The Rentish Podcast

📉 2025 Housing Forecast, Griffith Observatory Origins & a Seinfeld Bombshell

• Zach and Patrick • Season 1 • Episode 12

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In episode twelve of The Rent-ish Pod, Zach and Patrick kick things off with a fresh Real News segment, breaking down ABC’s latest housing market forecast: Will 2025 Be a Better Year to Buy a House? The guys weigh in on the expert predictions and what they mean for buyers, renters, and landlords alike.
👉 Check out the article here

Then, things get cosmic in Proptology, where the hosts explore the rich history and striking design of the Griffith Observatory—a Los Angeles landmark that’s just as famous for its films as it is for its views of the stars.

Finally, in Real Estate Reel, Zach and Patrick dissect the real estate realities behind Seinfeld. What would Jerry's Upper West Side apartment rent for today? Could Kramer actually get away with all that? The breakdown is hilarious—and it ends with a shocking revelation: Patrick has barely watched Seinfeld.

đź’« From market trends to movie landmarks and sitcom absurdities, this episode blends fun, facts, and real estate insight with every segment.

🎧 Tune in now for laughs, learning, and one very questionable TV take.

📩 Got a question or a wild real estate story? Email us at questions@therentishpod.com—we’d love to hear from you!

Check Innago at https://innago.com/podcast/ to learn more. 

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SPEAKER_00:

