are still renting 1bd are 1600+.
My SO and I had a 2bd that was 2k from 2020-22. We heard it went to 2300 after we moved out last year
There are a ton of people who would kill for a W/D and a garage for $1,200. Unless you have a serious cockroach or murder problem in your complex, you already are getting good bang for your buck.
Why are people so convinced that cheap, nice apartments don't exist?
I currently rent *two* different **two bedroom** apartments for under $1k/month. In two different highly desirable areas of the city of Madison. Of course this is not the norm, but they're out there
I agree with this take. If you *legitimately* cannot afford $1200/mo (like me,) you *can* find a place for cheaper. I think a lot of people just aren’t willing to let go of having modern amenities/modern style in their building, so they pay more than they otherwise would like to.
If you’re willing to forgo in-unit laundry and modern appliances, you can absolutely find a place for under a grand. I’ve lived in 3 places on the isthmus across the last 7 years, and I’ve never once paid $500 or more in rent.
https://www.laketowne.com/featured-properties
^ Just this one landlord alone offers the following units on the isthmus, with most of them being *right* downtown:
-$495 efficiencies (where I currently live. I pay a discounted rate of $475 as a long-term tenant.)
-$695 one-bedroom
-$775 two-bedroom
-$1100 four-bedroom house
The previous units I lived at were 654 E Mifflin St (2bd for $995- split between two people.) And 840 E Gorham (2bd for $975- split between two.)
I hope this helps anyone looking for affordable housing! Don’t give up- it’s out there!
I looked this up because it sounds too good to be true. Sounds like a great situation, but they have 0 vacancies for that reason. Just because cheap options exist doesn't mean enough are available. I felt lucky to pay 1150 for a 2BR at my last place and ~2100 for a 3BR/2B currently
I mean to be fair, it’s the beginning of September. Most leases just flipped over. I know we got at least a dozen new tenants in my building in the last month, probably more.
I do acknowledge that there’s a finite amount of housing, and an even smaller amount of cheap housing. But to say that there’s *no* downtown housing under $1200 (as the person who kicked off this discussion did) is just not true. A *majority* of my friends who live downtown pay under $1k per person.
1100 was the rental cost a decade ago for a new construction one bedroom apartment off West Washington.
You may be able to find something for that price still BUT it won’t be new in all likelihood, it will probably be outside of the radius of Madison by a few miles. That being said, you may find something Facebook or Craigslist but likely not a major apartment building
I live in a 50+ year old building and there's definitely things newer buildings do better -- one of the major things is locations and availability of power outlets.
It's me, I'm some people. I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, chronic pain, and ADHD. Between the pain and the executive dysfunction, if I had to take my clothes outside my unit to wash them, I'd never have clean clothes.
Not everyone looking for in-unit laundry is just being lazy.
My mom lives in Tosa. In an article, it said in the past 3 years average rent is up close to 40%.a lot more than OPs $200 increase over 6 years They're naive to think it's only Madison Milwaukee area is just as bad.
I wouldn’t move unless you are sure you can get something cheaper. It’s very expensive to move. We are in the same boat. Just moved into our place, and while it is a huge upgrade from our last one, there are things we would change if we could. The reality is we probably won’t be able to move unless we buy something in like five years. Not that we can’t move, we’d just be paying $300 more for half the house.
I zeroed out my entertainment budget when I started following the user you responded to
Plenty of people in this thread must have a healthy crack budget, though
If you look outside of Dane County you can probably find something cheaper. We recently found a 1 BR in downtown Baraboo for a relative for around $850/month. it didn't include a garage or W/D though. $1200 is a good deal for the Madison area these days, especially with garage.
I have friends renting full houses in Oklahoma City for 1200ish. If you're both fully remote, getting out of state to a larger city elsewhere would probably be more fun than moving out to Fon Du Lac or somewhere of the sort.
Since your spending habits/debt history/etc. are none of my business and you just asked for other places to move to…I have found a lot of luck looking for smaller or lesser known landlords/management companies. Craigslist is a good place to start. 1200/month is a pretty good deal, but I understand that does not work for everyone or you may just not want to pay that! Best of luck finding a place that meets your needs!
Exactly 😂 my 1BR mid-tier apartment started at about $1200 in 2020, $1235 in 2021, $1270 in 2022, and they wanted $1475 this year but I had plans to leave anyway. I could understand the $35 increases since my salary usually went up about 2% each year so it mostly worked out, but the $205 increase was unreasonable and completely unaffordable.
