Obama's NYC Apartment: Cheap Enough for a College Kid

For just $1,900 a month you can live in the New York City one-bedroom apartment that President Obama and his then-roommate, Phil Boerner, squeezed into during their junior year at Columbia University. The pad, located in the Morningside Heights neighborhood, presumably rented for a lot less in the 1980s, and perhaps provides a lesson to young city-dwellers about the virtues of frugal living.

Even now, the modest apartment is well-priced.

"I spoke to the owner about the price," says real estate agent Dalila Bella, who is representing the property. "It isn't a raised price. They said they wouldn't put the price higher just because the president lived there."

Obama and Boerner might have saved more money if they had lived in the Columbia dorms, but since both were transfer students from Occidental College in Los Angeles, they weren't eligible for university housing.

But considering their financial limitations back then, the young men didn't do half bad.