What's going on, everybody? Welcome to The Rentish Podcast. My name is Zach and I'm here with my co-host, Patrick. What up? We are your hosts for this podcast that is called The Rentish Podcast. It's about rental properties and hosted by two guys that work in the real estate industry and we kind of know what we're talking about. But mostly don't. Almost screwed that up. Yeah, it was so close. So close. Yeah, Patrick, mostly we don't, which is why you're going to have fun hearing us talk to experts and learning with us or laughing along at how little we know. This week's episode is going to be a banger. I can already tell. We got good energy. We may or may not have just done another show right before this, but we also had good energy. So I'm ready to rock and roll. How about you, buddy? I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm liking the energy as well. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I asked you about something before, but now I'm trying to think of like something to ask you just fun and casually. How's your day going? You're doing a ballroom dancing class. Yeah, I am doing a ballroom dancing class. Got my girlfriend that for Christmas. Oh, it's a Christmas gift. Yeah. It's a cute idea. And so, yeah, we're going to do that at six. I like cannot dance in my life. Dependent. I know like negative. Negative dancing. I can't do it. So I wanted to learn a little bit. So you've never done it? Can you line dance? Have you ever done a Cupid shuffle or anything like that? Absolutely not, no. Can you do the Cupid shuffle? I don't even know what that is. What? I was not. To the right, to the right, to the right. Oh, that? It's the wedding song. It's called the Cuban shuffle? You do the Cupid shuffle. Isn't that the song? Yeah, that's the song. No, wait, what's the one that goes... Now kick, now kick, now walk it by. What's the one, jump up one time. Oh, that's... What's that one? Right foot, let's... Yeah, right, yeah. Oh, do the Harlem Shake. Cha-cha real smooth. Cha-cha slide. Cha-cha slide. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the Harlem Shake? Harlem Shuffle. The Harlem Shake. The Harlem Shake was like a dance trend that existed for like a week. Oh, is that the... Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a dance. No, no, no. Well, I hope you do good. I'm excited to hear a report back. Don't hurt yourself or anything. We need you on tip-top shape for the show. No getting injured in a ballroom dancing accident. Pull a hamstring or something. Some might say it's going to be a ballroom blitz. Oh. Bazinga. All right. Patrick, are you ready to get into it? Yeah. I've been ready. Okay. Well, we're going to talk about the news. I know everybody loves the news. Real news, I think, is what we called the segment before. Real news. Real news. Oh, before I get too deep into it, follow The Rentish. Follow our podcast feed. Email questions at therentishpod.com if you have any sort of question or topic suggestion. And while you're listening to the show, if you like our vibe, if you like what we're putting out there, we want you to just throw it right on back to us. Go ahead and give us a five-star review or rate us. Give us a comment. Just say how much you like the show. Share it with your friends who also are into property management, real estate, property management. I can tell you're really engaged just checking your phone the whole time. Smash that subscribe button. Thanks, Pat. All right. Will 2025 be a better year to buy a house? That is the thesis of this news article that we're about to read into here. Okay, so got to keep tradition, Pat. Did you read the article? No, but I feel like I know the answer, but I did not. I forgot to read the article. Well, I'm going to go ahead and just kind of give you a brief overview here, and then we're going to talk about it. Have a real talk, real conversation. So get those gears turning. The U.S. housing market has been a roller coaster over the past few years with rising interest rates, low inventory, and soaring prices. Many prospective buyers have found themselves waiting for a better opportunity. As we head into 2025, the big question remains, will next year finally offer a more favorable environment for home buyers? And I would like to read you a quote. It's an ABC article. It's linked there. You can go check it out if you want to. I don't know if we're including these links in the comments or anything like that. But we have this article here. I want to read you this quote that they cited here. And I think that this is just a beautiful quote. This comes from Ken Johnson, chief of real estate at the University of Mississippi. Quote, I don't see much sunshine in the forecast. It's going to be gloomy and overcast, but it's not going to be stormy. I love the commitment to the metaphor. Thanks. Thanks, Ken Johnson for the. Yeah. So what's been the biggest barrier for you or people, you know, in buying a home? Affordability, interest rates, competition, all this stuff. So, so Patrick. Yeah. Hit me up. All the above. So my mom. That's kind of my answer. Yeah. It's not really one specific thing. It seems like my mom was buying a house. She bought one. Last year, like less than a year ago. And for her, like the interest rate wasn't actually an issue because she sold her house, you know, in another city and was kind of like living in an apartment and waiting to buy the house like in cash, you know, in her price range. And just the competition, the prices as a result of like the not really being a buyer's market right now, like those two things specifically made it so hard for her to find a house. It took took forever. And as soon as one popped on the market, she had to and act like basically within hours. It's just kind of like a crazy market right now. And that's just somebody who didn't even need to get like a mortgage. