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The author looks to be drawing a lot of conclusions from a very limited set of data. His examples about prices are only from Manhattan and London. He also com
by kjdal2001 11y ago
The author looks to be drawing a lot of conclusions from a very limited set of data. His examples about prices are only from Manhattan and London. He also compares median wages in New York to rents in Manhattan, which is just lazy. I don't doubt that the rent/income ratio has gotten worse in New York over time, but an apples to apples comparison would have been nice to see.
I don't even disagree with the sentiment expressed in this article. I just think it was woefully under-researched.
- choppaface 11y agoThis is a great point. The author's last graph tries to make the point that that the fraction of income taken from tenants has outpaced tenant wage growth over a period of decades. In present day SV (especially SF), most landlords will require tenants spend no more than 30% of their income on rent as part of the application process-- it's a somewhat fixed rule-of-thumb. As rents have risen, a lot of tenants in non-rent-controlled housing have been effectively priced out and displaced elsewhere. So it's actually not so easy to demonstrate that landlords have been taking a larger fraction of tenant income; one must adjust for the fact that greedy landlords will also drive away poorer tenants. Simpson's Paradox at work.