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Almost no one mentions housing's upwards pressure on wages. In Seattle, renting a studio in a not-terrible part of town costs over $1500 a month. With prices l

Almost no one mentions housing's upwards pressure on wages. In Seattle, renting a studio in a not-terrible part of town costs over $1500 a month. With prices like that, there is no room for "low paying" jobs. Accordingly, everyone has had to raise wages, which means some types of businesses are no longer viable. Child care is a good example, between housing prices and higher wages, daycare in Seattle now starts at $22k a year, with well rated daycares charging around 30k a year, and at those prices many daycares are struggling to stay open! Staff turnover is high, employees cannot afford to live within commute distance of their jobs, but wages cannot go up any more because customers can barely afford prices as they are. The answer is a royal-shit-ton of construction. The answer is the complete demolition of existing zoning laws and a dramatic rethinking of building codes[1]. We need to allow more in-home businesses[2], and allow a wide variety of different styles of housing to be built. The city needs to stop encouraging tall and narrow townhomes that are not livable by families, or really anyone over the age of 40, and stop mixing middle class morality with housing options[3]. If housing goes back to being an 8k a year expense rather than a 20k+ a year expense, wages can stop shooting up. [1] As an example, if I wanted to add a new bedroom to my current, well insulated house, I'd have to get the entire structure of my roof replaced so I could fit in additional couple inches of insulation. I already had an energy assessment done and they confirmed that this change would have, quite literally, 0 impact on my home's energy usage. The law as it stands prevents me from adding more density to my existing house, so good job there city. [2] Why can't I buy breakfast sandwiches out of the front of someone's garage as I walk to the bus stop? Why aren't more barbers working out of their house? [3] Boarding houses and such are famously illegal in most US cities, even though they provide affordable, dense, housing.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
Daycare in Seattle is expensive but not that expensive yet. We paid $1250/month last year, which is a far cry from $22k start. I’m also a 47 year old who lives in a three story Ballard townhome. 3 of these replaced 1 SFH, so it’s a good deal for density.
- com2kid 4y ago
  Where did you find that price? All the schools I took a look at started at for infant/toddler care started at 1800/month and went up to 3k/month. This is including independent schools (for example https://www.utcs.org/enroll https://www.utcs.org/enroll) and quality home based programs.
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    We got a spot down the street from our house at Ballard Lutheran, a church-based small non profit. We were paying $1800 before that (in Fremont), which is definitely $22k worthy. We definitely got lucky. I’m still paying $950/month for my kids before and after school care, so that’s high compared to what we were getting before, but it is tough out there. Im also paying $1100/month for my niece’s daycare in…Spokane.
robocat 4y ago
> Almost no one mentions housing's upwards pressure on wages The causation direction is usually that rising wages cause housing price increases (assuming a tight housing market where houses are in high demand). People bid against each other for a house, as much as they can just afford the mortgage repayments. If wages go up, then people can get a bigger mortgage, so they bid up to the amount the limit they can mortgage. I presume a similar effect occurs with rentals - renters compete for limited rental properties and bid up the price to what they can only just manage. Of course, when you have a huge mortgage (or rental bill), you presumably fight to earn more money, but that is a secondary effect.
- com2kid 4y ago
  > The causation direction is usually that rising wages cause housing price increases (assuming a tight housing market where houses are in high demand). 40k people move to Seattle each year. 20k new housing units are built. It is sadistic musical chairs, the losers end up moving out of the city at best, or homeless at worst. The winners are stuck paying a huge % of their salary to keep a roof over their head. When I was looking to buy in 2020, around 10-15 new properties came up for sale in "desirable" neighborhoods (e.g. schools aren't trash) each week. You got to know the same people visiting the open houses each week. It is a complete cluster fuck around here. Drop 100k houses on the market and watch prices go down.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

Daycare in Seattle is expensive but not that expensive yet. We paid $1250/month last year, which is a far cry from $22k start. I’m also a 47 year old who lives in a three story Ballard townhome. 3 of these replaced 1 SFH, so it’s a good deal for density.

com2kid 4y ago
Where did you find that price? All the schools I took a look at started at for infant/toddler care started at 1800/month and went up to 3k/month. This is including independent schools (for example https://www.utcs.org/enroll https://www.utcs.org/enroll) and quality home based programs.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  We got a spot down the street from our house at Ballard Lutheran, a church-based small non profit. We were paying $1800 before that (in Fremont), which is definitely $22k worthy. We definitely got lucky. I’m still paying $950/month for my kids before and after school care, so that’s high compared to what we were getting before, but it is tough out there. Im also paying $1100/month for my niece’s daycare in…Spokane.

robocat 4y ago

> Almost no one mentions housing's upwards pressure on wages The causation direction is usually that rising wages cause housing price increases (assuming a tight housing market where houses are in high demand). People bid against each other for a house, as much as they can just afford the mortgage repayments. If wages go up, then people can get a bigger mortgage, so they bid up to the amount the limit they can mortgage. I presume a similar effect occurs with rentals - renters compete for limited rental properties and bid up the price to what they can only just manage. Of course, when you have a huge mortgage (or rental bill), you presumably fight to earn more money, but that is a secondary effect.

com2kid 4y ago
> The causation direction is usually that rising wages cause housing price increases (assuming a tight housing market where houses are in high demand). 40k people move to Seattle each year. 20k new housing units are built. It is sadistic musical chairs, the losers end up moving out of the city at best, or homeless at worst. The winners are stuck paying a huge % of their salary to keep a roof over their head. When I was looking to buy in 2020, around 10-15 new properties came up for sale in "desirable" neighborhoods (e.g. schools aren't trash) each week. You got to know the same people visiting the open houses each week. It is a complete cluster fuck around here. Drop 100k houses on the market and watch prices go down.