January 2000. Two bedroom for $995 in Albany, CA. Lived with my good buddy who I've known since high school. Worked at a video store to pay rent. My buddy paid $100 more since he got the master bedroom.

That apartment was owned and managed by a company that owned rental properties that mostly catered to UC Berkeley students close to campus. They had one or two oddball outlier properties further out that they didn't care that much about. We were in one of those buildings. As such, they never raised the rent for years. We referred to them by the nickname "The Ropers." Then, our property was bought out by another company, and that's when our rent started to rise. Of course, we called them "Furley." We joked how Furley didn't want to raise our rent, but his brother Bart would never go for that...

My first post dorm living was a 4 bedroom house.

I lived with 3 other guys and rent was $125 each. Total $500. This was 1985.

The house was owned by a slum lord that had a stable of houses around the college campus.

No heat that worked but we didn’t complain to the landlord because, well rent was only $125 each.

Those were the days when long distance calls were expensive and naturally there were always some calls that nobody made so we would split the cost of those calls.

We were pirated in to the early cable system because someone climbed up the pole in front of the house and ran a cable line to the house…

The carpet was run through to the subfloor and we put our own carpet in that was carpet we got from room mates parents house when they got new carpet.

The front yard was an over grown mess and was an eyesore to the neighbors. I borrowed my dad’s chain saw and basically cut out all the bushes and did major trimming on the trees. All the neighbors came out and basically gave me a standing ovation…

Good times!!!

My first apartment without a roommate was 1962, when my department at Bell Labs relocated from NYC to the new facility in Holmdel NJ.

A "gentleman farmer" had a 65 acre estate with a four car heated garage. There was a chauffeur's apartment upstairs, over the garage. One bedroom, one dining / living room, kitchen, bath. It was a great place for a bachelor and then later for a newly wed (she worked at Bell Labs, too). Rent for the apartment and one stall in the garage was $95 / month.

Lived in apartments my whole life as a kid and started helping pay rent and bills at 10. Yes it sucked. On my own 100%.. early 90’s, probably $400 month. Nothing included (utilities), just the rent. Last one I had was 2005, attached garage (nice and big), probably $800 and change a month.

1988 joined the USCG and was assigned to a small boat station that had no berthing as the station was a houseboat. So all the single guys wound up living in federal assisted housing in the nearby town of Crystal River. E3 pay was $783/month

Lived at home through college (Long Beach State), then got married in 1963. Our first apartment was 2BR/1B 2nd story with bay window facing Disneyland, 1/2 mile away... watched fireworks every night at 9:30. $80 month.

I was two weeks shy of eighteen when I moved into an old two bedroom one bath apartment with a roommate. I graduated high school early and had only turned seventeen a couple of weeks before I started college, so the apartment was before starting my sophomore year. I had been working close to full time at a chain drugstore for a couple of years. Can’t remember our rent, but I doubt my half was much more than a couple hundred dollars in 1979.

I guess my first apartment technically ( I don’t count military barracks ) was when in college, I had to do clinical rotations traveling to a different facility every couple months. If you were lucky, you got rotations that included housing of some sort. ( my psych rotation included housing in an old run down out building of the grounds) and the school kept a list of people usually hospital staff that would let you rent a room.
I ended up with three rotations at the same facility for 6 months, and the other options were not available. And it was hard to find a place someone would rent short term but I did. Walking distance to hospital and $300 a month. I was in the national guard at the time and my drill check covered half, and my parents lent me the other half. Food was mostly whatever was left over in the medical staff lounge or noodles with ketchup on them. Back in those days was when pharmaceutical representatives would drop off food all the time so that worked out for me.( prior to landing that apartment I was sleeping in the back of my station wagon)

What I consider my first “real” apartment was the one my wife and I got when we were first married. Actually pretty nice, in one of the more respectable suburbs two bedroom ( one decent size the other not much larger than a closet) 1&1/2 bath and a tiny galley kitchen but $485 in 1994. At the time I was already working in primary care while my wife finished grad school. Lived there for about 4 years while getting a home built.

In 1999, I was living at home with my parents. I was unemployed, but going to school. We got into an argument and I was kicked out of the house. I stayed with my girlfriend for a month or two. I found a full time job making $10/hr for a dot-com.

