u shud ask your friend the salary is includng the accomodation or excluding. if its excluding then 9500 is fine. but if ts included in the salary , then good luck to him tht he would find a house less than 7000. also it depends on his experience, coz my uncle is getting paid 28,000 as a project engineer. not saying u shud compare, but u shud know te market. coz nowadays most of the good companies start from 15000. also it depends which company is offering him the position. hope this helps.