Manhattan Realtor Reveals Just How Much The Friends Apartments Are Worth Today

Beloved TV show "Friends" featured the lives and loves of Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Monica, Joey, and Phoebe, and the apartments of Chandler, JoeyMonica and Rachel were in a Greenwich Village apartment building at 90 Bedford Street (from Property Club). And even for the 1990s and early 2000s, the apartments were large enough and the 20-something characters were broke enough that the writers for the show had to include the occasional mention that the apartments were rent-controlled or inherited (from Property Club).

90 Bedford Street is an "old law" tenement and pre-war walkup built in 1898-99, and apartment buildings like this one were included in New York City's 1947 rent stabilization rules that kept rent hikes in check; those did change in late 1993 to allow for greater increases. But, in theory, if Joey, Chandler, and Monica all had their apartments in that building before that change in the rent stabilization rules, they could still have reaped the benefits of rent stabilization (from 6sqft).

But what if you wanted to move in today?

Buying an apartment in the Friends neighborhood would set you back $2 million

Much of the action on the show happened at Monica's two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment. And it was an absolute bargain for the characters at $200 a month. The price was explained by it being inherited from their grandmother, and rent-controlled (from Bustle).

In real-life, it would definitely be an above-average size apartment for that neighborhood at an estimated 1500 square feet, and Scott Elyanow, real estate broker who lives in the West Village, estimated an apartment of that size would cost between $7,000 and $8,000 per month to rent and $2+ million to buy (via CNBC). Definitely more than a coffee shop waitress, like Rachel, or a new chef, like Monica, could afford.

Chandler and Joey's apartment across the hall from Monica's was a smaller two-bedroom, one-bathroom, but it would still cost a pretty penny. Recent rental listings for 90 Bedford Street on StreetEasy have apartments going for around $3000 to $5000 per month, but they all seem to be about half the size of the fictional "Friends" apartments.

And if you wanted to make Greenwich Village your forever home, the average home price in the neighborhood, according to Zillow, is $2 million.