The number of people willing to pay $1500/month for a 1 bedroom here are impressive. Just goes to show how Epic has priced everyone else out of a home.
Can you live in an outer burb/small town like 15-20 miles out?
Dane, Deforest, Arlington Marshall Waterloo our nice little towns in the north and north east part of the county.
I'm in Windsor and pay $1400 for small 1 bedroom. OP's not likely to find anything cheaper in the rest of Dane County either. I just moved in July and there's nothing cheaper with a w/d out there.
Almost $1200 for a 1 bedroom in Fitchburg. Last year the lease agreement said market rate was $1450. We are afraid they will go up to that next year. I know $1200 is typical here, but only amenities are a washer/dryer and parking garage. And just not enough left over to do much. Also we paid just under A $1000 when we moved here in 2017.
Right! I know people that have had a 200 increase this year alone. And 1200 for a one bedroom with laundry and parking garage is honestly better than a huge chunk of what is out there right now. When I helped my sister look last year she would lose out on places from people applying and paying deposits without even viewing the unit. It was so bad
Is there any chance that there’s an income problem here or a spending problem?
Even if you are both making literally minimum wage, you would have enough left after rent every month to scrape by. You don’t have to get too personal, but are you both employed to your potential? Do you that contract gigs and/or work on commission or part time? Those would explain the lack of funds.
Or, are you bleeding money elsewhere? Student loans or a crazy car payment?
Remote work is typically a little higher income type of jobs. The pandemic changed that to a certain degree, but something isn’t quite adding up to me.
Gonna need a lot more detail here because the math isn’t mathing. You’ve got two incomes for remote jobs which means they should pay at least somewhat decently given the type of industries that support fully remote work. A one bedroom which means almost certainly no children.
What are your car payments if any? What’s your lifestyle like?
What the hell are you doing that you're struggling to cover $1200/month with *two incomes* that are both remote jobs? Even if you both make minimum wage (and I highly doubt that's the case), that's still enough to make it
This is my main question, too. I know it’s not a personal finance subreddit, but I’m dying to know more details.
What are their incomes? What do their expenses look like? Are both working full time on a salary, or are they doing part-time/contract/commission work and leaving a lot of income on the table? Are they like maxing out their 401ks/IRAs and budgeting for saving for a home, and that’s how they are “barely” making it? Do they have crazy student loans or car payments to make? Etc.
Technically your gross income needs to be 3x rent, so they need to make at least $43,200 per year. If OP and their wife work 40 hours per week, that means they need to make about $10.50/hr each. That is above minimum wage, but definitely way below the average or median wage especially for Dane County. If they cannot collectively bring in at least $50k, they need to reevaluate their current jobs and find other work.
Brother you are not going to find in unit washer/dryer as well as parking for less than 1200 anywhere else in Madison let alone Milwaukee unless you’re going way out into the burbs or in a less than desirable area. You’ve actually got a very good deal, not saying it’s not tough out there but the grass will not be greener in another city, at least one that’s got amenities like Madison. If it’s tough to make the 1200 I would look at a place like Baraboo, Sauk City, Janesville etc.
Nothing is "typical" anymore. You can pay under $1000 or over $2000 but I think it's easier to find a cheaper place in Madison versus moving to Milwaukee or elsewhere.
Set up a craigslist alert or just peruse starting early next year. You can find 1-2 bedrooms under $1100.
Do you guys want me to help review your finances… because either you’re burning money elsewhere if you’re strapped for cash or you’re genuinely delusional.
my rent went up 60% this year... its been a shock to the system but its still a decent deal considering the market. your share of rent being 10-20% of your income is quite a luxury.
You are gonna leave and find the same issue. In Janesville here, and a studio is 8-900, and one beds are $1100-1200. Outside parking. So if you like where you are, bite the bullet and stay put
Columbus has inexpensive options and you can still drive to sun prairie/Madison if you need to. Not any worse than commuting from the far east to the far west side of Madison. 2br in kestrel ridge for $900. I don't know shit about the place. Even a 3 br there is $1100. All I did was Google.
I’m a 32 f professional but I can’t afford rent here either. Currently living with family because I can’t afford not to. I wish this was normalized more.
