or a few years, I’ve been contemplating getting out of New York City. Perhaps I could take advantage of the high rents in my Brooklyn neighborhood to rent out my co-op, move somewhere cheaper, and pocket a bit of cash.
The first area I began looking into was Lancaster, PA, which recently came in at No. 14 on the Realtor.com Hottest Markets list.
I visit a friend there often and fell in love with its rolling green and gold landscape, its rustic farmland and historic buildings, and the quaint aesthetic of regularly seeing Amish horses and buggies on the road.
Also, it has to be cheaper than NYC, right?
The 202 Queen Apartments in downtown Lancaster, PA, has a nice rooftop deck, but your pets will cost you.(Realtor.com)
The Foundry charges $50 per pet per month plus a nonrefundable $300 pet fee.(Realtor.com)
Is it cheaper to rent? Not if you have pets
As I searched around rental sites, things seemed promising—at first. Rents in Lancaster were a median of $1,600. Compare that to Brooklyn’s median of $3,800!
I was happy to see that all of the newer buildings had plenty of amenities (decks, pools, gyms) and were described as being “pet friendly.” Which was a necessity because I’m the proud servant to three cats.
But a deeper dive revealed that this supposed pet friendliness came with a price tag—and a steep one at that: All the rental buildings I looked at required a nonrefundable pet fee of $350 to $500, and they also required that I pay monthly “pet rent.”
My cat Athena would cost me a bundle.(Kiri Blakeley)
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What is pet rent?
“Pet Rent is an additional monthly fee charged by the landlord on top of the regular rent,” says Property Club’s pet rental fee guide for 2024. “It is meant to cover the increased wear and tear and potential damages caused by pets over time… pet rent is non-refundable, as it is considered part of the monthly rent payment. It’s an additional cost that many apartment complexes are charging their tenants more and more often.”
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The average pet rent per pet can be as low as $25 a month and as high as $100 a month for more upscale buildings, according to Property Club.
Two complexes I looked at in downtown Lancaster, 202 Queen and The Foundry, charged $35 and $50 respectively per pet, per month, and that was on top of a nonrefundable pet fee of $300 for one pet and $500 for two pets. (All the buildings I looked at had a two-pet limit. Dogs were often more expensive than cats.)