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. I think that it's a combination of all three and all three at different times. And you know, it's kind of, it's just like pick your poison, which one's going to kind of be like hitting the worst at that particular moment. It's like, yeah, I've had, I've looked at a lot of houses in the past, but like kind of just lost out because other people just jump in there and it's competitive and they throw out all these crazy numbers for offers and you're just left feeling defeated at the end of the process. It's It's like, well, why even try? Offers like what, like 65 grand more than the listing price and stuff. Totally. Yeah, it's crazy. But yeah, so according to the article, I'm going to break down a couple of the different things that they talk about. You feel free to jump in if you have anything that you want. I'm going to chime in with Patrick here. As somebody who didn't read the article. As someone that didn't read the article. But you're going to listen to me read the article and you can generate thoughts in your brain. Mortgage rates and affordability. So rate trends. Mortgage rates climbed past 7%. I mean, the saying experts predict rates could stabilize or slightly decrease doesn't, I'm not convinced. But whatever the experts say, I mean. Yes, that's why they're the experts. Affordability gap. Despite potential rate drops, home prices remain high. Buyers are still spending an average of 35% of their monthly income on mortgage payments, well above the historical norm of 25. Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah. That's a big percentage. Yeah, it's too high in my opinion. A historical norm of 25% feels like, I mean, like, you know, prices increase, but like that's crazy. That's a crazy increase. 10% increase. 10% increase for something that's so substantial. That's part of your, you know, 35% of your monthly income. It's crazy. A typical$400,000 home with a 7% interest rate results in a$2,660 monthly payment Down from earlier this year, but still far higher than in pre-pandemic years. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people are probably going to want to go to like kind of how things were pre-pandemic and how they, you know, I just, I don't know. I don't, maybe a slight decrease if the experts say so, but I don't really see us in 2025. Experts can say whatever they want. I want to go back. Yeah. I want to go back to the pre-pandemic. The MCU was still good. We had all our hopes and dreams of the Batman trilogy coming out. I could go on. Housing inventory and construction. Limited supply. A persistent lack of homes for sale continues to drive prices up. Builders are ramping up construction, but delays in permits and labor shortages mean supply will likely remain tight through early 2025. So basic supply. There's more demand than supply. We learned about that in economics. Right. Remember high school economics? Yeah. Supply and demand. Right. I think I learned that in like third grade history. Third grade? Yeah, supply and demand. I didn't take a high school economics class, but I remember like supply and demand and, you know, learning that from an early age. I don't remember learning that that early. It was like fourth grade. What? Okay, so limited supply. We got that. Yeah, and things like BlackRock, just buying properties and renting them out. I don't know if that's something we're allowed to complain about on this podcast. We can complain about anything we want. It's the editor. They gotta take it out if they want to. Those ginormous corporations buying single-family homes. Totally. Yeah, it just grinds my gears. Grinds my gears too, buddy. Market impact. New home listings are projected to increase by only 3% next year, keeping competition high, especially in suburban and desirable metropolitan areas. I guess I don't understand what the typical, so like obviously everything is projected to increase. The market always increases and never decreases really. So it's like new home listings are projected to increase only by 3%. So does that mean that typically it's only by like one or two? Yeah, I was about to say, I wanna know what the acceleration is. Yeah, right. Since 2019, since the pandemic, since COVID in 2020, you would have to imagine that whatever that number was, it drastically increased, like probably by like 10, 15% or something like that. And now it's stabilizing to like only 3%. But I want to know what it was like before. That would be interesting. Okay. Last little bit here. First time home buyer challenges. So there's down payment hurdles. Saving for a down payment remains one of the biggest barriers for new buyers. The average down payment for first time buyers is now over$30,000. That's a lot. Yeah. A lot of money. A lot of money. But as we've maybe discussed in past episodes, you might not need to do the typical down payment amount. There might be certain circumstances, maybe that experts named Moussey have told us about, where you're able to qualify for a lower down payment and kind of get all that out there. All the way down to 3%, I think. 3%, I think, was one of the stats that we read. Not necessarily that that's going to be your situation or my situation. Yeah, it's not going to apply to everybody. But yeah. Yeah, totally. Because there are incentive programs. Some states are introducing new incentives and assistant programs for first-time buyers but demand often outpaces availability. Some examples. Federal programs. FHA loans continue to offer down payments as low as 3.5%, and VA loans provide zero down payment options for veterans.

