9 ms·

A record number of Americans can't afford rent

50 points by jseliger 3y ago

oldpersonintx 3y ago
[dead]
longtimelistnr 3y ago
The article touches on this point, that many properties for rent are not being maitained in a timely or quality manner. I split $2000 a month in Philadelphia and our property management group doesn't even shovel snow at our building. I can afford it, but I cant pretend that about half my net income going to rent is exactly thrilling
blackt0wer 3y ago
It is worth pointing out that those who cannot afford rent often will not subsidize their situation by renting out extra space and taking on roommates, but instead suffer in isolation living alone. This false premise that "living alone" is some sort of social achievement needs to end.
- foooorsyth 3y ago
  Is there any evidence that more people are attempting to live alone now than in the past (in the US)? Genuine question -- don't know the trend national trend.
  - prasadjoglekar 3y ago
    Avg HH size in the US https://www.statista.com/statistics/183648/average-size-of-households-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/183648/average-size-of-h... Mean is a bit of a misleading number here since the distribution really is discrete - and there are a lot more 1 and 2 person homes today than before, which is contributing to the lower average.
    - Modified3019 3y ago
      Note, these questions are not explicitly aimed at you to try and answer, I’m just throwing out what I’m not clear on Could this really just be showing that less people are marrying and having kids? A further question would what is called a “household” (and how that has changed over time). Is a 4 room house with 4 renters room renter, 4 households or just one by the owner? How does people owning multiple houses affect this number?
  - MattGaiser 3y ago
    https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/06/more-than-a-quarter-all-households-have-one-person.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/06/more-than-a-q... US census has a publication on how single-person households are skyrocketing.
- 2024throwaway 3y ago
  You're assuming these people have "extra space" to rent out to begin with. Many/most do not.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- maximinus_thrax 3y ago
  > It is worth pointing out No, it's not. Let's stop patronizing poor people.
- jurassicfoxy 3y ago
  > This false premise that "living alone" is some sort of social achievement needs to end. I agree. I find the idea of living around other people absolutely detestable, but I do often wonder how much of this is cultural.
  - watwut 3y ago
    It is cultural, because it used to be norm. That being said, that overcrowding did caused quite a lot of social and relational issues. Families want own flats and singles want own rooms for smart reasons.
- stetrain 3y ago
  I have definitely run into condo and townhouse rentals where the HOA or landlord have rules against unrelated residents living in the same unit.
- throwll202402 3y ago
  >It is worth pointing out that those who cannot afford rent often will not subsidize their situation by renting out extra space and taking on roommates small unit (<10) landlord here. fwiw: I explicitly forbid any sort of sublet/short term/airbnb type thing in my leases. think that is the rule vs exception around here. too much abuse potential and problems. so dont just blanket blame tenants. and each unit only can have so many, two plus a kid or two maybe. will say that "cannot afford" does not really come up for me anymore. I will not rent <650 credit score, good savings, income ratio, recommendations, work etc. tenant protections are so strong and courts so backed up now its just wildly expensive to get rid of people. so after two bad experiences of taking a chance now I don't take chances on people would rather have a unit be empty for months then pay 1-2 years or more for a bad tenant. but you are wrong to blame tenants current situation is hard on all sides. painful to impossible to replace/expand old buildings, hard to make things cheaper, good tenants get screwed by bad ones just as good land lords do, bad landlords abuse things, everything is way more inefficient then it should be. everyone just does their best with the various perverse incentives.
  - paulgb 3y ago
    > I will not rent <650 credit score, good savings, income ratio, recommendations, work etc. tenant protections are so strong and courts so backed up now its just wildly expensive to get rid of people. This speaks to a fear of mine, which is that laws meant to protect tenants end up backfiring against tenants because they reduce the pool of landlords willing to rent to them. E.g. from the article: > At the state level, Colorado lawmakers have proposed a bill to limit the reasons for which a landlord can evict a tenant. (fwiw I am not blaming you -- you're not running a charity. Just pointing out the tension between what lawmakers are attempting and the cold reality of the situation.)
    - throwll202402 3y ago
      >This speaks to a fear of mine, which is that laws meant to protect tenants end up backfiring against tenants because they reduce the pool of landlords willing to rent to them. E.g. from the article: yes. really wish "game theory" was something more commonly (ever) in politicians dictionaries. Like not opposed to decent tenant protections at all! but worst words to hear are 4 years after some law "oh we didnt mean for THAT to happen!" like it was friggin obvious it would. think through incentives please!!! there are lots of very reasonable policy goals one could choose, course got my own opinions, but in a democracy can accept if after reasoned debate some other goal is picked. but what sucks is then doing policies that dont help at all vs making things more efficient all around. - a really good fast dedicated "small claims" style judicial system for example. like for ip or corp law in delaware or whatever, if people can resolve matters quickly with quality and without lawyers big expense/risk reduction. - or we got all this crazy 3d scan lidar stuff now right? been very impressed by what even old phones can do, got used iphone cuz cant afford new one and made basic floor plans and point cloud of my house, not perfect but neat. and apparently the real deal are amazing. $30k is too much for one but