There’s Only Now! There’s Only Here! Give In To Love Or Live In Fear!

No, no, dude, seriously — the best thing about New York is that no one can really afford it, leaving a higher percentage of people’s incomes filtering up into the hands of the filthy, filthy rich:

Rents here have climbed so rapidly that nearly 30 percent of apartment dwellers now spend half or more of their paychecks on housing and utilities, a new survey showed yesterday.

The in-depth Housing and Vacancy Survey, which is conducted every three years, found that rent and energy bills ate up 50 percent or more of the income of 28.8 percent of renters — up from 25.5 percent in 2002.

. . .

Median rents soared from $706 to $850 despite a surge in the number of new apartments and an uptick in the vacancy rate from 2.94 to 3.09 percent.

As might be expected, apartments under $500 could be found almost nowhere. The vacancy rate in that category was 1.38 percent. At the top end — rents of $2,500 or more — the rate was 9.14 percent.