UNKNOWN:

So...

SPEAKER_00:

Cool there. Programs like California's Dream for All Shared Appreciation Loan offer down payment assistance. What a sentence. That's a mouthful. They offer down payment assistance that can cover up to 20% of the home's cost with repayment tied to the home's appreciation. That's cool. Yeah. Cool. Cool program. Shout out to California. Local incentives. New York's first home club. First home club. I want to be part of that club. Yeah, me too. Provides matching funds for every dollar saved up to$7,500. Wow. Yeah. Texas also offers grants and low interest loans through my first Texas home. So I'm assuming... Context clues. There may be a My First Ohio Home program. I'm going to look into that. Yeah, because we're here in Ohio for all the people that don't know. And then lastly, we got tax credits. Some states are introducing first-time buyer tax credits to help offset closing costs. Maryland's Smart Buy 3.0 program, for example, allows buyers to purchase homes and pay off student loan debt simultaneously. So you can kind of two birds, one stone kind of situation.

SPEAKER_01:

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00:

All that sound cool? Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. All incentive programs. Yeah. Again, check out what you're eligible for, right? If you're in the market for a new home, you want to consult with a professional, but also like look at all these different options that are available to you. Don't just go in blindly. If rates drop, do you think it will be enough to make buying a home more achievable for you? Yeah. I mean, my goal has always been to buy a home when I'm in my 20s is my goal. And I'm 25, so I'm halfway there. And obviously I wasn't really going to buy a home up to this point. But in a few years, I would, you know, after I kind of get my like city, city living experience, out of my system. I'm hoping to buy a home before I'm 30. Obviously, if things continue to get worse, we'll see how feasible that is. So I'm really hoping for the best. I'm hoping these experts are... Please, experts. Please. Yeah, I'm in the same boat. Although I'm way behind on your goal. I'm already almost going to be 31 years old and I'm still renting. It's in my near future, I'm hoping. We'll see. But yeah, if these experts are right experts please be right we'll uh we'll be seeing that new i'll be i'll be joining the my first ohio home program very very soon so yeah 2025 holds potential for a slightly improved housing market but many hurdles remain keep an eye on rates inventory and local trends and that can help make buyers more informed and make better decisions and prepare for the right moment to enter the market and that's the news patrick i just realized this might not get released Until like way later in 2025, because we're recording this in March. Yeah, we put some things in a chamber, but still the rest of 2025 is is an open book ready to be answered, ready to be read. So, OK, well, that's it for the news. Let's kick it back over to ourselves, I guess. OK, Patrick. Prop-tology time. It's that time of the week again where we're going to talk about a famous historical or very interesting building for, you know, whatever reasons we want, really. What reasons might those be? I don't know. The reasons because producing we say over here put it on the script. So that's what we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about this building here. It's also just my favorite segment name. I mean, we nailed it on that one. We're messing it up with the rest of them. So we're doing the Griffith Observatory today. That's right, everybody. Does the name Send a chill down your spine. All right. So, Patrick, do you want to– I'm going to have you describe it to me. We're going to do the Patrick aesthetic design layout and all that stuff. I want you to give me your most detailed poetic description of this building that you possibly can. The Griffith Observatory, whoa, is one of LA's greatest cultural attractions and a national leader in public astronomy. Patrick. Yeah. What's that building look like to you? Describe it to our readers who– listeners who might not know what we're talking about well i mean i don't really know how to describe this super well but it's got like the building is like white and it's kind of long and it's got like orange balls on it like well like domes like domes uh what do you mean building like i'm doing a great job so it's a white building that's kind of long and it's got orange domes on it. Like it's got two domes on the sides and then like one big dome in the middle. So it's kind of like the middle, like the very middle of like, I guess like a menorah kind of. That's a decent description. That's a decent comp. Like the three middle candles of the Anoraks. Instead of being candles, they're like orange domes. I got you. Typically, observatories, they got the big rounded top with the space for the telescope to go on it. You know what I mean? So, I don't know. That's an observatory. I don't know how I was supposed to explain that any better. I think you did a great job. We'll retool it. It's up on a hill? It's up on a hill, yeah. So, I think that's probably one of the biggest features about the observatory. that sticks out for a lot of folks is that it's overlooking the Hollywood of Los Angeles, right? I mean, like, it's up on the hill looking over the city of Los Angeles, City Angels, kind of a beacon up there on the hill. The smog. Sure. Sometimes you can see the actual city when you get past the smog. Yeah, so offers spectacular views from the Pacific Ocean to downtown LA from its perch on Mount Hollywood in Griffith Park. Mount Hollywood... Patrick, actually the name of the mountain with the Hollywood letters. Okay, yeah, that's like the least surprising fun fact. Yeah, it's like, come on. He could have been a little bit more clever there with Mount Hollywood. That's like