4 ms·
The $1000 units are gone, forever. If Portland builds enough to keep up with demand, eventually inflation will cause the rent in real terms to be equivalent to
by aaronbwebber 9y ago
The $1000 units are gone, forever. If Portland builds enough to keep up with demand, eventually inflation will cause the rent in real terms to be equivalent to $1000 2017 dollars, but the sticker price for these units will never be $1000 again.
There's a real financial incentive for developers to not take lower rents than they budgeted for - those rents need to cover the payments on the loans they took out to finance the construction of the building. It's why it's usually much more attractive for them to offer incentives like a free month of rent - sure, they take a hit up front, but the long term financial viability of the project is intact. But if they take on a bunch of leases with lower rents than they projected, now they have a building which is just losing money every month.
Also, be careful what you wish for - the way you would get back to $1000 a month rents is Detroit-style depopulation, and that really sucks.
- maxlamb 9y agoMaybe we could have something in the middle, a bit like Berlin. There's got to be a middle ground between Detroit's $500 rent and most popular cities' $1500+ for 1 bedrooms.
- evanlivingston 9y agoI'll look into it later, but do you have idea what contributes to Europeans paying significantly less for housing?
- rsynnott 9y agoIt’s not Europeans in general; some European cities, including some German cities, are very expensive. Berlin is an oddity. Many European countries, do, or have at some point in the past, had extensive social housing production, which does help ease pressure.
- ddorian43 9y agoUh, NL sucks. Unless you're local and you get put from birth on the waiting list (which you can now only apply on 18 years). So by 40 you may get cheap housing.
- aristus 9y agoStep 1: have the Soviets occupy the eastern half of the city for 50 years.
- hkmurakami 9y agoIs housing considered a wealth generating investment asset in continental Europe?
- maxlamb 9y agoThe city caps rents for a large portion of renters, and there are strict laws against short-term rentals and subletting https://www.fastcompany.com/3053734/berlin-models-how-cities-can-push-back-gentrification-and-keep-housing-affordable https://www.fastcompany.com/3053734/berlin-models-how-cities...
- JBlue42 9y agoYou have a lot of people fleeing expensive places like SF, LA, and NYC to Portland and Austin. Those rents are still cheaper and you get the same city amenities and some good places to work. So there's demand and until people see that it's not worth it to move there then it will probably continue to rise. Same with housing prices. I know people that were looking in both LA and Portland at the same time. They probably would've gone with Portland had there not been factors beyond money at play.
- zaroth 9y agoA $1,000/mo rent unit is affordable for someone earning $40k. If that's a new housing unit in a decent location that's going to buy you, what, 200 sq ft microhousing hell? I can certainly understand why growing cities would not want to building out anything even remotely like that. What's that going to look like 10 years later?