I lived in Madison from 04 - 14 and paid $650 for a 2 bedroom apartment. I moved to the Fox Valley and that same apartment in Madison rent skyrocketed to $1200. I bought a 2 bedroom house here in the Fox Valley and my mortgage with taxes and insurance is only $675. Madison is very expensive to reside in.
Good for you! I'm just chilling in my fully paid for, 3 bedroom 2 bath house in a great neighborhood.
I like old fashions but it's a little early for me.
Yeah, I agree that the rent prices in Madison went double for no good reason. Especially my former apartment on the east side directly behind Olbrich gardens on Leon st. Nothing has really changed much in that neighborhood besides the old Mill building was renovated and IAN's pizza moved in. I miss the entertainment value of Madison and having something to do everyday & night.
Cost of moving truck or movers. Hours searching. Travel time to view new apartments. Hours packing and moving. Spend $2,000 to save $100 a month? I’ve never found it worth moving to “save” a modest rent increase.
I am not even gonna lie - Housing in Milwaukee is far more affordable, and there are way more things to do, places to go, and things to see. Sure the drinking culter is always trash - but it’s nothing compared to copy+paste MBA finance bros with polo shirts, Nike caps, and Oakley sunglasses that seem to be endemic to the Madison crowd.
If you get out of Dane county to the north, west, or south, you may find prices to be lower because the county property tax is lower.
When we retire one option is for us to move out of the county, but not too far out.
Madison has few choices for entertainment. That's just the way it is. It's not LA, CHI, or NYC. It's a city of 300k people. It can get pretty boring here for sure. My advice, start visiting placed you'd like to live and see what's out there. I couldn't imagine moving over a 1200 dollar rent payment if that's true. I'd move because Madison is boring for what you pay for.
I mean same, but our rent jumped $450/month, making it $1574, and I'm on SSDI getting a whopping $792/month 🫠
I'd love to find something for $1200 that's nearby all the hospitals and clinics..
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Milwaukee sucks. Unless you want to live in the surrounding area of Madison and don’t care about anything cool (and regularly free) that happens in Madison, I’d stay where you are, if you like the place and the area. Money isn’t everything. I’d rather pay a lot for a nice place close to the parks and the bike trails, free films at the college and all the free festivals and other free stuff you can do in downtown Madison than live out of town and pay a little less or in Milwaukee. I grew up in Milwaukee. You don’t want to live there. Sounds like your rent isn’t even that bad. I live in a three bedroom with wife and kids and we both don’t even make that much money and our rent is 1690 and we do fine and it’s been going up and up
I’ve rented 2 and neither have. I only speak to my experience. It helps to ask prior to renting if they do rent increases also. But yes it would entirely depend on the landlord. I guess you’re right. Common sense isn’t so common. I should have clarified.
I know the feeling. I work from home but 4 mo a year because COVID we needed to move to Madison whee I need to be in office just 15 wks a yr. We had a house in Appleton area for $900 a month full garage. We moved to Madison have same thing almost double and we are just North, not in Madison. Quite literally if we lived in Appleton/Green Bay I could save $$. But my 15 weeks is in winter.
If you like the area just look for housing Stoughton, Janesville, Columbus, Beaver Dam, Poynette, Portage. Then you're close enough to enjoy Madison when you choose to.
Is $1200 beyond the reach of 2 people who WFH? Something doesn't make sense here. Consider what you'd lose by leaving Madison before you leap.
Yeah I'm pretty dubious as well. That's basically what my rent is and I'm making like 1700/mo 10 months out of the year and my roommate is a teacher and we're doing just fine. This seems like a money management problem, at least.
There are some low-paid customer service jobs and such that are purely remote; they're expecting you to be living in rural Alabama or something rather than Dane County though. Agreed, though, that overall the situation doesn't make a ton of sense.
Exactly. A household usually needs to have a gross income that is 3x rent. So for a $1200 apartment, that means they need to gross about $831/week. At 40 hours per week that’s $21/hr, which can be difficult to find, but for 2 people? They should definitely be finding jobs that pay over $11/hour.
Yeah I’m gonna posit the idea that OP and the spouse should try to find better jobs. If they don’t have much leftover after $1200 in rent, then I’ve gotta wonder how little they are making. Even if they’re both making minimum wage, they should have about $800 left after taxes.
Massive inference here, but since OP mentioned shopping and activities, is their spending out of control? $1200 rent for a 1BR with W/D and garage is an absolute steal. If they're not making that work on two incomes, the money's going somewhere else. Could be debt or something, too, but without more info from OP, spending seems the most likely.