not actually that expensive at gov level. so imagine states have official neutral service, couple of inspectors each with a fast scan unit, paid for by very low rental tax. as completely normal standard required and no extra cost part of renting a unit and leaving a unit, they come by and just do a scan of the whole thing. everyone signs, takes like 5 minutes. now there is official before/after down to centimeter 3d of entire apartments held by the state. or be paid to come again as part of any dispute. no more debate about "that was already there" on either side, for anyone ever again. single inspector could do dozens or even hundreds per day in an area. would not solve everything but stuff like that would add up in terms of getting facts straight, at low cost. - gov backed insurance for aid programs like section 8 so landlords get made whole for property damage and expenses from the poor, not just rent? dunno. not a genius on this but would like more innovative approaches tried. but if its risky to rent then risky people wont get rented to, more deposit will be requested, or more consolidation. but incentives always will play out in the market. >Just pointing out the tension between what lawmakers are attempting and the cold reality of the situation.) right and define what is "tenant protection" too, like WHICH TENANTS POLITICIANS/ACTIVISTS!?!? because the tenant protections we have now meant it took me 6 months to evict someone yelling racial slurs at other good tenants! it's not always about money. that tenant was well protected from me, but what about the other tenants? racial slurs, domestic screaming fights but not violence are protected speech not like they can sue or have the police arrest them for it. eviction should be the answer lease says you won't ruin other people's enjoyment of their own property but proving stuff is hard. and law compounds. at least we don't live in two party consent state here but if you do and now it is illegal to record them saying slurs now what if no-cause isn't a thing? anyway sorry for the rant. just wish things were better, wish bad landlords got stomped, wish bad tenants could abuse things less too tho.
tmnvix 3y ago
A useful starting point in dealing with this (and the housing crisis in general) would be to determine what proportion of homes are not being used as a primary residence. I suspect it has risen dramatically over the past couple of decades. If it turns out that that is the case, the next step would be to find out why.
- causi 3y ago
  There's something very gross about owning a home you don't live it.
  - tmnvix 3y ago
    In the past, owning a 'second' or 'holiday' home was an expensive proposition - it actually cost you money. For some time now - because of rapid capital gains and the short term rental market - it makes you money. Many more people are willing and able to do it.
    - darkwizard42 3y ago
      Actually, this seems to be largely an American problem. In Europe, Canada, and Mexico (at least just these areas I'm familiar with), it was common to have a cottage or small home in a faraway part of the "countryside" as a mini-vacation home. Definitely wasn't accessible to everyone, but was FAR from the level of wealth needed in America to operate a "second-home"
      - tmnvix 3y ago
        The same applies to New Zealand. Lots of families would own a 'bach' in some remote area near a lake, river, or on the coast. These were typically very basic - what you might call a cabin in North America. Nowadays though, it's common to own that second dwelling in a city or other built up area. Just last week I was talking with a family member (mid-60s, about to retire). They are planning on buying a small apartment in the city their son and grandchildren live in. They are not selling their existing house in another city to do this. They plan to use it only while visiting and have explicitly stated that they see it as an investment. They are by no means 'rich'. 30 years ago this would have been unheard of for people in their position.
sethrin 3y ago
Qu'ils habitent en leur Teslas
nox101 3y ago
In LA there are tons of "co-living" spaces where they're basically renting out bedrooms for $2500-$4000 a month! It's the similar to living with roommates except each roommate has their own lease and you have no choice in who becomes your roommate. I don't know any actual stats, only that in searching for an apartment they came up a lot in searches and I assumed it was partly to make more money (a 3br apartment with 3 people paying $3k each is $9k vs renting the whole apartment for $6k-7k) But, also, rent in general is too damn high and it's lowers the price "for some definition of lower".
- EA-3167 3y ago
  This is inevitable when vast numbers of people all want to live as close to the centers of a handful of major cities as they can. You either build megacities, let the market dictate who can afford to live there, or maybe start seriously realizing that from an economic and environmental point of view... maybe remote work is the solution.
  - lukas099 3y ago
    I'm not convinced remote work is better than the market solution from an environmental point of view. Seems like having people as densely concentrated as they can be is best from an environmental standpoint. Remote is definitely better than the status quo of subsidized suburbs housing car commuters though.
    - rtz121 3y ago
      If we grind down humans into fine dust, we could fit trillions of people into San Francisco.
      - sjwhevvvvvsj 3y ago
        This is a Y Combinator forum, don’t give them ideas, I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody is already shopping out that pitch deck and Sam A is opening his checkbook.
      - 3y ago
briantakita 3y ago
Welcome to the rentier economy. Where less goods are produced & the workers are homeless...While people who own multiple properties extract maximum rent to barely get by themselves.
pyrophane 3y ago
So are landlords making money hand-over-fist or what?
- aorloff 3y ago
  No, because costs are rising and vacancy is rising.
  - MisterBastahrd 3y ago
    Rents are rising far faster than costs. Vacancies are rising because landlords gouge.
    - weard_beard 3y ago
      Maintenance, sewer, trash, mortgage and taxes have doubled or tripled. Get out with this nonsense.
      - monkpit 3y ago
