5 ms·

Do you think a firefighter and a teacher should be able to afford a house in the community they work in?

by nikanj 5y ago

rkk3 5y ago
First I think it's important to differentiate afford to live & afford to buy a home are different things. Afford to live in the community is significantly more important but In general I think it is better if they can do both. However home's are assets & assets can have bubbles. I don't think the public should necessarily be paying wages such that someone can buy a home at any cost.
- beeboop 5y ago
  Are you in support of radically changing laws around home ownership, potentially to the point of abolishing housing as an investment vehicle? Because you need to either support that, or support people making wages enough to own a home even if that home is radically expensive due to other influences. Anything less is Scrooge levels of sociopathy.
  - rkk3 5y ago
    I definitely am in favor of changing laws around making it easier to build & develop new-housing. I can't afford to purchase these radically inflated assets myself... but if you want to call me scrooge because I don't think owning a multi-million dollar house is a fundamental human right, go ahead.
    - vineyardmike 5y ago
      No one’s saying it’s a fundamental human right, just something a teach should be able to do if he/she teaches in an area that exclusively has multi-million dollar homes.
      - rkk3 5y ago
        Like I said previously, Teachers salaries in SF aren't even at question in the cited article. A custodian employed by sf makes an average of 92k [1] vs an average teacher in SF makes 75.6k [2]. But I can still simultaneously believe teachers are underpaid and at the same think they aren't entitled to multi-million dollar homes. [1] https://www.openthebooks.com/forbes-why-san-francisco-is-in-trouble--19000-highly-compensated-city-employees-earned-150000-in-pay--perks/ https://www.openthebooks.com/forbes-why-san-francisco-is-in-... [2] https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/public-school-teacher-salary/san-francisco-ca https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/public-scho...
        nikanj 5y ago
        Does the question substantially change if you replace teacher with custodian? Should custodians be able to afford the community they work in?
        rkk3 5y ago
        If you'll pay me 150k to be a custodian again or however much to afford to purchase a million dollar home I'll take it in a heart beat. You probably haven't but I've actually been a custodian, and besides the pay I found it much a more enjoyable experience than working in tech.
  - smegger001 5y ago
    honestly yes. Turning housing into a financial vehicle makes it hard for average people to afford. Housing cant simultaneously be affordable perpetually for average citizens and a investment expected to appreciate in value higher than inflation. trying to have our cake and eat it to has broken the housing market and been the root cause of much suffering and the last big economic rescission.
oh_sigh 5y ago
Does that mean teachers need to get paid $1M/yr in Atherton(94027) where the average home value is $7M?
- kelseyfrog 5y ago
  Proportionally speaking that would put teachers in Todd County South Dakota where the median home value in 2020 was $26,900[1] at an annual salary of $3,842. If the argument is that teacher salaries should be a linear function of average home values and that a $1M/yr salary doesn't make sense and a $3.8k/yr salary doesn't either, I'm not sure where you want to go from there. 1. https://www.credible.com/blog/data-insights/county-in-every-state-lowest-home-prices/ https://www.credible.com/blog/data-insights/county-in-every-...
lupire 5y ago
High cost of housing is caused by high saries, in a supply constrained environment.
dzhiurgis 5y ago
Maybe public workers should have access to public housing too? If public housing is more attractive than private then property price problem solves itself.
ryanlol 5y ago
No, I think it would be hilarious if a firefighter working in central London could afford a house there. It’s not necessarily normal to live in a house. It certainly shouldn’t be normal in cities.
rsj_hn 5y ago
I don't think you can make simple rules like this, or expect complex systems like economies to behave according to such simple rules. What you can know is that in expensive areas, they will need to pay a premium, but does the premium need to be as high to allow teachers to buy houses there instead of commuting in? And if you did pay them that much, many would prefer to keep the money and commute a bit longer because they may not value housing as much as the people living in the community. So people have different values and we should let them make their own trade offs. If a community can't hire enough teachers because cost of living is high, then they will need to raise wages. Once they can hire enough, then let people chose for themselves where they want to work and live.

