Verifying Bonus for Apartment Qualification
Basically I’m a first year finally moving to New York after living at home for a while due to the pandemic. Since a lot of apartment buildings are offering large concessions right now (2-4 months free), the standard 40x gross rent qualification is hard to meet for a place that’s actually decently within my budget. Ex: For simple math, say $3000 gross rent with 4 months free becomes $2000 net. I can cover 40x $2000 but not 40x the gross $3000.
Has anyone ever managed to ask HR for some kind of letter on expected bonus or even a wide range, historical average, etc.? Getting the landlord to accept a vague letter would be a separate issue, but mostly wondering if possible at all. With a fairly low end bonus number factored in, I’d be able to cover 40x the gross, but don’t know if that’s something doable / even worth asking about.
Unfortunately any searching I’ve done on the internet for this topic results in mostly answers that are “you shouldn’t live outside your budget anyways” which is true, but not really the issue here. The place I’m looking at is considerably under the 40x if considering net rent, and a better deal than other places (where I can cover the gross rent on paper, but they’re offering less concessions so I’d actually be paying more out of pocket for a worse place). Given the situation, I’m considering looking at some 3rd party guarantors — would still be worth it even with the extra fees, but wanted to see first if anyone’s had experience with this type of situation before paying for those.
If you need your bonus to afford it, you can't afford it.
Agreed. That said, your offer letter should provide a reference salary number figure and if you include stub and run the numbers, even if you’re very close to 40x, many landlords may say okay or worst case ask for two months deposit.
Honest question here - did anyone read my post or was I still unclear? Understandable as it turned out longer than I wanted, but still...
On a net basis, it’ll be significantly better and cheaper than those that I on paper “can afford” due to more “free months” offered. It’s a matter of qualifying as a multiple of the gross amount bc landlords are extremely single-minded and only look at one metric. I could be paying effectively $1600 a month at this place and technically not qualify, while I could perfectly qualify elsewhere to pay around $2200 for a shittier place with no deals. It’s a unique issue that’s kind of resulting from COVID and rent promos, but I’m literally asking about this in the interest of saving more money. Guess my fault for asking about a situation not many have experienced, but was hoping maybe another first year analyst had gone through this or something.
Unfortunately, the gap between gross and net is big enough where my salary itself isn’t that close to covering. And to my knowledge, New York has some kind of rule where landlords aren’t allowed to accept multiple months’ deposit anymore.
Are they allowing you to spread out the $12k savings across the 1st 12 months?
They are, but want 40x gross rent regardless. In theory, if this were a more subjective / tailored process, it shouldn’t matter much imo anyways. Since I’ve lived at home and basically hoarded about eight months’ salary plus my signing bonus, the timing / sizing of payments shouldn’t make a big difference when I have enough cash / assets to cover the lease term multiple times over (which would understandably not be enough with no income, but I wish that’d count for something given I also have enough income for the net rent). As I mentioned, I’ve noticed a 3rd party guarantor is happy to factor these things in, but landlords themselves don’t like complex variables I guess. Understandable but annoying.
Guess that’s my answer to both landlords and to anyone preemptively judging on here without being helpful at all. Aside from actively doing the opposite of what’s being implied and trying to save on the total rent — I’ve also been living at home with the main goal of saving up 90% of paychecks for the last 8 months (far more than my rent for the next year regardless of where I end up living). So the responsible finances discussion can really be spared lol.
your 10k signing bonus can be included right? that puts your guaranteed at 95k, and now all you need is some type of proof that historically stubs have been 25k, putting you at 120k, just enough for 40x the 3000 gross rent
did you receive a stub this january? or is your firm only on summer cycles
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