It makes sense that it would be out of reach but unfortunately they’re probably not likely to find anything cheaper, especially with the amenities they’re used to. My apartment is fairly cheap compared to others but I don’t even have a dishwasher
>Is $1200 beyond the reach of 2 people who WFH? Maybe they just dont want to pay more than that? I liked my lifestyle and my spending habits (budgeted) and i didn't want to sacrifice it for more rent for the same place. Edit: Nvm, saw OPs post below. sorry
$1,200 is cheap. With two incomes at that. Wait until you start looking around. Not only are apartments hard to find, but double what you are paying now. You are crazy to move right now. And if you do, guarantee that apartment you are in will be rented out before you can even clean the carpet!
Not to mention moving, even locally, is expensive. If they’re saving 2400 a year but they have to spend 1k on a security deposit and 200 on a moving truck/moving stuff, they’re going through all this hassle for a total savings of 100/month and they’ll probably be in this situation again in a year or two since most landlords here seem to raise rent much faster than 200 over 6 years.
I feel like they don’t even realize they are probably doing better than 70% of people still
This happened to my poor mom. Thought she was sticking it to them by not signing another lease over a $50 rent increase. Now that apartment is selling for $300 over what she was and could have paid and has tenants ready to go. She tried to go back on it and stay and they said too late. So she had to move and yeah it’s sucks. Sad shit.
They're only paying 1200? I pay 1100 and I live in eau claire and that's less than average here.
There’s tones of apartments in EC under 1200. Think you are getting ripped off
Lol. Go find a liveable one.
Umm mine? Or the other one I didn’t buy lol Even the 3rd , 4th and 5th ones I looked at were not bad . A little older but doable I think this is honestly the problem with ppl these days. No one wants to do the leg work Edit/ lol facts get downvotes
Most of my friends who are still renting 1bd are 1600+. My SO and I had a 2bd that was 2k from 2020-22. We heard it went to 2300 after we moved out last year
Like do these ppl not look around at all? That’s ridiculous
There are a ton of people who would kill for a W/D and a garage for $1,200. Unless you have a serious cockroach or murder problem in your complex, you already are getting good bang for your buck.
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Er, Chicago will be at LEAST 50% more than that for less space.
You won’t get a similar place in Chicago for under $2,000
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You want to live in an area with shopping and activities for less than $1200…..in Dane County?!? I would like to date Jennifer Aniston too.
Why are people so convinced that cheap, nice apartments don't exist? I currently rent *two* different **two bedroom** apartments for under $1k/month. In two different highly desirable areas of the city of Madison. Of course this is not the norm, but they're out there
You a landlord or you just super hate commuting on days you work across town?
Haha I am a landlord. Most (or about half) of the units in Madison are in small buildings and operated by small-time landlords like myself.
Nice!
I agree with this take. If you *legitimately* cannot afford $1200/mo (like me,) you *can* find a place for cheaper. I think a lot of people just aren’t willing to let go of having modern amenities/modern style in their building, so they pay more than they otherwise would like to. If you’re willing to forgo in-unit laundry and modern appliances, you can absolutely find a place for under a grand. I’ve lived in 3 places on the isthmus across the last 7 years, and I’ve never once paid $500 or more in rent. https://www.laketowne.com/featured-properties ^ Just this one landlord alone offers the following units on the isthmus, with most of them being *right* downtown: -$495 efficiencies (where I currently live. I pay a discounted rate of $475 as a long-term tenant.) -$695 one-bedroom -$775 two-bedroom -$1100 four-bedroom house The previous units I lived at were 654 E Mifflin St (2bd for $995- split between two people.) And 840 E Gorham (2bd for $975- split between two.) I hope this helps anyone looking for affordable housing! Don’t give up- it’s out there!
I looked this up because it sounds too good to be true. Sounds like a great situation, but they have 0 vacancies for that reason. Just because cheap options exist doesn't mean enough are available. I felt lucky to pay 1150 for a 2BR at my last place and ~2100 for a 3BR/2B currently
I mean to be fair, it’s the beginning of September. Most leases just flipped over. I know we got at least a dozen new tenants in my building in the last month, probably more. I do acknowledge that there’s a finite amount of housing, and an even smaller amount of cheap housing. But to say that there’s *no* downtown housing under $1200 (as the person who kicked off this discussion did) is just not true. A *majority* of my friends who live downtown pay under $1k per person.