me claiming a mountain and calling it Mount Zach. Well, I mean, yeah. I don't know. It's the best vantage point for observing the world-famous Hollywood sign, which was opened. The observatory itself was opened to the public on May 14th in 1935. The Griffith Observatory grounds, exhibits, and telescopes are open and free to the public each day the building is opened. I have been. I don't know if you knew that until right now. I don't know if I knew that until right this very second. Yeah, like 2019 or something. I was in college. We did like a Los Angeles like field trip basically. And yeah, we went to the Griffith Observatory. Like the main thing I vividly remember is like all the smog and pollution over the city. Oh wow, so that wasn't a joke that you legitimately like. No, like it's literally like my main takeaway was that. And I also remember there were these like little telescopes where you could like see the smog. And I thought those were kind of like the telescopes it was known for, but apparently like I didn't go inside. I was just kind of like in the outskirts of the building. Apparently there's like actual telescopes, you know, I did not. Oh, so you didn't get to, you didn't get to look through any telescopes. No, we were just kind of like, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know what was going on, but they, you know, they were just like, look at the swag. And then we left. They're like, they're like, the telescopes are currently out of order. They're down for maintenance. Yeah. It was like, there was like, you know, like put a quarter in it. I don't know if you had to put a quarter in it, but you know, the kinds of like telescopes I'm talking about. Oh yeah. The spyglass, like the eyeglasses, like the little bifocal things or whatever. Um, I actually don't. There's a word for those. There is a word for those. Come, back to me. I'll think of it later and come back to me. Yeah, it was cool. Cool building. Yeah, I've never been to LA, but the Griffith Observatory is on my list of places to visit for a variety of reasons, of which we'll get to when we get to the film segment or section. Some of the history, brief history about the Griffith Observatory. Great city needs a great park. This was a quote from Colonel Griffith J. Griffith. That's his name? Apparently that's his name. Griffith J. Griffith. Griffith J. Griffith. Wow. Blowsers. He wanted a place where people could rest and relax, so he donated three Thank you. Welsh-born lad who immigrated to America in 1865. There's that word again. Welsh-born lad. Lad. Love that word. By the 1870s, he had a newspaper reporter. He was a newspaper reporter who became an expert in mining operations in the West. Thanks to insider information, he was able to invest in mines and buy 4,071 acres of rancho land in Los Angeles. Afterwards, he became wealthy... through real estate and lending and went on to be a philanthropist. So Patrick, you know, if you're learning anything from the Rentish pod here, if you get wealthy with real estate, you may one day afford an observatory. Okay, that's good to know. Big plus if you're into stargazing. Fun fact, he was feted as a civic hero until less than 10 years later when the teetotaling, what is this word? Teetotaling? Teetotaling. Someone's got a word of the day dictionary that's right in the script. He appeared just like Oh. Okay. Wait, so... So he shot at her but didn't... I don't have the answers for you here. But he was tried for attempted murder. His defense was, quote, alcoholic insanity, end quote. He wound up paying a fine and spending two years in San Juan. Really? Just two years? Yeah, just two years. Okay. Times are different. Yeah. Times are different. So yeah, major attractions. You got the Zeiss telescopes. More than 7 million people have put an eye to the Griffith Observatory's original 12-inch Zeiss refracting telescope. So there's a lot of people out in the world that have been able to go and experience it, I would like to be on that list of people to go and do it. Because we got some movie stuff here. And we would be remiss if we didn't talk about movies, television, entertainment that's with the Griffith Observatory. I'm going to list a couple big ones here. Rebel Without a Cause, 1955. I think that was my first time seeing the Griffith Observatory. Yeah, there's the infamous knife fight scene and the more obvious planetarium scene, as well as the film's iconic final shot of the observatory so there's that one I'm going to skip ahead Transformers 2007 okay it's in there I don't really remember I don't remember it at all and then in the original Terminator 1984 a scene was filmed on the steps of the observatory yeah I don't remember that one either I don't think they really highlighted the planetarium but yeah shot the steps though the observatory what we are going to highlight though La La Land baby La La Land Damien Chazelle Ryan Gosling Emma Stone Yes. J.K. Simmons. Oh, he is in that. I was like, you got the wrong movie. No, no, no. J.K. Simmons. He's in it. Yeah, he is. He's like the bar manager. Yeah, right. Very minor role. But, I mean, let's be honest. We're there for Ryan Gosling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, old Gosling. I love the guys. And I love La La Land. It's one of my favorites. It's so good. Favorite movies. One of my favorite musicals. Yeah, I just, I want to visit the planetarium alone just to visualize myself being twirled by him through the planetarium because I think that sounds so lovely. So lovely. Yeah, I don't know. The Griffith Observatory, that's basically a bunch of the big fun facts that we had left to hit here. I mean, do we have any things to end on? How much would it rent for? I mean, that's one of our questions. Like what? Like you rent for a day or for a month of rent? Oh, God, I don't know. Let's say you're going to sign a 12-month lease at the Griffith Observatory. I don't even have the faintest idea. How many acres is it? Acres. Let me– hold on a second. Hold on a second. There was some fun fact. 3,015? 