Do you think a firefighter and a teacher should be able to afford a house in the community they work in?

by nikanj 5y ago

Do you think a firefighter and a teacher should be able to afford a house in the community they work in?

rkk3 5y ago

First I think it's important to differentiate afford to live & afford to buy a home are different things. Afford to live in the community is significantly more important but In general I think it is better if they can do both. However home's are assets & assets can have bubbles. I don't think the public should necessarily be paying wages such that someone can buy a home at any cost.

beeboop 5y ago
Are you in support of radically changing laws around home ownership, potentially to the point of abolishing housing as an investment vehicle? Because you need to either support that, or support people making wages enough to own a home even if that home is radically expensive due to other influences. Anything less is Scrooge levels of sociopathy.
- rkk3 5y ago
  I definitely am in favor of changing laws around making it easier to build & develop new-housing. I can't afford to purchase these radically inflated assets myself... but if you want to call me scrooge because I don't think owning a multi-million dollar house is a fundamental human right, go ahead.
  - vineyardmike 5y ago
    No one’s saying it’s a fundamental human right, just something a teach should be able to do if he/she teaches in an area that exclusively has multi-million dollar homes.
    - rkk3 5y ago
      Like I said previously, Teachers salaries in SF aren't even at question in the cited article. A custodian employed by sf makes an average of 92k [1] vs an average teacher in SF makes 75.6k [2]. But I can still simultaneously believe teachers are underpaid and at the same think they aren't entitled to multi-million dollar homes. [1] https://www.openthebooks.com/forbes-why-san-francisco-is-in-trouble--19000-highly-compensated-city-employees-earned-150000-in-pay--perks/ https://www.openthebooks.com/forbes-why-san-francisco-is-in-... [2] https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/public-school-teacher-salary/san-francisco-ca https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/public-scho...
      - nikanj 5y ago
        Does the question substantially change if you replace teacher with custodian? Should custodians be able to afford the community they work in?
        rkk3 5y ago
        If you'll pay me 150k to be a custodian again or however much to afford to purchase a million dollar home I'll take it in a heart beat. You probably haven't but I've actually been a custodian, and besides the pay I found it much a more enjoyable experience than working in tech.
- smegger001 5y ago
  honestly yes. Turning housing into a financial vehicle makes it hard for average people to afford. Housing cant simultaneously be affordable perpetually for average citizens and a investment expected to appreciate in value higher than inflation. trying to have our cake and eat it to has broken the housing market and been the root cause of much suffering and the last big economic rescission.

oh_sigh 5y ago

Does that mean teachers need to get paid $1M/yr in Atherton(94027) where the average home value is $7M?

kelseyfrog 5y ago
Proportionally speaking that would put teachers in Todd County South Dakota where the median home value in 2020 was $26,900[1] at an annual salary of $3,842. If the argument is that teacher salaries should be a linear function of average home values and that a $1M/yr salary doesn't make sense and a $3.8k/yr salary doesn't either, I'm not sure where you want to go from there. 1. https://www.credible.com/blog/data-insights/county-in-every-state-lowest-home-prices/ https://www.credible.com/blog/data-insights/county-in-every-...

lupire 5y ago

High cost of housing is caused by high saries, in a supply constrained environment.

dzhiurgis 5y ago

Maybe public workers should have access to public housing too? If public housing is more attractive than private then property price problem solves itself.

ryanlol 5y ago

No, I think it would be hilarious if a firefighter working in central London could afford a house there. It’s not necessarily normal to live in a house. It certainly shouldn’t be normal in cities.

rsj_hn 5y ago

I don't think you can make simple rules like this, or expect complex systems like economies to behave according to such simple rules. What you can know is that in expensive areas, they will need to pay a premium, but does the premium need to be as high to allow teachers to buy houses there instead of commuting in? And if you did pay them that much, many would prefer to keep the money and commute a bit longer because they may not value housing as much as the people living in the community. So people have different values and we should let them make their own trade offs. If a community can't hire enough teachers because cost of living is high, then they will need to raise wages. Once they can hire enough, then let people chose for themselves where they want to work and live.