        Mortgage rates do not go up for landlords on existing properties. Get out with this nonsense.
        weard_beard 3y ago
        So one out of the five costs only applies to some properties? How does that make me wrong? You also failed to say, “nothing needs to be fixed at MY property! Why did my rent go up!?” Because it takes several years to save up to replace an HVAC system or a rotten deck or plumbing failure and I have to charge based on the projected cost.
        monkpit 3y ago
        Sewer, trash are negligible compared to the cost of rent. If they double you’re looking at rent going up by around 3% and that’s if the landlord isn’t making the renter pay those fees directly. Maintenance costs and taxes are the only ones that could be a factor out of your original 5 - your point is drowned out by the poor supporting facts. And taxes aren’t even going up, just the valuation of the properties - which drives higher rent anyways. And since you’re a landlord, you should have a maintenance plan that would reimburse you for things like HVAC.
tootie 3y ago
Idk why this is such a mysterious or unexpected thing. Housing construction crashed through the earth following the subprime crisis and the deficit in available housing has not yet recovered. Prices are up due almost entirely to supply and demand. Current pace indicates the problem will probably sort itself out in a few years barring any further disaster. Some YIMBYism could speed it up. https://www.axios.com/2023/12/16/housing-market-why-homes-expensive-chart-inventory https://www.axios.com/2023/12/16/housing-market-why-homes-ex...
- waqf 3y ago
  I assume you're referring to the graph on the page you linked. Is there an explanation somewhere of exactly how it is calculated? I tried to read the "article" underneath the graph but it just seems to be a disjointed collection of assertions strung together with inappropriate connectives and insane formatting.
  - tootie 3y ago
    The caption is a little vague, but it says the source is census data by which they mean the US Census Bureau which does an estimate of housing every year. Moodys has a more technical analysis if you have patience to read it all using both census and realtor data: https://cre.moodysanalytics.com/insights/cre-news/one-good-year-does-not-solve-americas-housing-shortage/ https://cre.moodysanalytics.com/insights/cre-news/one-good-y...
cglan 3y ago
This is basically the late stage of us continually not building enough housing for years and years. I'm not sure how anyone thought this would turn out differently. As long as housing is an "investment", which in turn means that people lock up big portions of their net worth into housing, and then vote against policies that would make housing cheaper (it's the rational thing to do) then this will be the outcome. Just look at the 30 year fixed rate mortgages. They're an insane subsidization for homeowners. This is not to say that people shouldn't own their homes. I think in an ideal world, most people would own, or even all people would own and the market would just be liquid in terms of selling and buying. I think ownership has a lot of downstream benefits to communities, but by enacting so many policies to safeguard owning as an investment we've basically killed homeownership in the future. Edit: 30 year fixed rate mortgages are just an example, there's tons of other issues. We've basically given homeowners the keys to power to fight back against any and all building developments. Zoning too is part of the issue, and is frequently used to fight back against building. If you want change, vote for a land value tax which is a good start to aligning incentives properly
- gottorf 3y ago
  > This is basically the late stage of us continually not building enough housing for years and years. I'm not sure how anyone thought this would turn out differently. Absolutely! Build more housing, at any price level[0], and rents will stop growing and maybe even come down. [0]: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4629628 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4629628
- gcgbcfy 3y ago
  This has been disproven so many times. There’s more vacant homes in the US than homeless people. But homes == money. As someone who is a real estate investor, it’s no secret, we are jacking up the prices. It’s what we do for a living.
  - gottorf 3y ago
    > This has been disproven so many times. There’s more vacant homes in the US than homeless people. It hasn't been disproven. There being more vacant homes than homeless people just means that the market isn't clearing, because the minimum price acceptable to the landlord is higher than the maximum price acceptable to the homeless. This could be from any number of reasons, none of which "disprove" the fact that the laws of supply and demand do in fact apply to housing. As an analogy, there are always jobless people even when there are vacant positions to fill. Why? Because of a mismatch between the price of labor, which is artificially inflated by minimum wage laws and another hundred laws and regulations that make it costlier to employ someone, and the economic value generated by that labor.
wnc3141 3y ago
Ultimately there has been a substantial shift from the wealth made from income opposed to returns on capital. This is just an illustration of that. I think this chart explains much of the disfunction in multiple arenas of American life. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W270RE1A156NBEA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W270RE1A156NBEA
darkwizard42 3y ago
Looking to learn more on the subject, but why isn't it in the interest of any city these days to NOT build more housing? They are almost perfectly incentivized to attract working young people and families to help increase their tax base (property tax, income tax, sales tax) and housing would help them do that. Given most large cities are facing huge financial deficits, wouldn't this make sense? (Yes, I'm aware of regulatory capture and the inefficiency of local government, but shouldn't there be SOME common sense?)
- alexsereno 3y ago
  This is quite simple, cities are run by voters. Any property owner, and all the landlords, are incentivized to keep housing stock as low as possible. To get around this you need federal housing regulation to prevent local governments from doing what’s clearly in their loudest voters best interest, and instead change the incentives to favor building high rise condos and dense housing