3,015 acres. Like for the whole– But that might be just– I don't know. In L.A., dude? Oh, geez. Like for the year,$80 million?$80 million a month? Or for the year? Yeah. Yeah, isn't that what you asked? I guess that divided by 12, I'm not doing the math right now. No, I can't do that math in my head. Yeah, that's too much. But yeah, I would say something, I don't know, I don't really have any basis for that though. Yeah, I mean, renting a room in the observatory would definitely be like, I could see that being like, maybe like a million a month, something like that. So apparently there's an actual like, there's actual facts about this. Really? Instead of us just winging it. Producer Moussey, he gave me this. I will read This is according to the internet, um, exterior events starting at$15,000 for a 12 hour period and, uh, interior and exterior events at$20,000, uh, plus staffing fees ranging from three to six K. So yeah, for like, that's for a 12 hour period. So like, I mean, let's say a day less than a day, uh, you're looking at like up to$26,000. So, okay. Yeah. That's good. So$26,000. That's, you know, Times 30 days in a month. Times 365. Well, that would be, no, because that's 365 months. Oh, yeah, you're right. So you got to do, oh, shoot, what would you have to do? Welcome to the MathCast. 26 times 12. Sorry, 26,000 times 12. No, shoot, times 30. Dude, we are so bad. This is fantastic radio. So$780,000 for one month. And then multiply that by 12. So$9.3 million for a year to rent the Griffith Observatory. Okay, I was way off. Roughly. Don't quote us on that if you're trying to rent out. No. Also, if you're trying to lease the Griffith Observatory, I hate to tell you. Probably not going to happen, but you never know. But if you're going to try and get it for a wedding, sounds beautiful. Sounds doable. If you've got$12,000 laying around. How much?$26,000? Well, yeah, like$26,000-ish with the fees and stuff. All right. Well, that was Propetology. We didn't really talk about who's going to host these segments. Yeah, I can do this one. Yeah, you want to do this one? Yeah. This is called show planning for everybody out there. You do it live on the air. It always turns out great. Yeah, right. This is what not to do in case you were wondering. All right. So what are we going to talk about today? What do we call this? Well, let me open the document and let's see. Oh, we're talking about Jerry Seinfeld's apartment outline. All right, let's do this. Introduction to the real estate. Oh, I'm not supposed to read that. Whoops. That's the, okay. Cut that out, editor. So today in this segment, we will be dissecting iconic properties from TV shows and movies. Oh, this is the real estate real, like R-E-E-L. Yeah, yeah, real estate, R-E-E-L estate. Yeah. So basically we're talking about Jerry Seinfeld's apartment, a very iconic TV apartment, one of the most famous sitcom, like of all the famous sitcom apartments, it's definitely in the top three. There's Lego sets for this. So yeah, it's pretty iconic. So gonna explore a few things. Where is Jerry's apartment actually located? Upper West Side, right? They say that in the show over and over again. I've only seen sporadic episodes here and there. Are you kidding me? I haven't like watched the show like from start to finish. Like I've seen... I've seen, like, the Soup Nazi episode. I've seen the one where Kramer, like, paints over the median on the road. Yeah. These pretzels are making me thirsty. Yeah. But I haven't, like, watched the show. Yeah, I probably shouldn't be leading the segment. Okay, so we should probably say this off the bat. I think it's funnier that you are leading the segment, by the way. Seinfeld is the best television show ever made. That's okay. Seinfeld is the best comedy ever made. It's the best sitcom ever made and the best television show. And it will probably never be beaten. It's one of those things where, like, I've seen Seinfeld so many times in my life. I used to rewatch the DVDs over and over and over again, catch it on TV when it was playing. It is my comfort show for a lot of people. I think people go back and rewatch The Office over and over again, but Seinfeld is that for me. Seinfeld is, it's funny even though I know the joke is coming. Yeah. I can recite– if you put me in a locked room with a typewriter, I'm pretty confident that I could write every episode of Seinfeld. That is insane. How many episodes are there? Like 200? There's nine seasons, and I think there's roughly 280 episodes or something like that, 275. I feel– because we're both kind of like TV movie buffs. Yeah, I feel like I'm doing– I'm not honoring what I should be doing as a TV movie. You understand the cultural impact. It clearly was a game changing sitcom in terms of what it did for writing and the concepts of the different narrative threads. It's something that a lot of sitcoms were not doing and still don't even do. I need to watch it. I can't imagine after finishing it that it'll be better than Drake and Josh. Get the hell out of here. I just have a hard time accepting that that might be, you know, so I'm not going to go in with too high expectations. Gotcha. Um, but yeah, upper west side of you're absolutely right. Um, the real exterior shots are of 755 to 77 West end Avenue, neither corner of 95th street. So if you have an understanding of like Manhattan, I guess that might make sense to you, uh, known for its historic brownstones, cultural institutions, like the American museum of natural history and its proximity to central park. Historically, it's been an a relatively affordable area in Manhattan, but you know, obviously prices have risen over time. Yeah. That's the thing is that like, I'm trying to, I'm digging into my, the recesses of my mind to think like at any point in the, in Seinfeld, the show, do they reference how much they're paying in rent? And I can't remember for the life of me. I don't think that there's any direct line where they say how much they're paying. You can take a lot of things in context for the time where it's like, you know, it is the mid, mid 90, early to mid nineties. They're paying like a couple bucks for cab fare in the middle of New York where it's like, that's now going to be like a$30 ride. I, I can only imagine the craziness of the cost at the time. I'm going to look that up. I've got it for you, actually. Oh, you got it? Hit me. Based on the show, Jerry's apartment was likely rented for$1,200 to$1,500.