A new report has analyzed typical starting salaries associated with different college majors and determined which New York City neighborhoods could provide the best housing options based on that degree. With its well-known steep cost of living, New York City presents housing challenges to recent graduates looking to get by on an entry level salary, but StreetEasy’s newly released interactive map aimed to direct young professionals to neighborhoods where they could get the most bang for their degreed buck. RELATED:Can you afford NYC rents?
By cross-referencing expected salaries, percentage of income one would spend on monthly rent, number of roommates desired and number of available units in various neighborhoods, StreetEasy was able to tell users where they should focus their apartment-hunting efforts.
Nearly a quarter of all recent college graduates were business majors, StreetEasy found, and they could expect an average starting salary of$56,550, putting their monthly rent (based on 30 percent of income going toward housing) just north of $1,400 and slightly lower than the group with the highest expected income: engineering majors. Philosophy and religious studies majors can expect the lowest starting salary at $27,530.
A rule of thumb, according to StreetEasy, would be to keep housing costs at or below 30 percent of income, which makes Manhattan’s median studio/one-bedroom rent of $2,800 too high for even some of the most well paid recent grads.
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StreetEasy recommended that college grads consider the other boroughs, where median rents can be less than half of what it costs in Manhattan, such as in the Bronx and Staten Island, or generally more affordable, such as in Astoria, Queens, and Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights and Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Also, the real estate site recommended taking on a roommate. While living with another person may not save money on a month-by-month basis, it opens up a larger selection of possibilities when it comes to units that would be within your budget.