- ipnon 3y ago
  The city is incentivized to increase housing supply, but the voters are not because their individual net worths are mostly in their home prices. Since a city is really just a set of geographically constrained voters, housing supply decreases.
  - dmazzoni 3y ago
    In my city in California, developers are replacing old single-family homes with multi-family (apartments, condos, townhomes). It's great, it's needed. Every time a new development gets started in our neighborhood, Facebook neighbor groups explode. The older generations hate how it's ruining the character of the neighborhood. The younger generations ask where the fuck they're supposed to live when prices are so high. Thankfully, in the last few years it feels like the YIMBY voices are getting a lot louder.
    - Gibbon1 3y ago
      A 12 unit apartment looks better than 12 tents surrounded by trash.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
micromacrofoot 3y ago
We've incentivized homeowners preventing the construction of new housing, it would be surprising if there were any other outcome.
MisterBastahrd 3y ago
After WWII, the US government made it a point that returning service members needed a place to stay and so they subsidized the building of homes across the country. If landlords have decided as a bloc that they need to gouge the living crap out of their tenants, then the government should step in and either put in price controls or spend a few hundred billion a year to subsidize new housing. If we can throw $50B at Israel and $60B at Ukraine, then we can spend $100B on homes for our citizens.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
janalsncm 3y ago
It’s pretty sinister that home owners can get a tax deduction but renters cannot deduct rent.
- ejb999 3y ago
  some states (like Mass) do allow a renters deduction on your state taxes
  - harambae 3y ago
    The total renters deduction in Massachusetts cannot exceed $4k, quite low compared to some of the tax advantages of a home.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  In a functioning/competitive market, wouldn't that tax break get passed along to the tenant through lower monthly rents? IE, the problem isn't the tax break, it's the constraint on housing supply.
shuntress 3y ago
My extreme political opinion is that no one should be allowed to own more than one property in which they do not reside.
- janalsncm 3y ago
  Even a less “extreme” version would be: you pay 2x property taxes on your second home, 3x on your third etc. Sorted from lowest to highest property tax. So if your property tax on the first house (chronologically) is $1, and the property tax on the second is $5, you pay 1 + 5x2 = $11.
  - shuntress 3y ago
    Not "Homes" (As in, properties in which you reside). Those could be taxed at the normal rate. I'm talking about anyone (including individual corporations) owning more than one property in which they do reside.
yonran 3y ago
I’m surprised by all the anti-landlord talk in this forum. If we “increase in property taxes for home which are not the primary residence”, or prohibit “own[ing] more than one property in which they do not reside”, these are policies that give an advantage to homeownership over renting but do not stimulate new supply. So they may lower house sale prices but only at the expense of raising the rent, exacerbating the problem that the article is about. If you want the rent to go down, you should make it profitable for investors to build lots of supply of housing, rental or ownership. Lots of non-owner-occupied houses is a good thing if you rent.
- effingwewt 3y ago
  With limited supply that means every single landlord is keeping renters from owning. How about people invest in businesses and not things we need to exist.
  - yonran 3y ago
    Again, the article is about rents being too high. If you force investors to sell existing housing stock to owner-occupiers, what direction do rents go? Up. If you are anti-rental property investor, then you are also anti-renter. Instead of pitting renters against homeowners, think of policies that reduce costs for both renters and homeowners by adding supply. E.g., relax zoning to raise height limits and allow apartments, allow more worker visas and encourage people to work in the trades, subsidize construction loans.
    - effingwewt 3y ago
      Again. Housing should not be an investment full stop. Every single landlord is stopping somone from owning a home. If people need to rent we can offer apartments. This isn't rocket science.
      - yonran 3y ago
        I see now that you are making the distinction between single-family homes, which are primarily owner-occupied, and multifamily homes, which are primarily rental, and you are saying that the shift of some single-family homes to rental is a bad thing. First, there’s nothing wrong with a household buying a condo or renting a single-family house, so I don’t see why one should be banned. But to explain the increasing share of rental housing, the book Kevin Erdmann, Building from the Ground Up explains that the problem is not investors overinvesting in houses, but residents who are locked out of the mortgage market due to post-Great Financial Crisis regulations that killed the homebuilding industry across the country. If residents had the same access to credit that they did before the GFC, then they would be able to outcompete investors. There’s no point in suppressing rental investment just because we mistakenly suppressed mortgages. But whether you are looking to buy or looking to rent, more supply helps, so that is the underlying problem to address.
nritchie 3y ago
1. Zoning laws limit supply 2. Trickle down economics doesn't
6510 3y ago
I had the fun idea to fix the minimum wage to the price of the average house in some radius. Say 10 km. It use to be that you could buy a house for 1-3 years of salary. If a house costs on average 360 000 the monthly salary should be 10 000. It doesn't have to happen abruptly, it can gradually phase in. The fun angle is that having rich people build in the area everyone benefits. If a lot of cheap housing is build people will leave for places with better salaries but others will enjoy the access to cheap labor.