$1,200 to$1,500 per month in the early 90s. Wow. Which was considered a deal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In a living room, in a balcony, it's so lavish. That's what always gets me about Seinfeld is that it's so, humble's not the right word, but it's all very small scale. No one lives in a lavish, the most lavish character is probably someone like Mr. Peterman. You got any more? Hit me with a fun fact. Yeah, so a similar apartment in the Upper West Side today Take a guess at that. So like I said, 1,500, 2,500 was average. At the time, they were paying$1,200 to$1,500. What do you think a typical apartment now in that same area would be? So I may have already seen one of the numbers, but it looked like it might have been on the higher end. I'm going to guess like$6,000.$6,000 to$7,000. That's a little higher. So it's$3,500 to$5,500. It's kind of like a similar apartment in terms of its size and whatnot. Luxury buildings in the area may actually exceed$7,000 per month. You know? That's surprisingly better than I was anticipating. I mean like... New York is constantly, it's memed to death how expensive it is to live in New York. I mean, isn't the rents too damn high? Isn't that about New York City? Yeah, right. So we've been dealing with, we've been hearing like the, you know, we're just small town Midwesterners over here, but it's like we've been hearing about the idea of New York being this expensive metropolitan city for years, years and years. I would have thought it would have been way higher. Yeah. Even for a one bedroom. I hear about studio apartments in Manhattan that cost like a few thousand dollars. Well, and Jerry had a Jerry had a pretty big apartment for the time. So he had a separate kitchen, which a lot of New York City apartments have open kitchens. He had a large living space that could comfortably fit guests. Sure. Producer note from Moussey, by the way, did some research. And apparently as of March 2025, the average rent for an apartment in New York City is around$3,935 a month. Okay. That's an interesting median there. Could Jerry afford it? Could Jerry afford the apartment? I think that's an interesting place to go from here because people always talk about these shows and we talked about it when we did the Friends apartment building where it's like all these people are, they have all these kind of like middle of the road jobs and yet they're able to afford this crazy place and now it was different for friends but Seinfeld Jerry's a stand up comedian he's not even a very well known stand up comedian in the Seinfeld lore like when he's living in Manhattan and he's doing like his stand up he's doing like dinky little comedy clubs he's not like he goes on like a few talk shows and then there's that arc in season 4 where they pitch their idea for a TV they get a TV show pilot with NBC but it's like he's not wealthy in the show isn't like real life Jerry Seinfeld like the wealthiest comedian in history or something that wouldn't the wealthiest comedian in history yeah I think he's like I mean I could like be pulling that facts out of my ass I don't know I don't know I mean he would certainly be on the top 10 list I mean Yeah, I thought it was, you know. Have you seen the amount of cars he drives? The coffee. I was like, do you see how many cars he drinks and coffees he drives? Keep that in. And, yeah. He's a billionaire. Oh, Mousset says he's a billionaire. Yeah, that would place him pretty high. Probably pretty high. I don't know who else would be on that list. Well, here it's saying the estimated salary for Jerry Seinfeld in the show would have been$50,000 to$75,000 per year in the 90s. They're saying adjusting for inflation. That seems. That seems high to me. Even at the high end,$75,000 working as a low-level comedian? Yeah, I don't really buy that. Did he have any odd jobs? No, Jerry was only a comedian, because that was part of the bit of the show, is that he was never doing anything during the day, and then he would go out to comedy clubs and fly to other venues and do stand-up comedy. But everyone else was doing their normal jobs. George had all sorts of jobs. And Elaine is like, you know, she in fashion for a time and worked at a paper and stuff. What did Kramer do? We gotta talk about Kramer. Kramer, it's always completely nebulous what his job is. There are entire Wikipedia theories about what Kramer did. A lot of people assume that he came into money or was inherited a lot of money because he never works. He never has any job. There's one episode where one of my favorite episodes of all time is the episode about Festivus which is the fake holiday that George Costanza's father invents and one of the side plots of that episode is that Kramer worked at H&H Bagels in like the early it was like the late 70s or early 80s and then they went on strike because they wouldn't let them they wouldn't let them use the bathroom or something like that and then like he stayed on strike until the 90s and then went back to work at his day job at H&H Bagels. And he works there for one day and then gets fired because he drops gum in a piece of dough. But that's like That was his only job. No one knows what this man does for a living. There are a lot of theories online where people are like, well, he must have just inherited money, came into money, or I don't know, maybe he's just really good at gambling. Because he gambles a lot. There's episodes of him at the racetracks and stuff, like betting on horses. Professional gambler. Yeah, so professional. So Jerry doesn't have to just deal with him and his apartment. He also has to deal with Kramer constantly barging into his place. There's that episode where Kramer... and Newman start learning how to do DIY sausages. And they've got sausages hanging up all over Jerry's apartment. What kind of lease issues would Jerry likely face with Kramer constantly being a part of his life in his apartment? Sounds like some breaches of his contract. