5 ms·

I'm not sure. Where I live (Melbourne, Australia), $1380 is not much above the minimum you could pay for an apartment. It's about what I pay. To get much under

by netcan 17y ago

I'm not sure. Where I live (Melbourne, Australia), $1380 is not much above the minimum you could pay for an apartment. It's about what I pay. To get much under that you need to go to fairly far out suburbs. To get under $1200 (1,080 USD) for rent + utilities, you really need to move to a satellite town or further. From what I understand this is a tricky issue. Lower rent areas are also often high unemployment areas. People do worse outside of their normal circle. Moving away from existing support structures is often a negative turning point. It is a principle of social welfare that people in financial distress should avoid substantial moves. On one hand, you want to avoid quick knee-jerks like yours from paying "high" welfare payments. On the other, you want to avoid moving people around. I imagine this sort of thing is even more of a problem in the US then here, with higher variations in costs/income across geographic areas.

robryan 17y ago
I don't know what vacancy rates are like over there but here in Melbourne they are very low. There is some real trash being pushed for around that $1380 figure here and they still have plenty of people turning up. Going down to the $1000 figure that you can find a few very average houses in very average areas for and you have over 50 groups turning up to inspect. I've been to a few of those and though, just one of these people has to be a full time 2 income couple and we have already lost being students in casual/freelance work.
- netcan 17y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean "there," I am in Melbourne. Melbourne is actually not that bad, for Australia. Student isn't the worst situation to be in either. Student usually pay rent and many Universities will guarantee it (BTW, you can ask your Uni to guarantee your rent to make you application look better). Some parts of Australia have homelessness of people that just can't get a rental. They have a bad rental history or seem dodgy for whatever reason (receiving welfare). They literally cannot get
natrius 17y ago
In the US, Texas is one of the places with the best employment prospects, and it also has a fairly low cost of living. We spend so much money subsidizing dying Rust Belt cities and expensive housing in coastal cities, when there are plenty of people who should really move to places where they can get better jobs and pay lower costs. Moving is a socially expensive act, but we shouldn't subsidize staying in place much more than we subsidize moving to a more economically reasonable area.
- starkfist 17y ago
  We spend a lot of money subsidizing expensive housing in coastal cities? How do I get in on these subsidies?
  - natrius 17y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(housing) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(housing) EDIT: Since I'm getting downmodded, maybe I wasn't clear. We spend a lot of money subsidizing housing for people with low incomes in coastal cities. It would cost less money to provide similar housing in other cities, and since some of those cities have better job markets, they might not need those subsidies at all. Since they currently get subsidies, there is little incentive to move. Subsidizing moving to areas with better economies as well as subsidizing housing would be a better approach.
  - defen 17y ago
    I don't know if it counts exactly as a subsidy, but in some big cities, growth is artificially constrained by "Urban Growth Boundaries". These ordinances reduce the amount of available land for building, and hence inflate real estate prices above what they "should" be by artificially reducing supply. Check out Portland for an example of this. Note that I'm not necessarily arguing against UGB's - I don't think anyone has developed an alternative besides endless suburban sprawl, or naturally restricted land area, as in San Francisco or Manhattan.
    - netcan 17y ago

by netcan 17y ago

robryan 17y ago

I don't know what vacancy rates are like over there but here in Melbourne they are very low. There is some real trash being pushed for around that $1380 figure here and they still have plenty of people turning up. Going down to the $1000 figure that you can find a few very average houses in very average areas for and you have over 50 groups turning up to inspect. I've been to a few of those and though, just one of these people has to be a full time 2 income couple and we have already lost being students in casual/freelance work.

netcan 17y ago
I'm not sure what you mean "there," I am in Melbourne. Melbourne is actually not that bad, for Australia. Student isn't the worst situation to be in either. Student usually pay rent and many Universities will guarantee it (BTW, you can ask your Uni to guarantee your rent to make you application look better). Some parts of Australia have homelessness of people that just can't get a rental. They have a bad rental history or seem dodgy for whatever reason (receiving welfare). They literally cannot get

natrius 17y ago

In the US, Texas is one of the places with the best employment prospects, and it also has a fairly low cost of living. We spend so much money subsidizing dying Rust Belt cities and expensive housing in coastal cities, when there are plenty of people who should really move to places where they can get better jobs and pay lower costs. Moving is a socially expensive act, but we shouldn't subsidize staying in place much more than we subsidize moving to a more economically reasonable area.

starkfist 17y ago
We spend a lot of money subsidizing expensive housing in coastal cities? How do I get in on these subsidies?
- natrius 17y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(housing) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(housing) EDIT: Since I'm getting downmodded, maybe I wasn't clear. We spend a lot of money subsidizing housing for people with low incomes in coastal cities. It would cost less money to provide similar housing in other cities, and since some of those cities have better job markets, they might not need those subsidies at all. Since they currently get subsidies, there is little incentive to move. Subsidizing moving to areas with better economies as well as subsidizing housing would be a better approach.
- defen 17y ago
  I don't know if it counts exactly as a subsidy, but in some big cities, growth is artificially constrained by "Urban Growth Boundaries". These ordinances reduce the amount of available land for building, and hence inflate real estate prices above what they "should" be by artificially reducing supply. Check out Portland for an example of this. Note that I'm not necessarily arguing against UGB's - I don't think anyone has developed an alternative besides endless suburban sprawl, or naturally restricted land area, as in San Francisco or Manhattan.
  - netcan 17y ago