50 points by jseliger 3y ago

[dead]

The article touches on this point, that many properties for rent are not being maitained in a timely or quality manner. I split $2000 a month in Philadelphia and our property management group doesn't even shovel snow at our building. I can afford it, but I cant pretend that about half my net income going to rent is exactly thrilling

blackt0wer 3y ago

It is worth pointing out that those who cannot afford rent often will not subsidize their situation by renting out extra space and taking on roommates, but instead suffer in isolation living alone. This false premise that "living alone" is some sort of social achievement needs to end.

foooorsyth 3y ago
Is there any evidence that more people are attempting to live alone now than in the past (in the US)? Genuine question -- don't know the trend national trend.
- prasadjoglekar 3y ago
  Avg HH size in the US https://www.statista.com/statistics/183648/average-size-of-households-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/183648/average-size-of-h... Mean is a bit of a misleading number here since the distribution really is discrete - and there are a lot more 1 and 2 person homes today than before, which is contributing to the lower average.
  - Modified3019 3y ago
    Note, these questions are not explicitly aimed at you to try and answer, I’m just throwing out what I’m not clear on Could this really just be showing that less people are marrying and having kids? A further question would what is called a “household” (and how that has changed over time). Is a 4 room house with 4 renters room renter, 4 households or just one by the owner? How does people owning multiple houses affect this number?
- MattGaiser 3y ago
  https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/06/more-than-a-quarter-all-households-have-one-person.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/06/more-than-a-q... US census has a publication on how single-person households are skyrocketing.
2024throwaway 3y ago
You're assuming these people have "extra space" to rent out to begin with. Many/most do not.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
maximinus_thrax 3y ago
> It is worth pointing out No, it's not. Let's stop patronizing poor people.
jurassicfoxy 3y ago
> This false premise that "living alone" is some sort of social achievement needs to end. I agree. I find the idea of living around other people absolutely detestable, but I do often wonder how much of this is cultural.
- watwut 3y ago
  It is cultural, because it used to be norm. That being said, that overcrowding did caused quite a lot of social and relational issues. Families want own flats and singles want own rooms for smart reasons.
stetrain 3y ago
I have definitely run into condo and townhouse rentals where the HOA or landlord have rules against unrelated residents living in the same unit.
throwll202402 3y ago
>It is worth pointing out that those who cannot afford rent often will not subsidize their situation by renting out extra space and taking on roommates small unit (<10) landlord here. fwiw: I explicitly forbid any sort of sublet/short term/airbnb type thing in my leases. think that is the rule vs exception around here. too much abuse potential and problems. so dont just blanket blame tenants. and each unit only can have so many, two plus a kid or two maybe. will say that "cannot afford" does not really come up for me anymore. I will not rent <650 credit score, good savings, income ratio, recommendations, work etc. tenant protections are so strong and courts so backed up now its just wildly expensive to get rid of people. so after two bad experiences of taking a chance now I don't take chances on people would rather have a unit be empty for months then pay 1-2 years or more for a bad tenant. but you are wrong to blame tenants current situation is hard on all sides. painful to impossible to replace/expand old buildings, hard to make things cheaper, good tenants get screwed by bad ones just as good land lords do, bad landlords abuse things, everything is way more inefficient then it should be. everyone just does their best with the various perverse incentives.
- paulgb 3y ago
  > I will not rent <650 credit score, good savings, income ratio, recommendations, work etc. tenant protections are so strong and courts so backed up now its just wildly expensive to get rid of people. This speaks to a fear of mine, which is that laws meant to protect tenants end up backfiring against tenants because they reduce the pool of landlords willing to rent to them. E.g. from the article: > At the state level, Colorado lawmakers have proposed a bill to limit the reasons for which a landlord can evict a tenant. (fwiw I am not blaming you -- you're not running a charity. Just pointing out the tension between what lawmakers are attempting and the cold reality of the situation.)
  - throwll202402 3y ago
    >This speaks to a fear of mine, which is that laws meant to protect tenants end up backfiring against tenants because they reduce the pool of landlords willing to rent to them. E.g. from the article: yes. really wish "game theory" was something more commonly (ever) in politicians dictionaries. Like not opposed to decent tenant protections at all! but worst words to hear are 4 years after some law "oh we didnt mean for THAT to happen!" like it was friggin obvious it would. think through incentives please!!! there are lots of very reasonable policy goals one could choose, course got my own opinions, but in a democracy can accept if after reasoned debate some other goal is picked. but what sucks is then doing policies that dont help at all vs making things more efficient all around. - a really good fast dedicated "small claims" style judicial system for example. like for ip or corp law in delaware or whatever, if people can resolve matters quickly with quality and without lawyers big expense/risk reduction. - or we got all this crazy 3d scan lidar stuff now right? been very impressed by what even old phones can do, got used iphone cuz cant afford new one and made basic floor plans and point cloud of my house, not perfect but neat. and apparently the real deal are amazing. $30k is too much for one but not actually that expensive at gov level. so imagine states have official neutral service, couple of inspectors each with a fast scan unit, paid for by very low rental tax. as completely normal standard required and no extra cost part of renting a unit and leaving a unit, they come by and just do a scan of the whole thing. everyone signs, takes like 5 minutes. now there is official before/after down to centimeter 3d of entire apartments held by the state. or be paid to come again as part of any dispute. no more debate about "that was already there" on either side, for anyone ever again. single inspector could do dozens or even hundreds per day in an area. would not solve everything but stuff like that would add up in terms of getting facts straight, at low cost. - gov backed insurance for aid programs like section 8 so landlords get made whole for property damage and expenses from the poor, not just rent? dunno. not a genius on this but would like more innovative approaches tried. but if its risky to rent then risky people wont get rented to, more deposit will be requested, or more consolidation. but incentives always will play out in the market. >Just pointing out the tension between what lawmakers are attempting and the cold reality of the situation.) right and define what is "tenant protection" too, like WHICH TENANTS POLITICIANS/ACTIVISTS!?!? because the tenant protections we have now meant it took me 6 months to evict someone yelling racial slurs at other good tenants! it's not always about money. that tenant was well protected from me, but what about the other tenants? racial slurs, domestic screaming fights but not violence are protected speech not like they can sue or have the police arrest them for it. eviction should be the answer lease says you won't ruin other people's enjoyment of their own property but proving stuff is hard. and law compounds. at least we don't live in two party consent state here but if you do and now it is illegal to record them saying slurs now what if no-cause isn't a thing? anyway sorry for the rant. just wish things were better, wish bad landlords got stomped, wish bad tenants could abuse things less too tho.