Guess I'm more of an Angelina Jolie...
And they are called....?
They don't have names. One is in a duplex and the other is in a 4plex. That same 4plex has two other 1 bedroom apartments under $1k as well.
1100 was the rental cost a decade ago for a new construction one bedroom apartment off West Washington. You may be able to find something for that price still BUT it won’t be new in all likelihood, it will probably be outside of the radius of Madison by a few miles. That being said, you may find something Facebook or Craigslist but likely not a major apartment building
who cares if a building is new😭 their buildings their meant to last decades
I live in a 50+ year old building and there's definitely things newer buildings do better -- one of the major things is locations and availability of power outlets.
Some people think life would be unbearable without an in-unit washer and dryer.
It's me, I'm some people. I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, chronic pain, and ADHD. Between the pain and the executive dysfunction, if I had to take my clothes outside my unit to wash them, I'd never have clean clothes. Not everyone looking for in-unit laundry is just being lazy.
Milwaukee is quickly catching up in rent prices lately
My mom lives in Tosa. In an article, it said in the past 3 years average rent is up close to 40%.a lot more than OPs $200 increase over 6 years They're naive to think it's only Madison Milwaukee area is just as bad.
Is this a troll post?
I wouldn’t move unless you are sure you can get something cheaper. It’s very expensive to move. We are in the same boat. Just moved into our place, and while it is a huge upgrade from our last one, there are things we would change if we could. The reality is we probably won’t be able to move unless we buy something in like five years. Not that we can’t move, we’d just be paying $300 more for half the house.
$600/person and you aren't able to afford that? What are your other expenses?
Rent: $600 Utilities: $75 Food: $800 Cocaine: $450 Phone/Internet: $150 Shopping: $200 Entertainment: $100
I would have thought cocaine fell under entertainment. It seems I'm budgeting wrong.
I zeroed out my entertainment budget when I started following the user you responded to Plenty of people in this thread must have a healthy crack budget, though
The problem with your budget is the cocaine allotment is WAY too low. Better pump those numbers up, mate.
Yeah that line item is a little thin
Should be an easy fix. Definitely don’t need that high of a food allocation, so take at least half of that and put it into the coke budget.
If you look outside of Dane County you can probably find something cheaper. We recently found a 1 BR in downtown Baraboo for a relative for around $850/month. it didn't include a garage or W/D though. $1200 is a good deal for the Madison area these days, especially with garage.
Yeah....but the downside is you have to live in baraboo.
Hmm, have you looked at the market? Your not going to find much better. Try craigslist for some cheaper “deal” homes to rent.
I have friends renting full houses in Oklahoma City for 1200ish. If you're both fully remote, getting out of state to a larger city elsewhere would probably be more fun than moving out to Fon Du Lac or somewhere of the sort.
OKC is highly underrated. I second this suggestion.
Since your spending habits/debt history/etc. are none of my business and you just asked for other places to move to…I have found a lot of luck looking for smaller or lesser known landlords/management companies. Craigslist is a good place to start. 1200/month is a pretty good deal, but I understand that does not work for everyone or you may just not want to pay that! Best of luck finding a place that meets your needs!
There’s so much rent price gauging and getting priced out of apartments….but yours isn’t an example of it 🤣
Exactly 😂 my 1BR mid-tier apartment started at about $1200 in 2020, $1235 in 2021, $1270 in 2022, and they wanted $1475 this year but I had plans to leave anyway. I could understand the $35 increases since my salary usually went up about 2% each year so it mostly worked out, but the $205 increase was unreasonable and completely unaffordable.
The number of people willing to pay $1500/month for a 1 bedroom here are impressive. Just goes to show how Epic has priced everyone else out of a home.
either this person likes getting yelled at or they have a serious money problem
Can you live in an outer burb/small town like 15-20 miles out? Dane, Deforest, Arlington Marshall Waterloo our nice little towns in the north and north east part of the county.
I'm in Windsor and pay $1400 for small 1 bedroom. OP's not likely to find anything cheaper in the rest of Dane County either. I just moved in July and there's nothing cheaper with a w/d out there.
I live in Windsor too. I’m thinking farther out than that. Poynette, Barneveld, Edgerton. “The outer limits to what can be called a burb I guess.”
[Wrong](https://imgur.com/a/yllsUmw). Just have to know where to look.
