Another Reason We're Glad We Left Manhattan
According to Forbes, $500,000 a year after tax is required to support an “affluent lifestyle” for a family of four in Manhattan. On the checklist of requirements: 2 cars, 2 private school tuitions, primary home cost of $3.9 million, second home cost of $1.9 million, and three vacations a year. Not everyone agrees that half…
According to Forbes, $500,000 a year after tax is required to support an “affluent lifestyle” for a family of four in Manhattan. On the checklist of requirements: 2 cars, 2 private school tuitions, primary home cost of $3.9 million, second home cost of $1.9 million, and three vacations a year. Not everyone agrees that half a million dollars after tax is enough to qualify for affluence. “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.”
But how about Brooklyn? What does a family of four who is just buying a house now–say for $1.5 million–need to be comfortable (not affluent)? On a $1.2 million mortgage, call it $70K or so after tax for mortgage, taxes, insurance alone. Public versus private school decision is probably the next biggest factor–chalk up $30K for the latter if so inclined. So we’re up to $100K before you eat your first meal or make a lease payment on your car (we seem to get by with one car just fine). Granted a lot of people find ways to defray these costs considerably, most obviously by renting out a portion of their house as we plan to do or sending their kids to public school if they’re in a decent district. But still, it’s a little scary how fast the number can creep up and how quickly one can become a prisoner of one’s own mortgage, isn’t it?
Getting By On 500G [NY Post]
Sad to say, most New Yorkers don’t see the other “society” that exists in Manhattan. Though I am not one of them, I do know many from college and through businesses who are “affluent” by New York standards and agree, that when you meet these people, you realize, there’s people with serious serious money out there… those that go to look at a painting and end up buying a museum in Europe… not uncommon within the “affluent” NY crowd.
There’s old money and new money. I think most of us here are probably used to the new money lifestyle. But speak to those who’s families come from old money, salaries and toys are just incomparable. I’m always humbled by how many generations of hard work can lead to great nice comfortable lives for the kids who inherit these “foundations” “trusts” etc. 500,000 is really not that much to that class. Seriously. Again, I just know them, not one of them… new money is fine by me. Don’t need a maid to clean up just a nice irobot is fine by my standards. =)
New money = 1st gen investment banker, doctor, .com people,etc.
Old money = oil, large landowners, hotel empires, industry giant owners, etc.
I can’t believe it, my co-worker just bought a car for $18121. Isn’t that crazy!
Why should we “move on”? Is the subject matter too difficult? taboo? offensive?
let’s move on..
To curiousBrownstoner: go have kids, and don’t worry about the bills!
If you wait for your finances to be just right, it will be too late.
The NYC public school system is the nation’s biggest so there are good and bad pockets, and if you go visit any top college there are plenty of graduates from it, and they also learn a lot more street smarts than the private school kids.
Sincerely,
a product of the public schools whose parents made less than 20k, ivy league grad, millionaire on paper (brownstone owner of course)
I sort of had that sense about New Orleans from a few visits, but don’t really know any residents. Love the city. My point was not that Brooklyn is checkerboard — tho it is often — but that even on the same nice block or street you have a mix of price points. You can find small co-ops — and thus smaller incomes — on the same block as a desirable gajillion-dollar mansion. Now this may be the case in New Orleans as well, but in other cities I’m more familiar with, it’s less so… more likely that millionaires live next door only to other millionaires. (Particularly in metro areas like Detroit, where the wealth is almost exclusively concentrated in the suburbs. No nasty old gentrification to worry about in Detroit! Easy to buy a house!)
Bubba, you’re totally right. If class issues and money aren’t relevant to a blog about brownstone Brooklyn, nothing is. A few flames and ruffled feathers — that’s just the price of admission to the Internet.
“Sure it’s expensive and there are huge class inequalities. And yet there is at least more intermingling than in other affluent places in the U.S. I doubt that in the wealthy suburbs of, say, Atlanta, you can find a multi-million-dollar mansion a block away from an apartment that costs a fifth the price.”
Linus: you can in New Orleans. NOLA is very “checkerboard”, there’s no good/bad parts of town, it varies block by block. Even in the vaunted Garden District.
Interesting that the brownstones here are being “fixed up”. Methinks there are many people who like them as-is (ie not gentrified).
Cash Machine, on $85K your kids should qualify for student loan programs. That’s what I meant.
Whoa… I guess there’s no stopping the class warfare. I consider myself very fortunate to have perspective from both sides of the railroad tracks. I know where the hostility comes from, but that don’t make it a pretty sight. If reading this stuff is going to incite rage, then why do some of you even bother to read it at all. Brownstoner has every right to raise these topics – and where million dollar buildings are concerned issues like choosing the right kitchen cabs, reproduction molding, or discussing public vs. private schools are relevant. And yes, money, class, income, taxes, schools, etc. are all part of the discussion. So freakin what. Must we avoid these topics to avoid making somebody feel inadequate.