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On the other hand: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-07/rental-glut-sends-chill-through-the-hottest-u-s-housing-markets https://www.bloomberg.com/

On the other hand: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-07/rental-glut-sends-chill-through-the-hottest-u-s-housing-markets https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-07/rental-gl... > Tenants are gaining the upper hand in urban centers across the U.S. as new amenity-rich apartment buildings, constructed in response to big rent gains in previous years, are forced to fight for customers. Rents are softening most on the high end and within city limits, Terrazas said. Landlords also have been losing customers to homeownership as millennials strike out on their own, often moving to more affordable suburbs.

carapace 8y ago
From my POV that's due more to a glut of cheap-inside luxury-outside condos and apartment buildings. I mean the word "glut" is in the title. A couple of years ago I was considering buying a condo in the Bay Area. I was surprised to find that, although there are tons of places if you can afford them, you have to look very carefully to find a well-built, well-managed building. The real estate market in the Bay Area has been so hot that it has attracted a lot of questionable development and investment. A very typical pattern was a new, physically beautiful building with shoddy design and construction, so that it looks like luxury housing but the walls are thin and you can hear your neighbors, for example. Often the front office is staffed with perky young ladies who have no authority or ability to do anything other than sign up new tenants. They are not the building managers, other than in name, they're salespeople. Any problems you might have require you to call a call center on the East Coast. One place I looked at was owned by a huge corporation that had ~$2B debt and a bunch of weird holdings. Basically someone's pet company had bought the building as an investment, with all the problems for the tenants that you might imagine that entails: regular and steep rent increases, minimal staff and maintenance, cost-cutting everywhere. So yeah, I am not surprised that the bottom feeders (of the high-end) are scrambling for marks and suckers. The quality buildings are easy to spot, I eventually figured it out. Can you guess the marker? [1] But they still aren't renting to the folks who make ~$100,000 or less, eh? This article describes a correction, but the overall trend is still up, no? Or maybe this is some kind of inflection point in the 70 year trend, and the burst of construction combined with people moving out of hot city centers has fixed the problem? In the meantime, it's easy to find a place in SF if you can afford $4000 a month, but almost impossible if you can only afford half of that. Calling that "the upper hand" is a bit rich. [1] They have long waiting lists.

carapace 8y ago

From my POV that's due more to a glut of cheap-inside luxury-outside condos and apartment buildings. I mean the word "glut" is in the title. A couple of years ago I was considering buying a condo in the Bay Area. I was surprised to find that, although there are tons of places if you can afford them, you have to look very carefully to find a well-built, well-managed building. The real estate market in the Bay Area has been so hot that it has attracted a lot of questionable development and investment. A very typical pattern was a new, physically beautiful building with shoddy design and construction, so that it looks like luxury housing but the walls are thin and you can hear your neighbors, for example. Often the front office is staffed with perky young ladies who have no authority or ability to do anything other than sign up new tenants. They are not the building managers, other than in name, they're salespeople. Any problems you might have require you to call a call center on the East Coast. One place I looked at was owned by a huge corporation that had ~$2B debt and a bunch of weird holdings. Basically someone's pet company had bought the building as an investment, with all the problems for the tenants that you might imagine that entails: regular and steep rent increases, minimal staff and maintenance, cost-cutting everywhere. So yeah, I am not surprised that the bottom feeders (of the high-end) are scrambling for marks and suckers. The quality buildings are easy to spot, I eventually figured it out. Can you guess the marker? [1] But they still aren't renting to the folks who make ~$100,000 or less, eh? This article describes a correction, but the overall trend is still up, no? Or maybe this is some kind of inflection point in the 70 year trend, and the burst of construction combined with people moving out of hot city centers has fixed the problem? In the meantime, it's easy to find a place in SF if you can afford $4000 a month, but almost impossible if you can only afford half of that. Calling that "the upper hand" is a bit rich. [1] They have long waiting lists.