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know how in-depth a lot of landlords' lease agreements get. I don't know if no sausage-making clauses in most lease agreements. I can't imagine. I'm guessing that was added for the renewal. Yeah. I don't know. Landlords out there, maybe consider putting in something about sausages in your lease. What other crazy stuff? You watch the show. I do watch the show. Kramer. Oh, man. I'm trying to think. I don't remember Kramer really doing that much destruction of property. inside Jerry's house he smokes cigars a lot so maybe like smell factor probably have to pay for a deep clean producer Musse is saying that Jerry can make some side money by renting out his apartment as an Airbnb when he goes on his trips to go do stand-up, when he's traveling to different cities. And then he's got these family from Idaho that's coming to visit the big city and then all of a sudden they got Kramer busting in trying to make sausages. That could be a problem. That could be a sincere problem. But that wouldn't as much be a problem with your lease as it is just like you'd probably get some bad reviews on Airbnb if you had Kramer. But then the guests might like Kramer, so they might come in and just hang out. That might be part of the attraction. They're like, we want to hang out with this crazy guy. Well, let's talk about a couple of fun facts. The real building where his apartment is located has become a popular tourist stop for many fans who take photos in front of the building. While there's no Seinfeld museum or attraction, a lot of tourists flock to the Upper West Side to visit iconic locations like the diner and obviously the building. Because the exterior is a hugely recognizable part of the show. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. It's like the word Seinfeld Museum. If there was a Seinfeld Museum, when I retire, that might be the job that I take up. It's like I'll be the security guard at the Seinfeld Museum when I'm like 70. So the apartment to me, it's like they show the exterior shots, but to me that's not as iconic as the diner. So Monk's Diner in the show is where they go to all the time. That building, you can actually go in and have a meal. I forget what the name of the diner is. Tom's Diner. Thank you so much. Yeah. that was gonna drive me crazy. Yeah, so you can actually go there and sit down inside. It's obviously different from what it looks like in the show on the inside, but the neon sign on the outside, it looks exactly the same. To me, that's more interesting to go there. The times I've been to New York, I've never been to that diner, so I need to make a pilgrimage. Yeah, couple other things. So Jerry's apartment number, I'm gonna quiz you real quick. Don't look at the sheet. Do you know what his apartment number is? I saw it on the news doc, so I can't. Five A. Yeah. I scrolled that. Five A does not exist in the building. It's a made up. Oh, in the real building? Yeah, in the real building. That's interesting. Because it's like a Hollywood set, obviously. Sure. I don't know if it's Hollywood, but it's a TV set. Now I'm curious for the rest of these trivia questions. All right. This is fun. Yeah. Well, actually, that was pretty much the last one. Oh. Wrapping up, Jerry's apartment. It's an iconic piece of Seinfeld lore. Yep. Also, just like Friends, an example of TV fantasy real estate. Yeah. Appealing to viewers, yet nearly impossible for pretty much anyone to afford or replicate in real life. Yeah. I think kind of like the moral of the story here. Yeah, Seinfeld is– I mean it was cool to talk about the building and kind of some hypotheticals about real estate in the Seinfeld world. I'm sure eventually we'll have to come back to the show at some point because there's so many more iconic locations in Seinfeld about the city of New York that I would love to cover also. we can just keep talking about the Seinfeld on this podcast. I mean, if this podcast naturally transitions to a Seinfeld podcast, I'm going to be just totally fine with that. Go ahead and email questions at the rentish pod.com. If you would like us to talk about Seinfeld more often or your favorite locate, email us with your favorite location from Seinfeld. And then maybe on a future episode, we'll cover that as a, uh, as a real, what is it? Real estate, real list. No real estate spelled R E L real estate, Real. Yeah, that's what it is. Real Estate Real. Yeah. Got it. R-E-E-L. Thanks, Patrick, for leading that segment. Yeah, no problem. You did a great job. You did a great job. Okay. And that's our episode for this week, man. Thank you all for listening to this episode of the Rentish podcast. We are so glad that you came along for the ride this week. We got to talk about a lot of fun buildings. We got to talk about some cool stuff. Got to hang out with our producers and our fans and everything. And it's been a lot of fun. So remember, listen to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts and give us a little rating or review. Five stars if you can or whatever the star equivalent is on your podcast platform of choice. Email questions at therentish And subscribe for more. And we'll see you next time. Bye, everyone.