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A few years ago the local university did a study and found that 30% of my town could not afford to live in this town. Last year it was 75%. There are not jobs
by Ccecil 3y ago
A few years ago the local university did a study and found that 30% of my town could not afford to live in this town. Last year it was 75%.
There are not jobs locally which can support the housing cost. Huge influx of people who seem to be purchasing multiple homes. 600 registered vacation rentals just in city limits (estimated closer to 1500 counting unregistered). Entire neighborhoods that only have 1 or 2 full time residents.
My rent went up 20% last year (5 years in the same location) with no improvements made. My parent's house had their tax assessment go up 65% (they are retired, same house for 40+ years).
I know of several companies that all just shut down due to someone purchasing the building where many small shops were operating from and doubled the rent.
It is a shame being able to watch the destruction of the town I grew up in...even worse to know that I won't be able to live here much longer.
Granted it is a vacation destination now...but when I was a kid it was the middle of nowhere where nobody wanted to live, downstream from a superfund site.
Building more houses won't help if they are all used as investment. More developments need to have rules about the housing being used as primary housing, no rentals (short or long term), no flipping the house after 2 years. Focused on people who want to live and build a community long term.
Turning all the affordable housing into hotels while turning vacant hotels into homeless shelters is an insane proposition...but it is currently the reality many cities are facing (see Spokane, WA as example of this exact thing).
- missedthecue 3y ago"building more houses won't help if they are all used as investment" Supply and demand applies to housing as well. If many new units are constructed, both rent and prices go down, even if they are used as investment.
- nradov 3y agoIn theory yes, if they build enough housing so that supply exceeds demand then eventually prices will drop. In practice though in popular vacation areas building smaller amounts of new housing often induces additional demand that drives prices up at an even faster rate.
- missedthecue 3y agoBut we're talking about small towns here not Lake Tahoe
- Ccecil 3y agoWell...My town is Coeur d'alene, ID. So not far off from Tahoe. Although, just 20 years ago people laughed if you told them you were from Idaho. This was the place in the middle of nowhere that nobody wanted to live. The majority of apartments are owned by commercial entities. Smaller individual rentals are being converted to vacation rentals. Commercial rental collusion on a massive scale (empty high priced commercial units all over) causing issues with running a small business. The local real estate people and the newspapers were saying there have been housing prices dropping by 10k/month...but somehow Zillow shows my parent's house gaining 20k. Clearly someone is not telling the truth. June 2020 we had investor groups knocking on doors buying houses at 40% over market value...I spoke with more than one. What will happen when people start to realize that these investments are not panning out? What happens when the large corporate investors (REITs too) start dumping their positions? Maybe it will never happen... Biggest issue is that the illusion people live by is that rents follow market value...but the reality is that rents are set by what people can pay. Most who rent in the area cannot afford increases of 20%/year. If they could...they would be homeowners already. There are not local jobs to support the type of cost of living increases that we are seeing. Not sure there is a solution.