This is a post that will divide opinion about the cost of apartment living. Meet Society 62.

On the one hand, you have a very modern and well furnished building in a decent location, for a price as low as $750 per month. In Portland, this is a price that is kind of unacheivable anywhere else. There are some places you can rent for $800 per month, but they aren’t as modern or nice as Society 62.

On the other hand, is this really a studio apartment? For the lowest price available, you share both kitchen and bathroom facilities. Whilst not quite the same as sharing an apartment – it isn’t THAT far away. Granted, you have your own bedroom that is separated by a coridoor, but other than this – everything else is shared.

Whether subliminal or not, the “better together” neon sign on the wall sums up this space, which is trying to get young professionals into an apartment building and live communally. Of course, this is fine if everyone respects the communal areas like they do in the photographs. But I am not so sure that a lounge space would look this clean and tidy if 10 different people had access to it?

Located in the Rose City Park neighbourhood, it isn’t the absolute best location in Portland, but it is pretty convenient as its fairly central and near attractions such as Mt Tabor and is close to the highway.

Not near any decent schools, this obviously won’t matter as people renting here will be young professionals with no kids. If you don’t drive, its not too bad either as the building is less than a 10 minute walk away from the MAX.

The kitchen looksvery open and spacious with several different appliances such as a microwave, coffee maker and rice cooker. There is definitely enough space for several people to cook at once in this area since it really is very large.

However, once again – what happens when someone in the same building left their rice in the cooker and forgot about it for 2 days, or your Cheerios went missing? It could be annoying, but is it worth $750 per month? You can share an apartment for considerably cheaper than this, but you won’t be able to rent a place of your own.

Perhaps most depressing is the studio apartment itself. It is small (as mentioned) and generally looks quite uninviting. Of course, the developers didn’t really have too much of a choice as they didn’t have much space to work with. They had to choose white to make it the room look larger. But if you spent any time other than sleeping in a place like this, it would probably get depressing pretty quickly.

So what do you think of this? Would you live comunally for $750 per month in Portland?