tmnvix 3y ago

A useful starting point in dealing with this (and the housing crisis in general) would be to determine what proportion of homes are not being used as a primary residence. I suspect it has risen dramatically over the past couple of decades. If it turns out that that is the case, the next step would be to find out why.

causi 3y ago
There's something very gross about owning a home you don't live it.
- tmnvix 3y ago
  In the past, owning a 'second' or 'holiday' home was an expensive proposition - it actually cost you money. For some time now - because of rapid capital gains and the short term rental market - it makes you money. Many more people are willing and able to do it.
  - darkwizard42 3y ago
    Actually, this seems to be largely an American problem. In Europe, Canada, and Mexico (at least just these areas I'm familiar with), it was common to have a cottage or small home in a faraway part of the "countryside" as a mini-vacation home. Definitely wasn't accessible to everyone, but was FAR from the level of wealth needed in America to operate a "second-home"
    - tmnvix 3y ago
      The same applies to New Zealand. Lots of families would own a 'bach' in some remote area near a lake, river, or on the coast. These were typically very basic - what you might call a cabin in North America. Nowadays though, it's common to own that second dwelling in a city or other built up area. Just last week I was talking with a family member (mid-60s, about to retire). They are planning on buying a small apartment in the city their son and grandchildren live in. They are not selling their existing house in another city to do this. They plan to use it only while visiting and have explicitly stated that they see it as an investment. They are by no means 'rich'. 30 years ago this would have been unheard of for people in their position.

sethrin 3y ago

Qu'ils habitent en leur Teslas

nox101 3y ago

In LA there are tons of "co-living" spaces where they're basically renting out bedrooms for $2500-$4000 a month! It's the similar to living with roommates except each roommate has their own lease and you have no choice in who becomes your roommate. I don't know any actual stats, only that in searching for an apartment they came up a lot in searches and I assumed it was partly to make more money (a 3br apartment with 3 people paying $3k each is $9k vs renting the whole apartment for $6k-7k) But, also, rent in general is too damn high and it's lowers the price "for some definition of lower".

EA-3167 3y ago
This is inevitable when vast numbers of people all want to live as close to the centers of a handful of major cities as they can. You either build megacities, let the market dictate who can afford to live there, or maybe start seriously realizing that from an economic and environmental point of view... maybe remote work is the solution.
- lukas099 3y ago
  I'm not convinced remote work is better than the market solution from an environmental point of view. Seems like having people as densely concentrated as they can be is best from an environmental standpoint. Remote is definitely better than the status quo of subsidized suburbs housing car commuters though.
  - rtz121 3y ago
    If we grind down humans into fine dust, we could fit trillions of people into San Francisco.
    - sjwhevvvvvsj 3y ago
      This is a Y Combinator forum, don’t give them ideas, I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody is already shopping out that pitch deck and Sam A is opening his checkbook.
    - 3y ago

briantakita 3y ago

Welcome to the rentier economy. Where less goods are produced & the workers are homeless...While people who own multiple properties extract maximum rent to barely get by themselves.

pyrophane 3y ago

So are landlords making money hand-over-fist or what?

