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In northwest MT, our rents almost doubled after a COVID population influx. Many new residents actually moved to live here, but a lot just bought summer places t

In northwest MT, our rents almost doubled after a COVID population influx. Many new residents actually moved to live here, but a lot just bought summer places they also use as short-term rentals. My parents were paying $1400 for a 2BR but when they moved out, the landlord charged $2400 and got a renter from CA. People here used to afford housing on low wage jobs that "Americans won't do" such as office cleaning, landscaping, janitorial, nursing home care. Teens work all the fast food jobs. Besides many people leaving, there has been a spike in homelessness, and a labor shortage on service industry jobs. Immigrants will replace the low-wage jobs because they are willing to live multiple families per unit, leading to further overcrowding, and another reason why the rents won't go down. They are building a lot of unsightly apartment towers now and are beginning to fill the beautiful farmland area with tightly packed clone home developments. I've seen this happen everywhere I have lived including Arizona and California. I'm pessimistic anything will ever change because big money always wins.

vanilla_nut 4y ago
House prices and rents have also skyrocketed across the Northeast. This is especially crazy (to me) in rural areas and small towns, where I'm starting to see one bedrooms skyrocket above 2k/mo. Whole houses with even a single bathroom rarely drop below 3k/mo. When the average wage in your town is 40-60k, that's clearly unsustainable. These prices aren't that different from what I used to see in the outer boroughs of NYC in 2019! I'm pessimistic for the same reason as you -- Big Money got a heavy hand. But in the longer term... I don't know, if half the country can't afford rent, at some point you'll see a legitimate revolution. Considering how dangerous those are for the average citizen I would rather the government fixed the situation before it spirals out of control.

vanilla_nut 4y ago

House prices and rents have also skyrocketed across the Northeast. This is especially crazy (to me) in rural areas and small towns, where I'm starting to see one bedrooms skyrocket above 2k/mo. Whole houses with even a single bathroom rarely drop below 3k/mo. When the average wage in your town is 40-60k, that's clearly unsustainable. These prices aren't that different from what I used to see in the outer boroughs of NYC in 2019! I'm pessimistic for the same reason as you -- Big Money got a heavy hand. But in the longer term... I don't know, if half the country can't afford rent, at some point you'll see a legitimate revolution. Considering how dangerous those are for the average citizen I would rather the government fixed the situation before it spirals out of control.