History Main / FriendsRentControl

* ''Series/FullHouse'': Some found it unrealistic that Danny could have afforded what was obviously a very nice, very big townhouse (5 bedrooms, with a spacious attic, huge basement, and attached garage) in a presumably equally very nice section of San Francisco on a TV morning show host's salary, as well as support three young children. The real life home used for the establishing shot comes from an iconic neighborhood, while real estate prices in the early to mid-'80s in San Francisco were a much different animal for the time period it was quite a stretch this would be a plausible home. That said, Danny has steady income as a television newscaster, life insurance from her death could have helped and Joey and Jesse may have assisted with some expenses (though they were sporadically employed for good chunks of the show).
** This comes up in the pilot of Series/FullerHouse. With all his daughters long since grown up and moved out, Danny is looking at selling the house, which by now in the modern San Francisco market would go for literally millions. But when [=DJ=] and her children come to visit not long after her husband's death and he sees how hard a time she is having at taking care of her kids alone, Danny and later Jessie and Joey offer to put their own plans on hold to help her out. But after Stephanie and Kimmy offer their help instead, Danny instead gives them the house to live in, setting up the premise of the revived series. A later episode does mention Danny never charged Joey or Jesse rent, and playfully wanted some backpay.

* In ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'', one has to wonder how Delia Ketchum affords her house, considering that she doesn't seem to work (except in Creator/TakeshiShudo's [[Literature/PocketMonstersTheAnimation novelization]], where it's explained that she runs Pallet Town's only restaurant, Pallet House, which she inherited from her mother) and she has no husband. Mr. Mime, doing all the household chores. Granted, perhaps the ''Pokémon'' regions have different economic policies.

** Inverted in the pilot episode, where the loft had a normal floor-to-ceiling height, and looked like it was little more than a converted storage space. After it went to series, the ceiling doubled in height and the room gained a raised platform on one end. Still looks like converted storage, as there are still club items stacked against the back wall and the place is never painted, and while we never see the bathroom, there is clearly no other separate room as Michael treats it as a studio with his mattress right in the open between the door and the kitchenette area. In an early episode, the landlord offers Michael a month rent-free in exchange for help with a problem, it's implied that this might not be the only time they've made such an arrangement.

* Time period. The community may have significantly been gentrified since the work was filmed. In areas like Southern California and New York, property values have risen far faster than the average salary, so what was once a realistically middle-class home in [[TheEighties the 1980s]] (or really any time before the Great Recession of 2008) might be far too expensive for the same characters today.

** Frasier himself is a somewhat downplayed example, as he does have a presumably well-paying job as a radio host. However, his condo is extremely spacious and well-furnished with swanky designer furniture and art, making many viewers wonder how he could afford it even on a six-figure salary. Even in TheNineties, local AM talk radio personalities weren't millionaires. (For reference, the furniture for the actual set cost about $500,000.) And since Frasier had just come off a divorce when he moved in, and is a spendthrift who lives a very luxurious lifestyle, it's even less plausible that he could afford it. In addition, Frasier lost his job for six months in a season 6 story arc, and it was never suggested that he was struggling for money in the meantime - even loaning out $1500 to Roz.

* [[StandardFiftiesFather John's father]] from ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' is able to afford a massive house, despite being "just a businessman". Compare the other parents in the comic, who are all explicitly filthy rich with similar house sizes. [[spoiler:Averted with the post-[[CosmicRetcon Scratch]] version of "Dad", who's now raising the heiress to a multinational baking corporation.]]

* Deconstructed by WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic (with a guest appearance from [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall '90s Kid]]) in his ''Film/BioDome'' review, which he points out was one of numerous movies from TheNineties featuring stupid young people with no steady jobs, yet still having decent places to live.

* Deconstructed by WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic (with a guest appearance from [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall '90s Kid]]) in his ''Film/BioDome'' review, which he points out was one of numerous movies from the TheNineties featuring stupid young people with no steady jobs, yet still having decent places to live.

* Time period. The community may have significantly been gentrified since the work was filmed. In areas like Southern California and New York, property values have risen far faster than the average salary, so what was once a realistically middle-class home in [[TheEighties the 1980s]] might be far too expensive for the same characters today.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'':

** Averted with Oliver, who is near broke at the start of the series and has been clearly living beyond his rent for some time. (Per WordOfGod, all his furniture is actually "borrowed" from shows he worked on,) His struggles to maintain his lavish lifestyle are a key part of his character.

* In ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', Bill Dauterive seems to be the only character that’s hit with this as he's divorced and works as a simple army barber, yet has enough income to live in a one-story suburban home.

** Rainbow Dash lives in a Cloudominuim, a condominium made out of clouds, but her job in Ponyville seems to be managing weather and upon seeing how her home is basically a castle, she must've been paid at least a year's worth of bits to pay for mortgage. Though becoming a Wonderbolt in the 6th season might have added to her payments. Pegasus are also shown building structures out of clouds, so it's not unreasonable to assume Rainbow Dash simply ''built'' her home.
** Fluttershy lives in a reclusive 2-story cottage and it is implied that her job is to take care of animals and knowing how devoted she is to woodland creatures, it might make sense why she is able to afford her home. Furthermore, she lives in a small farming village and on the border of the Everfree Forest, which to most ponies is considered an EldritchLocation, which means she probably got it for cheap.

