If the notion is that those medium pads are rare, that would be fine, but in fact they are the majority of the apartment inventory. I'd propose that for at least some of the apartment buildings (like VG and the Crown) the rent be set at 4 kay. That's affordable with hustling for someone without a membership, but is still significant enough to make a membership valuable. In general I think the price of an apartment should be set at around 150%-200% of the average entry-level 'salary', give or take.
In the last state of the game, Johnny indicated that the financial state of the game was very good; even if lowering the apartment prices reduces some uptake in club memberships, it seems like it wouldn't endanger the server.
I think this would also make it less apparent who is a member and who isn't ICly, since most everyone pays for their apartments with membership, and additionally make it easier to ICly justify getting an apartment for free. I know I've struggled to explain ICly why I get a free pad that is 3 or 4 times the weekly value of a salary, protection racket, or other 'background' income source for no apparent reason.