aorloff 3y ago
No, because costs are rising and vacancy is rising.
- MisterBastahrd 3y ago
  Rents are rising far faster than costs. Vacancies are rising because landlords gouge.
  - weard_beard 3y ago
    Maintenance, sewer, trash, mortgage and taxes have doubled or tripled. Get out with this nonsense.
    - monkpit 3y ago
      Mortgage rates do not go up for landlords on existing properties. Get out with this nonsense.
      - weard_beard 3y ago
        So one out of the five costs only applies to some properties? How does that make me wrong? You also failed to say, “nothing needs to be fixed at MY property! Why did my rent go up!?” Because it takes several years to save up to replace an HVAC system or a rotten deck or plumbing failure and I have to charge based on the projected cost.
        monkpit 3y ago
        Sewer, trash are negligible compared to the cost of rent. If they double you’re looking at rent going up by around 3% and that’s if the landlord isn’t making the renter pay those fees directly. Maintenance costs and taxes are the only ones that could be a factor out of your original 5 - your point is drowned out by the poor supporting facts. And taxes aren’t even going up, just the valuation of the properties - which drives higher rent anyways. And since you’re a landlord, you should have a maintenance plan that would reimburse you for things like HVAC.

tootie 3y ago

Idk why this is such a mysterious or unexpected thing. Housing construction crashed through the earth following the subprime crisis and the deficit in available housing has not yet recovered. Prices are up due almost entirely to supply and demand. Current pace indicates the problem will probably sort itself out in a few years barring any further disaster. Some YIMBYism could speed it up. https://www.axios.com/2023/12/16/housing-market-why-homes-expensive-chart-inventory https://www.axios.com/2023/12/16/housing-market-why-homes-ex...

waqf 3y ago
I assume you're referring to the graph on the page you linked. Is there an explanation somewhere of exactly how it is calculated? I tried to read the "article" underneath the graph but it just seems to be a disjointed collection of assertions strung together with inappropriate connectives and insane formatting.
- tootie 3y ago
  The caption is a little vague, but it says the source is census data by which they mean the US Census Bureau which does an estimate of housing every year. Moodys has a more technical analysis if you have patience to read it all using both census and realtor data: https://cre.moodysanalytics.com/insights/cre-news/one-good-year-does-not-solve-americas-housing-shortage/ https://cre.moodysanalytics.com/insights/cre-news/one-good-y...

cglan 3y ago

This is basically the late stage of us continually not building enough housing for years and years. I'm not sure how anyone thought this would turn out differently. As long as housing is an "investment", which in turn means that people lock up big portions of their net worth into housing, and then vote against policies that would make housing cheaper (it's the rational thing to do) then this will be the outcome. Just look at the 30 year fixed rate mortgages. They're an insane subsidization for homeowners. This is not to say that people shouldn't own their homes. I think in an ideal world, most people would own, or even all people would own and the market would just be liquid in terms of selling and buying. I think ownership has a lot of downstream benefits to communities, but by enacting so many policies to safeguard owning as an investment we've basically killed homeownership in the future. Edit: 30 year fixed rate mortgages are just an example, there's tons of other issues. We've basically given homeowners the keys to power to fight back against any and all building developments. Zoning too is part of the issue, and is frequently used to fight back against building. If you want change, vote for a land value tax which is a good start to aligning incentives properly

gottorf 3y ago
> This is basically the late stage of us continually not building enough housing for years and years. I'm not sure how anyone thought this would turn out differently. Absolutely! Build more housing, at any price level[0], and rents will stop growing and maybe even come down. [0]: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4629628 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4629628
gcgbcfy 3y ago
This has been disproven so many times. There’s more vacant homes in the US than homeless people. But homes == money. As someone who is a real estate investor, it’s no secret, we are jacking up the prices. It’s what we do for a living.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > This has been disproven so many times. There’s more vacant homes in the US than homeless people. It hasn't been disproven. There being more vacant homes than homeless people just means that the market isn't clearing, because the minimum price acceptable to the landlord is higher than the maximum price acceptable to the homeless. This could be from any number of reasons, none of which "disprove" the fact that the laws of supply and demand do in fact apply to housing. As an analogy, there are always jobless people even when there are vacant positions to fill. Why? Because of a mismatch between the price of labor, which is artificially inflated by minimum wage laws and another hundred laws and regulations that make it costlier to employ someone, and the economic value generated by that labor.

wnc3141 3y ago

Ultimately there has been a substantial shift from the wealth made from income opposed to returns on capital. This is just an illustration of that. I think this chart explains much of the disfunction in multiple arenas of American life. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W270RE1A156NBEA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W270RE1A156NBEA

darkwizard42 3y ago

Looking to learn more on the subject, but why isn't it in the interest of any city these days to NOT build more housing? They are almost perfectly incentivized to attract working young people and families to help increase their tax base (property tax, income tax, sales tax) and housing would help them do that. Given most large cities are facing huge financial deficits, wouldn't this make sense? (Yes, I'm aware of regulatory capture and the inefficiency of local government, but shouldn't there be SOME common sense?)