My brother was kind enough to offer that we find an apartment together. He was established in his career and he took the brunt of the rent and bills.

We paid $1500 for a 2br/2bth apartment in El Segundo, CA. My portion of the rent was $500.

We lived there for a few years until my brother bought a townhome and I moved in with him to help with the mortgage.

I got an apartment soon after turning 21, that was in the early 70's.
The apartment was a upscale 2 bedroom (at the time)on the outskirts of Chicago,I think the apartment was about 15 stories, I was on the 3rd floor.
The rent was $300 per month, I split that with a buddy who also resided there.
At that time I was working as a mechanic at a Shell gas station. I worked 7 days a week, full time.
PARTY PALACE!

$415/mo for a two bedroom, two story townhouse in the SF Bay Area. Guess how much that would cost now.

It was 1969, maybe 1968, maybe 1971...never mind, I don't remember.

It was 1973; a garage apartment on Grafton near the Gulfgate mall in Houston. $80/month including utilities. Only 24' x 24', but new central AC and kitchen appliances. Floor sturdy enough for a waterbed (no heater) . I didn't realize how good I had it until I thought I could get closer to school - major transport was a bike and it was 6 miles to campus. I ended up putting 12,000 miles on it in Houston traffic. After that it was one dump after another with higher rent and worse amenities until I got into the King apartments right across the street from school, $160 month, utilities extra, and whose principle feature was solid concrete slab, walls, and ceilings (two storey) with aluminum sliding doors and windows. One window unit upstairs. The whole complex was featured in an expose by the purple haired MARVIN ZINDLER, EYEWITNESS NEWS (in caps because thats' how he announced himself on air) due to the unsafe gas heating . I lost my eyebrows and most of my eyelashes (temporarily) inside a gas flame ball lighting up the thing after a blue norther blew in. My girlfriend (now wife of 47 years) made me move out after a neighbor was shot, into a place way out west about 12 miles - but by then I had a motorcycle so all was well. Mostly paid for by working as a presorter for UPS (loading delivery trucks) for zip codes 77401, 77018, 77004 and a few others, as well as the Galleria (damn you, Palais Royale - you had the most unwieldy, heavy shit to load). Also worked for a bicycle frame builder for Olympic cyclists, a microfiche operator / delivery driver, a weekend computer operator on the Honeywell 7400 for the Harris County Hospital district and photo technician for the optometry school. After graduating and taking the board exam (but before learning I'd passed which took months) I hung tapes at the Shell data center on Old Spanish Trail at night. Since then my life has been relatively uneventful

Lived at home while in college then bought a condo. Never paid a month of rent in my life.

Early 1977, Fresno, CA. One-bedroom, $140. Very modest, no central HVAC, but I think it did have a pool.

2006 first apartment after getting married was $650 a month in Warner Robins GA. 800 sq feet 1 bed 1 bath…the complex got raided by the DEA our 2nd week. Fun times

I shared an apartment with 2 other guys for my final 9 weeks of college in 1969. I graduated and 6 weeks later was in a WW11 barracks. Next was a metal and sandbag hooch at Long Binh and then a servant's quarters at a large house near Fort Sam. After I was discharged, it was a new house trailer in Illinois and 3 years later our first house. Seventeen years later, we moved to where we are now.

After college (2005) I moved in with my college buddy who had bought a house. I paid him $500/month. I got married in 2009 and my wife and I lived in a new 2 br that was just under $1500/month. We only stayed there 6 months and bought our first house

quote:

Originally posted by P220forever:
$415/mo for a two bedroom, two story townhouse in the SF Bay Area. Guess how much that would cost now.

Probably add a zero on the end!

My first "apartment" after leaving home was an Army barracks which actually was quite nice for Army standards: two-man room with latrine (bathroom) in the room and lots of built in wall lockers and cabinets.

We were allowed to paint, furnish and decorate and I painted it, put in a carpet and a sofa and it was pretty decent.

First real apartment was after the Army and culinary school and was a basement apartment with private entrance in Madison, NJ (North NJ). For the area it was considered cheap with Fairleigh Dickinson and Drew Universities right there. I think it was around $800 a month and this was like 1997-1999. The woman who owned the house above was a little old Italian lady named Tee who loved me as I paid cash and paid on time every time. She was always leaving me pieces of Italian cake and cookies at my door.