NJ rent is so bad that college intern flies from South Carolina

It’s not that rentals in New Jersey have gotten ridiculously expensive. It’s that they’ve become downright obnoxious.

Don’t believe it? Try this stat on for size. Since the start of the pandemic rents in 14 of New Jersey’s 21 counties exploded by 20% to 40%.

If that doesn’t convince you then this story should.

Sophia Celentano is a South Carolina resident who attends the University of Virginia. She got a summer internship at a New Jersey company called Oglivy Health, which will let their interns do work remotely but an in-office presence is mandatory one day a week.

Her plan was to secure a short-term rental for the summer. Then she found out just how obnoxious rents are in the old Dirty Jerz. She was looking at $3,400 or more per month for a 10-week internship.

Her plan B is so unusual it went viral on TikTok.

She decided she would work remotely from her home in South Carolina and commute by plane to the office in Parsippany, New Jersey one day a week. Rents are so bad in New Jersey that flying was a better option.

She’s taking dirt-cheap flights on Spirit for $100 then another $100 on Ubers to and from Newark Airport. Throw in $25 on food that one travel day per week and the 10-week internship costs $2,250 versus the over $8,000 she’d be shelling out in rent.

She has to wake up at 3 a.m. to get to the airport in Charleston to make it to the New Jersey office by opening. She says it’s worth it but understands why people are shocked.

The financial peace would definitely be shocking from an outside perspective; the fact that commuting is cheaper for me, says a lot about the current cost of living and pressures young adults face as they enter the working world.

Yes, it says a lot about New Jersey indeed.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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