Could your favorite sitcom character really afford that fabulous home?
Anyone who ever watched more than a few episodes of "Friends" eventually had this nagging thought: "How do they afford that apartment?"
Monica was a chef and Rachel was a barista for the first several seasons, and yet the pair seemed to pull in enough income to support one of the most coveted apartments in TV history — in New York City's Greenwich Village, no less.
Their living situation was so outlandish — and yet so common among TV shows — that it inspired the "Friends" Rent Control Trope, where characters with less-than-impressive salaries who couldn't feasibly afford their drool-worthy apartments somehow managed thanks to a small caveat, such as rent control. Could Carrie on "Sex and the City" really afford that Upper East Side apartment with its mammoth closet on a writer's salary because of "rent control"? What about Jerry Seinfeld's one-bedroom Upper West Side apartment that he rented on a comedian's income? Even Claire and Phil's pristine multimillion-dollar home in Los Angeles seems out of reach for one real estate agent supporting three kids.
Trulia ran the numbers and found out that, as you might suspect, some of these homes are well out of their residents' leagues, even with roommates. But some of these characters on newer TV shows, maybe, actually could afford their places.
