06/15/2026
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In New York City, where the median asking rent hit $3,616 in the first quarter this year, some young professionals are turning to convents to manage on a starting salary.
Sacred Heart, in Chelsea, charged Katie Rettig, 32, around $1,650 a month when she first arrived in New York and needed a place to live. Her next convent, St. Mary’s Residence on the Upper East Side, ran her around $1,200 a month.
Other residences include St. Agnes Residence on the Upper West Side, which starts at around $950 a month, and Centro Maria in the Bronx, which charges around $800 a month. Most houses accept non-Christian residents and don’t require any religious practice.
“Nuns are awesome,” Rettig said. “They be chilling.”
They do come with rules. Some have curfews of 11 p.m. or midnight. Women’s houses bar male visitors from the rooms, and the same usually goes for alcohol.
At Centro Maria, five sisters live alongside their 21 residents in a four-story red-brick building. Each morning the nuns, some of them in their 90s, cook breakfast for the house–a variety of pancakes, eggs, sausage, fruits and juice. They clean the building and host parties so residents can get to know each other. A karaoke machine sits in the dining room and the nuns sometimes join the singing.
“I love living with the girls. They keep me young,” Sister Rita, one of the nuns, said.
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