alexsereno 3y ago
This is quite simple, cities are run by voters. Any property owner, and all the landlords, are incentivized to keep housing stock as low as possible. To get around this you need federal housing regulation to prevent local governments from doing what’s clearly in their loudest voters best interest, and instead change the incentives to favor building high rise condos and dense housing
ipnon 3y ago
The city is incentivized to increase housing supply, but the voters are not because their individual net worths are mostly in their home prices. Since a city is really just a set of geographically constrained voters, housing supply decreases.
- dmazzoni 3y ago
  In my city in California, developers are replacing old single-family homes with multi-family (apartments, condos, townhomes). It's great, it's needed. Every time a new development gets started in our neighborhood, Facebook neighbor groups explode. The older generations hate how it's ruining the character of the neighborhood. The younger generations ask where the fuck they're supposed to live when prices are so high. Thankfully, in the last few years it feels like the YIMBY voices are getting a lot louder.
  - Gibbon1 3y ago
    A 12 unit apartment looks better than 12 tents surrounded by trash.

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micromacrofoot 3y ago

We've incentivized homeowners preventing the construction of new housing, it would be surprising if there were any other outcome.

MisterBastahrd 3y ago

After WWII, the US government made it a point that returning service members needed a place to stay and so they subsidized the building of homes across the country. If landlords have decided as a bloc that they need to gouge the living crap out of their tenants, then the government should step in and either put in price controls or spend a few hundred billion a year to subsidize new housing. If we can throw $50B at Israel and $60B at Ukraine, then we can spend $100B on homes for our citizens.

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janalsncm 3y ago

It’s pretty sinister that home owners can get a tax deduction but renters cannot deduct rent.

ejb999 3y ago
some states (like Mass) do allow a renters deduction on your state taxes
- harambae 3y ago
  The total renters deduction in Massachusetts cannot exceed $4k, quite low compared to some of the tax advantages of a home.
alistairSH 3y ago
In a functioning/competitive market, wouldn't that tax break get passed along to the tenant through lower monthly rents? IE, the problem isn't the tax break, it's the constraint on housing supply.

shuntress 3y ago

My extreme political opinion is that no one should be allowed to own more than one property in which they do not reside.

janalsncm 3y ago
Even a less “extreme” version would be: you pay 2x property taxes on your second home, 3x on your third etc. Sorted from lowest to highest property tax. So if your property tax on the first house (chronologically) is $1, and the property tax on the second is $5, you pay 1 + 5x2 = $11.
- shuntress 3y ago
  Not "Homes" (As in, properties in which you reside). Those could be taxed at the normal rate. I'm talking about anyone (including individual corporations) owning more than one property in which they do reside.

yonran 3y ago

I’m surprised by all the anti-landlord talk in this forum. If we “increase in property taxes for home which are not the primary residence”, or prohibit “own[ing] more than one property in which they do not reside”, these are policies that give an advantage to homeownership over renting but do not stimulate new supply. So they may lower house sale prices but only at the expense of raising the rent, exacerbating the problem that the article is about. If you want the rent to go down, you should make it profitable for investors to build lots of supply of housing, rental or ownership. Lots of non-owner-occupied houses is a good thing if you rent.

effingwewt 3y ago
With limited supply that means every single landlord is keeping renters from owning. How about people invest in businesses and not things we need to exist.
- yonran 3y ago
  Again, the article is about rents being too high. If you force investors to sell existing housing stock to owner-occupiers, what direction do rents go? Up. If you are anti-rental property investor, then you are also anti-renter. Instead of pitting renters against homeowners, think of policies that reduce costs for both renters and homeowners by adding supply. E.g., relax zoning to raise height limits and allow apartments, allow more worker visas and encourage people to work in the trades, subsidize construction loans.
  - effingwewt 3y ago
    Again. Housing should not be an investment full stop. Every single landlord is stopping somone from owning a home. If people need to rent we can offer apartments. This isn't rocket science.
    - yonran 3y ago
      I see now that you are making the distinction between single-family homes, which are primarily owner-occupied, and multifamily homes, which are primarily rental, and you are saying that the shift of some single-family homes to rental is a bad thing. First, there’s nothing wrong with a household buying a condo or renting a single-family house, so I don’t see why one should be banned. But to explain the increasing share of rental housing, the book Kevin Erdmann, Building from the Ground Up explains that the problem is not investors overinvesting in houses, but residents who are locked out of the mortgage market due to post-Great Financial Crisis regulations that killed the homebuilding industry across the country. If residents had the same access to credit that they did before the GFC, then they would be able to outcompete investors. There’s no point in suppressing rental investment just because we mistakenly suppressed mortgages. But whether you are looking to buy or looking to rent, more supply helps, so that is the underlying problem to address.

nritchie 3y ago

1. Zoning laws limit supply 2. Trickle down economics doesn't

6510 3y ago

I had the fun idea to fix the minimum wage to the price of the average house in some radius. Say 10 km. It use to be that you could buy a house for 1-3 years of salary. If a house costs on average 360 000 the monthly salary should be 10 000. It doesn't have to happen abruptly, it can gradually phase in. The fun angle is that having rich people build in the area everyone benefits. If a lot of cheap housing is build people will leave for places with better salaries but others will enjoy the access to cheap labor.