This just handed to us from our Breaking News Desk:

Rents are too high.

You want to live in a fairly stable manner, keep out of debt, maybe sock a dollar or two away, then you should spend 30% of your gross monthly income on rent. The average income in Long Beach is about $27,014, so if you want to be somewhere on the right side of solvency, feel free to blow $675.35 on rent and you should be fine.

And please, please let me know where you can find an apartment for $675.35 a month. I’m not picky. It can be painted with black mold and feature a deluxe wall-to-wall medley of cockroaches, rats, bedbugs and feral pigs. For $675.35, I’ll fight all other applicants for the privilege of moving in today, along with plopping down an irretrievable $1,000 deposit and first-and-last rent payments.

In fact, $1,000/month studio apartments are virtually extinct in Long Beach these days, with only about 2% of rentals going for $1,000 or less, while more than 50% are renting for more than $2,000 a month. And my calculator joins me in refusing to grapple with how much squanderable income you’d need to cheerfully pay $5,495 for a penthouse apartment in the International Tower and still have enough walking-around money for other pleasantries, like BMW i8s and Turks and Caicos vacations.

So, yeah, let’s agree that not only are rents too high, but there’s still plenty of inventory if you’re able to drop $2,124 a month on a living space, which happens to be the average rent in Long Beach now, according to Rent Cafe, or $2,058, according to Rent Jungle.

But if you’re on a tighter budget, like your median wage-earner, you’ll be wanting something in the lower 15% range, with a payment of something less than $1,500 a month. It’s about the best you can do in Long Beach.

I hope you’ve given up your dream of coastal living because, while Long Beach remains one of the least-expensive coastal communities, that doesn’t mean it’s cheap, except on a relative basis. The closest I can get you to sand is a small studio on Loma Avenue—and not the cool, Belmont Heights Loma Avenue, but the part that’s about 10 or 12 blocks at the eastern border of Zaferia neighborhood where, at 1477 Loma, you can get a livable detached rear studio with a separate entry for $1,095 a month.

Is it roomy? It is not. It weighs in at 210 square feet. The upside? You can vacuum the place in 30 seconds. The kitchen is somewhat of a miniature version of a grown-up’s kitchen, with a small (obviously) fridge, a microwave, a coffee maker and a hot plate.

Still, it’s private and close to the various Zaferia hotspots.

You want location and waterfront? There’s a sweet bedroom (not studio, not a one-bedroom apartment,  just a bedroom) for rent at 374 Bayside Drive North, just at the tip of Marine Stadium and next to Marina Vista Park. It’s a million-dollar location for just $1,000 a month. You’ll share the home’s kitchen and a bathroom with another occupant, but at 400 square feet, it’s larger than many studios, including the aforementioned one.

Bouncing around looking at some other low-rent housing, you’ll find a downstairs studio at 1483 Atlantic Ave. with bay windows (barred, for your protection/security) and a thoroughly upgraded kitchen with quartz counters, a stainless steel sink and a new gas stove. It comes with a 12-month lease and has a detached garage for parking at an additional fee. It also has a nicely remodeled bathroom with a tub and shower.

An actual one-bedroom, 500 square-foot place at 431 E. 17th St. in what’s advertised as the “Wrigley Area,” though most explorers or navigators will find to be a couple-three blocks south and east of the always-re-emerging Wrigley neighborhood. Rent on the place, which includes a gas stove, is $1,095 a month.

And we’ll wrap up our little apartment hunt at another cozy unit, a 332-square-foot studio at 1151 Daisy Ave., just steps from the L.A. River. The unit sports new paint, ceiling fans, granite counters and on-site laundry.

Exacerbating problems you might be having with finding a low-cost apartment are the inevitable hoops you may need to go through on your application. Typically, landlords want you to go through. Those often include providing proof that your monthly gross income is 2.5 times the rent (which is fairly doable; you need to earn $2,750 for an $1,100/month place), a credit score of at least 550 or 600 (and you often have to pay for the credit check), first and last month’s rent and a cleaning/security deposit.

It can add up to a lot of money for a struggling renter.

Another news alert: Times are tough.