* In California, a proposition passed during [[TheSeventies the 1970s]] that limited how much property tax could increase. This meant however that property values had to be reassessed. Though everyone who owned property before then were grandfathered in at their current rate. This means in some areas, there are some property owners who are paying a fraction of the tax that everyone else would be if they purchased property today.
* In Cairo, due to rent control, there's some houses built before 1996 whose rents [[https://egyptindependent.com/antiquated-rental-law-distorts-housing-market/ never rose since Nasser]], even though the currency suffered RidiculousFutureInflation. For example, in [[https://nyujournalismprojects.org/streetlevel/2009/cairo-renter/index.html this case]], the rent stayed at 15 Egyptian pounds since the 1960s, around one $US. In some cases, such rents are too low to pay for maintenance, resulting in [[https://egyptindependent.com/antiquated-rental-law-distorts-housing-market/ some of these buildings decaying]].

** Averted with Oliver who is near broke at the start of the series and has been clearly living beyond his rent for some time. His struggles to maintain his lavish lifestyle are a key part of his character.

* ''Series/Frasier2023'' has an aversion with Frasier's son Freddy, who, as a firefighter, is unable to afford rent in Boston by himself and has a roommate named Eve, a barmaid and single mother. Frasier, who by this point is an extremely wealthy celebrity, buys the entire apartment building so that they could live there rent-free, with Freddy moving into Frasier's new apartment so that Eve can have the entire place to herself.

** The house that Ellie, Marco, Paige, and Alex (replaced with Griffin later on) shared looked a little more spacious than what four college students could realistically afford.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Circles}}'', Englishman Paulie inherited a fabulous Boston mansion from his American aunt, then converted it to four spacious apartments.
* [[ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse Donald Duck]] lives in a free-standing two-floor house, despite not being able to hold a job for very long, or living on his uncle's slave labor wages. {{Handwave}}d by claiming Scrooge rents him the house, but that just raises more questions.
* In ''ComicBook/HawkeyeKateBishop'', Kate starts a detective agency out of her apartment at Venice Beach. While her studio is realistically small and unfurnished for a college-age young woman who works on commission, the fact it’s on a major tourist site, the Venice Beach Boardwalk, would drastically drive up the rent. Kate balks at making a one-time payment of $225 for a detective license, but rent at Venice Beach can easily go for 10 times as much.
* Averted in the ''Magazine/{{Mad}}'' parody of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. Buffy rejects a vampire's offer of immortality through vampirism because she and her mother ''don't'' live in a rent-controlled apartment, and there's no telling how high the rent will be in the future.
* In the ''[[ComicBook/WarOfTheRealms Punisher Kill Krew]]'' miniseries, lawyer Foggy Nelson is amazed at the Juggernaut's... no not his godlike strength and NighInvulnerable skin/force field. Foggy was amazed to find that Juggernaut lived in a rent-controlled house in core New York and it even had a garden in the back. Juggernaut explained that the place belonged to his aunt.

* ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'':

* ''Series/FullHouse'': Some found it unrealistic that Danny could have afforded what was obviously a very nice, very big townhouse (5 bedrooms, with a spacious attic, huge basement, and attached garage) in a presumably equally very nice section of San Francisco on a TV morning show host's salary, as well as support three young children. There's never any mention of Joey or Jesse paying him rent (not that they could have, given how sporadic their employment was for the first few seasons of the show).
** Real estate prices in the early to mid-'80s in San Francisco were a much different animal than today when Danny and his wife presumably would have bought the property. Expensive, sure, but not out of reach of a television newscaster, particularly if his wife also worked. Life insurance from her death would also likely have gone a long way toward paying off the house.
** This comes up in the pilot of Series/FullerHouse. With all his daughters long since grown up and moved out, Danny is looking at selling the house, which by now in the modern San Francisco market would go for literally millions. But when [=DJ=] and her children come to visit not long after her husband's death and he sees how hard a time she is having at taking care of her kids alone, Danny and later Jessie and Joey offer to put their own plans on hold to help her out. But after Stephanie and Kimmy offer their help instead, Danny instead gives them the house to live in, setting up the premise of the revived series.

* Lois Lane's Metropolis apartment in ''Film/{{Superman}}'' is awfully, awfully nice -- with a balcony, no less! {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''Magazine/{{MAD}}'' Magazine's satire of the movie:
-->'''"Lotus Lain":''' "Who would believe a man can fly like you?!"
-->'''"Superduperman":''' "The same people who'd believe that $185-a-week reporter could live in a Taj Mahal apartment like this!"

* Time period. The community may have significantly been gentrified since the work was filmed. In areas like Southern California and New York, property values have risen far faster than the average salary, so what was once a realistically middle-class home in [[TheEighties the 1980s]] might be far too expensive for the same characters today.

* ''Series/CucumberBananaTofu'': Dean and Freddie only pay £400 a month for an entire industrial building! Justified in that it's not 100% legal and their landlord is a gangster.

->'''Eleanor:''' Yeah, we were all confused about that too.

* ''Literature/HighSchoolDxD'':

* In ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'', one has to wonder how Delia Ketchum affords her house, considering that she doesn't seem to work (except in Takeshi Shudō's novelization, where it's explained that she runs Pallet Town's only restaurant, Pallet House, which she inherited from her mother) and she has no husband. Mr. Mime, doing all the household chores. Granted, perhaps the ''Pokemon'' regions have different economic policies.

* Seemingly played straight, then {{justified|Trope}} and {{averted|Trope}} in ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia''. Dennis and Mac live in a nice two-bedroom apartment with a leather couch, despite making less than they would on unemployment. Dee lives alone in a very nice apartment despite making even less than the bar owners. Dennis and Dee come from a wealthy family, however, and a Season 5 episode explicitly mentions that Frank pays Dee's rent (and presumably at least helping with Dennis'). Meanwhile, Charlie lives in abject squalor, averting the trope entirely. (Also, Philadelphia rents are famously low by East Coast standards, so it's even more believable that Frank could pay the rent out of his pocket change.)