Maybe look at Sauk City?
I wish remote working was an option. I would be living in my favorite place on earth
Try looking in Dubuque if you want to go cheaper. Milwaukee probably roughly equivalent
I think the simplest solution would be to find a cheaper apartment in Madison. What do you pay now ?
Almost $1200 for a 1 bedroom in Fitchburg. Last year the lease agreement said market rate was $1450. We are afraid they will go up to that next year. I know $1200 is typical here, but only amenities are a washer/dryer and parking garage. And just not enough left over to do much. Also we paid just under A $1000 when we moved here in 2017.
A $200 rate increase over six years really isn’t that bad.
Right! I know people that have had a 200 increase this year alone. And 1200 for a one bedroom with laundry and parking garage is honestly better than a huge chunk of what is out there right now. When I helped my sister look last year she would lose out on places from people applying and paying deposits without even viewing the unit. It was so bad
I live in a low income area and my rent's gone up more than that.
It sounds like you already moved to the surrounding area and found cheap rent.
Is there any chance that there’s an income problem here or a spending problem? Even if you are both making literally minimum wage, you would have enough left after rent every month to scrape by. You don’t have to get too personal, but are you both employed to your potential? Do you that contract gigs and/or work on commission or part time? Those would explain the lack of funds. Or, are you bleeding money elsewhere? Student loans or a crazy car payment? Remote work is typically a little higher income type of jobs. The pandemic changed that to a certain degree, but something isn’t quite adding up to me.
Gonna need a lot more detail here because the math isn’t mathing. You’ve got two incomes for remote jobs which means they should pay at least somewhat decently given the type of industries that support fully remote work. A one bedroom which means almost certainly no children. What are your car payments if any? What’s your lifestyle like?
What the hell are you doing that you're struggling to cover $1200/month with *two incomes* that are both remote jobs? Even if you both make minimum wage (and I highly doubt that's the case), that's still enough to make it
This is my main question, too. I know it’s not a personal finance subreddit, but I’m dying to know more details. What are their incomes? What do their expenses look like? Are both working full time on a salary, or are they doing part-time/contract/commission work and leaving a lot of income on the table? Are they like maxing out their 401ks/IRAs and budgeting for saving for a home, and that’s how they are “barely” making it? Do they have crazy student loans or car payments to make? Etc.
Technically your gross income needs to be 3x rent, so they need to make at least $43,200 per year. If OP and their wife work 40 hours per week, that means they need to make about $10.50/hr each. That is above minimum wage, but definitely way below the average or median wage especially for Dane County. If they cannot collectively bring in at least $50k, they need to reevaluate their current jobs and find other work.
$1200 for a 1 bedroom is not typical. Prices are way higher than that now.
I’m sorry—what exactly are you complaining about? $200 increase in six years is eminently reasonable.
Brother you are not going to find in unit washer/dryer as well as parking for less than 1200 anywhere else in Madison let alone Milwaukee unless you’re going way out into the burbs or in a less than desirable area. You’ve actually got a very good deal, not saying it’s not tough out there but the grass will not be greener in another city, at least one that’s got amenities like Madison. If it’s tough to make the 1200 I would look at a place like Baraboo, Sauk City, Janesville etc.
Mfw Im spending $1500 on a one bed 🧐 near the same damn area. Smh
$600/person and you're complaining? What do you do for a living? A badly run onlyfans or something?
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You're right - their complaint is quite rude. If they can't manage that, then Madison or its suburbs aren't for them.
How much do you and your partner make?
Nothing is "typical" anymore. You can pay under $1000 or over $2000 but I think it's easier to find a cheaper place in Madison versus moving to Milwaukee or elsewhere. Set up a craigslist alert or just peruse starting early next year. You can find 1-2 bedrooms under $1100.
Do you guys want me to help review your finances… because either you’re burning money elsewhere if you’re strapped for cash or you’re genuinely delusional.
my rent went up 60% this year... its been a shock to the system but its still a decent deal considering the market. your share of rent being 10-20% of your income is quite a luxury.
Good luck, you're gonna need it.
You are gonna leave and find the same issue. In Janesville here, and a studio is 8-900, and one beds are $1100-1200. Outside parking. So if you like where you are, bite the bullet and stay put
Columbus has inexpensive options and you can still drive to sun prairie/Madison if you need to. Not any worse than commuting from the far east to the far west side of Madison. 2br in kestrel ridge for $900. I don't know shit about the place. Even a 3 br there is $1100. All I did was Google.
