From the L.A. Times
Margaret Staley draws $47,000 a year as a postal supervisor, but says the only home she can afford to live in belongs to her parents.
“When you make this kind of money, and you can’t even afford an apartment,” the Anaheim resident said, “there is something wrong.”
I ran the numbers on that. She’s right. Figure 30% for taxes, that leaves $33,000 a year or $2750 a month. A one bedroom apartment in a neutral to nice part of L.A. with utilities and insurance will be at least $1,200 a month. If you’re making payments on a car, figure probably another $500 a month including insurance and gas, so that’s leaves about $1,000 a month for everything else. Which is doable, I suppose, but there’s not much cushion there.
From the Daily News
Not a day goes by that Frank Mangione doesn’t think about owning a home.
With his salary, the 25-year-old restaurant manager and Studio City renter should be able to afford a house, or at least a nice condominium in Los Angeles. But the only houses he’s seen in his $300,000 price range are small, dumpy shacks in gang territory.