Money doesn’t go very far in New York’s housing market, and that has some folks packing their bags. US Census records show that more than 1 million people have left the New York area for other parts of the country since 2010. Experts suspect they’re driven, in part, by the promise of a cheaper cost of living elsewhere.

“One dollar toward renting an apartment in New York can go twice as far in Pittsburgh,” says Zillow senior economist Skylar Olsen. But what exactly do ex-New Yorkers find when they arrive in their new homes?

Four parties recount the shoebox apartments they recently left behind and share the bigger spreads they’re enjoying. Plus they detail exactly how their monthly costs have changed.

Cat Wennekamp-Tapper and Sam Tapper
Housing costs: The couple now spends $600 more each month, but increased their space by 2,300 square feet.

In early 2017, when Cat Wennekamp-Tapper moved into her future husband’s Prospect Heights apartment, she was shocked. “I felt as if I had walked into a tiny toy house,” says the celebrity stylist, 29. “I didn’t understand that a bathroom could be that small.”

The apartment that Sam Tapper, 38, called home was technically a one-bedroom, but the place was so petite that the duo moved their queen-size mattress into the slightly larger living room. A 425-square-foot private terrace was the couple’s saving grace. It was, by their estimate, nearly twice the size of the apartment, which ran $1,900 a month.

After nine months in the claustrophobic digs, they decided they weren’t getting enough for their money. Their careers — hers is Hollywood-focused, while he’s a creative director and producer of music festivals — could also thrive in Los Angeles.

An escape from stifling housing prices didn’t come in the neighborhoods where their friends were renting, like Silver Lake and Echo Park. They found a three-bedroom house with a two-car garage that charmed them in Inglewood, a southwest LA County city near the airport that’s poised to welcome a new football stadium and entertainment complex in 2020.

The Tappers are paying $2,500 in rent for a 3,000-square-foot home that — while pricier per month than their Brooklyn place — delivers on their wish list: an extra bedroom that doubles as a styling studio for Wennekamp-Tapper, a guest bedroom, a spacious back yard and a garage for Tapper.

“We wine and dine, and go out, and entertain and travel. It’s nice to put that money into something other than rent,” Wennekamp-Tapper says. “We really are getting the bang for our buck. We feel like we’re building a home for a great price.”

Lisa Rooney
Housing costs: She is saving $275 each month and gaining 666 square feet.

Lisa Rooney, 28, left New York for love. She and her future husband, Jimi Brosius, 35, were dating long-distance between the city and Binghamton, NY. Neither wanted to settle where the other was living. The two outdoor enthusiasts set out looking for a new city that would bring them closer to nature and would also allow them to advance their careers — she as a video producer and jewelry maker, he as a landscape planner. Denver hit that sweet spot.

Rooney left behind a three-bedroom railroad-style apartment in Bushwick that she shared with two roomates for $2,700 a month. Her $900 slice of the rent pie got her the 580-square-foot apartment’s biggest bedroom, whose 168 square feet was just large enough to fit a full-size bed, desk and dresser. Space was scarce. Rooney describes the kitchen as “a long hallway that we also shoved a couch into.”

With the June 2016 move, her rent has been carved nearly in half. She and Brosius share a sunny, 570-square-foot one-bedroom in Capitol Hill, a neighborhood where historic mansions sit next to low-rise apartment buildings. They pay $1,150 for the apartment — so $625 each — plus split an additional $100 for a 264-square-foot garage that Lisa uses as a creative studio.

The apartment suits them better but it isn’t perfect, and Rooney also misses the culture of New York. “There was always lots of

bachata

[Latin-American dance] happening in the streets of Bushwick, which was great,” she says. She doesn’t have that in Capitol Hill, but she does have the majestic Rocky Mountains. Adds Rooney, “That’s still mind-blowing to me.”

Heather and Mike Young
Housing costs: The couple spends $1,100 more each month, but increased their space by 1,900 square feet.

Justin D’Onofrio
Housing costs: He is saving $850 a month and gaining at least 40 square feet.

At age 37, native New Yorker Justin D’Onofrio was tired of the grind. The commute from his apartment in Bushwick to his job as a user experience producer in Tribeca had become increasingly muddled by subway failures. Some days it took him an hour-and-a-half each way. 

D’Onofrio lived in a 390-square-foot, rent-stabilized, railroad-style apartment on the ground floor of a Bushwick building that cost him $1,850 a month. The apartment had its merits — for one, a roomy kitchen, though its size hijacked square footage from the bedrooms — but its proximity to a heavily trafficked bus route meant soot settled over everything. 

Dreaming of homeownership and a life lived outside of work, D’Onofrio decided to try Pittsburgh, where he already had a network of friends. A job soon followed. He moved to the city in mid-December, and settled in a 430-square-foot Airbnb in the residential neighborhood of Carrick that he’s renting for $1,000 a month. 

The apartment is comparable in size to his Bushwick place, though with a less awkward layout. D’Onofrio estimates that once he’s ready to sign a lease, he’ll pay between $500 and $700 a month for a similar apartment.

Pittsburgh has been good to him. His commute has been reduced to 20 minutes by bus in each direction, and it’s normal for him to clock out at 5 p.m. The improved work-life balance has him flush with time, and the area’s more attainable real estate puts him closer than ever to owning. Adds D’Onofrio: “So far, it’s been thumbs up all around.”