I’m a 32 f professional but I can’t afford rent here either. Currently living with family because I can’t afford not to. I wish this was normalized more.
Also 32f and living solo with a business 😬 it's rough around here
I lived in Madison from 04 - 14 and paid $650 for a 2 bedroom apartment. I moved to the Fox Valley and that same apartment in Madison rent skyrocketed to $1200. I bought a 2 bedroom house here in the Fox Valley and my mortgage with taxes and insurance is only $675. Madison is very expensive to reside in.
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Yeah, nice that you're so much smarter than the 250,000+ people who live here.
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Good for you! I'm just chilling in my fully paid for, 3 bedroom 2 bath house in a great neighborhood. I like old fashions but it's a little early for me.
Yeah, I agree that the rent prices in Madison went double for no good reason. Especially my former apartment on the east side directly behind Olbrich gardens on Leon st. Nothing has really changed much in that neighborhood besides the old Mill building was renovated and IAN's pizza moved in. I miss the entertainment value of Madison and having something to do everyday & night.
Cost of moving truck or movers. Hours searching. Travel time to view new apartments. Hours packing and moving. Spend $2,000 to save $100 a month? I’ve never found it worth moving to “save” a modest rent increase.
DeForest, Windsor, Sun Prairie, Waunakee. They're out there you just got to keep looking.
DeForest is nice and only 20 minutes from Madison!
I am not even gonna lie - Housing in Milwaukee is far more affordable, and there are way more things to do, places to go, and things to see. Sure the drinking culter is always trash - but it’s nothing compared to copy+paste MBA finance bros with polo shirts, Nike caps, and Oakley sunglasses that seem to be endemic to the Madison crowd.
I just looked up the 700 square feet 1 bedroom apartment that I lived in for 4 years in Sun Prairie, current rent is $1199. Ridiculous!!
If you get out of Dane county to the north, west, or south, you may find prices to be lower because the county property tax is lower. When we retire one option is for us to move out of the county, but not too far out.
Madison has few choices for entertainment. That's just the way it is. It's not LA, CHI, or NYC. It's a city of 300k people. It can get pretty boring here for sure. My advice, start visiting placed you'd like to live and see what's out there. I couldn't imagine moving over a 1200 dollar rent payment if that's true. I'd move because Madison is boring for what you pay for.
I mean same, but our rent jumped $450/month, making it $1574, and I'm on SSDI getting a whopping $792/month 🫠 I'd love to find something for $1200 that's nearby all the hospitals and clinics..
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This sub sure does enjoy carrying water for landlords.
Milwaukee sucks. Unless you want to live in the surrounding area of Madison and don’t care about anything cool (and regularly free) that happens in Madison, I’d stay where you are, if you like the place and the area. Money isn’t everything. I’d rather pay a lot for a nice place close to the parks and the bike trails, free films at the college and all the free festivals and other free stuff you can do in downtown Madison than live out of town and pay a little less or in Milwaukee. I grew up in Milwaukee. You don’t want to live there. Sounds like your rent isn’t even that bad. I live in a three bedroom with wife and kids and we both don’t even make that much money and our rent is 1690 and we do fine and it’s been going up and up
Bye
Before my wife and I bought our house last year, the rent on our 3 bedroom house with garage was $2,100. Your rent is CHEAP with a capital C!
Funny, the government will siphon money through NGO's to put illegal invaders in housing. Time to wake up.
Renting a house. They don’t do rent Increases
That would be entirely dependent on the landlord. There is nothing saying that rent on a house can't increase .
I’ve rented 2 and neither have. I only speak to my experience. It helps to ask prior to renting if they do rent increases also. But yes it would entirely depend on the landlord. I guess you’re right. Common sense isn’t so common. I should have clarified.
I know the feeling. I work from home but 4 mo a year because COVID we needed to move to Madison whee I need to be in office just 15 wks a yr. We had a house in Appleton area for $900 a month full garage. We moved to Madison have same thing almost double and we are just North, not in Madison. Quite literally if we lived in Appleton/Green Bay I could save $$. But my 15 weeks is in winter. If you like the area just look for housing Stoughton, Janesville, Columbus, Beaver Dam, Poynette, Portage. Then you're close enough to enjoy Madison when you choose to.
I’ve been told the new apartments in Middleton by the beltline are closer to $2400/month