4 ms·

rich people problems

by kidneystereotyp 2y ago

bdangubic 2y ago
you expected many poor people here on HN? :)
- riku_iki 2y ago
  not rich enough to drop low interest mortgage rate.
pixelatedindex 2y ago
More like I need to be rich to move to where my friends are - I went to college in the Bay Area and I can’t afford to live there. But honestly it’s not hard to keep in touch these days if you want to so I’m not the least bit bothered. As a renter, I’m constantly on the move because I can’t afford homeownership - the price to rent ratio is firmly between 19 and 20 at the moment, and that’s after moving from the Bay Area. Buying is a minimum of a 48% increase here in Seattle, that absurd.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  > More like I need to be rich to move to where my friends are Like most folks, we live where we can. Being able to pick a spot on a map has never been a possibility. It's been tighter than that tho. In 2021 we beat loooong odds to find any housing and insane odds to score a decent place that fit all of us. People with money in the bank were going homeless.
  - kidneystereotyp 2y ago
    [dead]
    - pixelatedindex 2y ago
      > i dont think finding a place in city like SF should be considered long odds lol To rent or to buy? Because those are vastly different things in today’s economy. Rent, sure - you can find one. Buying? You need 250K+ saved and jobs that lets you pay 8K/mo for at least 10 years. But I do agree that people in areas with high RE who own a home and two cars shouldn’t be included in the poor category. That’s easily 1M in assets.
    - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
      > what were the long odds please do tell These were the calculable factors for this area, in mid 2021. Each rental listing had ~400 unique applicants per day. For total number of rentals, a generous est is ~100 new listings per month in the 3 counties we searched. In our 4 mo of searching (of a 6mo window) I found 2 good fits but 1 was at the extreme end of affordability. For a decade of complex reasons (inc. extreme poverty, responsible spending and unforeseen changes in the rental market) I had a ~0 credit rating. That rules out most/all software managed rentals - over 95% from what I can glean. The ad for the rental we scored inc a crayon layout on lined paper. It was posted for 2 hrs and received >50 applicants. We scored it by offering 6mos up front plus a 2x sec dep. Having that much money on hand followed another set of timely and unlikely circumstances. The long odds, they are whatever all the above maths out to.
    - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
      > eugenics, poisoning, dictatorships, genocide, identity theft, torture, blackmail while moving. No. > simply wanting to live in a specific area? Needing to live where existing jobs/clients were, for our multi-income household. Moving anywhere else at all would have stranded us without reasonable prospects.
- em-bee 2y ago
  why does renting force you to move? how does owning a home allow you to stay if other considerations may force you to sell the house and buy another one? my mother lives in a rental apartment that my family has been in since 150 years ago.
  - linguae 2y ago
    When I was 12 years old, we had to leave a rental house because the landlord sold it. It was very disruptive for us since my parents were low-income and didn’t have much savings. It also took place at a time when market rents increased quite a bit. My parents struggled to find housing; we moved into an apartment temporarily, and two months later we finally found another house to rent that we could afford, but it was in a more dangerous neighborhood. I recently moved out of an apartment complex in Santa Cruz County in California that got sold after being owned by a family for about 50 years. Some of the tenants lived there for decades. The new owners submitted plans to the local government to upzone the 1960s-era apartment complex, which will involve residents needing to move during construction. Thankfully for me, the sale coincided with a major career change (WFH researcher to a professor who teaches in person) that required me to move anyway, so I moved. However, I feel for long-time residents of my former apartment complex going through the uncertainty of the future and the difficult housing market in Santa Cruz County should they be forced to move. Renting, by definition, means you don’t own your place. While there are some people who are able to have stable renting situations, there are others who have the bad luck of receiving an eviction notice due to a sale. Owning a place means not having to worry about a landlord.
    - em-bee 2y ago
      that's only true in the US though. most other countries have better renter protection. my point was that it's not just renting that forces you to move. you moved yourself because of a job. if you had owned a house you would have had to sell it at that point.
      - pixelatedindex 2y ago
        Well for one, I am in the US. Secondly if you owned a house you can rent it out - you don’t have to sell it. It’s a better deal especially in the Bay Area since property taxes are capped. Thirdly, I move to find better deals on rent - many places I’ve lived don’t have rent control so moving is really the only option to keep costs as low as possible. I moved states because of a job, but within the Bay Area it’s the only way to keep up a desirable savings rate. Also, try commuting from SF to SJ every day. It’s an incredible waste of time, particularly if you don’t live near the Caltrain (and now BART) corridor.
xhkkffbf 2y ago
Rilly? In my experience, many of the rich people are isolated and paralyzed by concerns about status and wealth and family connections and .... It's the poor who are often able to put those issues aside because they have so little status and wealth. They have nothing to lose.
- devonkim 2y ago
  Resources are not always in terms of material terms. Poor people with family, friends, associates, familiarity of a region, etc. stay there. What's a bit unique for American migration patterns in the past 60-ish years people have become less and less mobile for economic opportunities and the cultural shift has sometimes become more resentful toward those that feel betrayed by those leaving regions for better economic opportunities. In a lot of countries people are happy and even envious of those leaving their areas of origin. The underlying reasons for lack of mobility is another heatedly debated topic altogether but there's absolutely plenty of things the poor, particularly rural ones, absolutely have plenty to lose.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  A granular housing choice is a privilege not afforded to poor people. They live where they can, typically in places heavy with compromise.

rich people problems

bdangubic 2y ago

you expected many poor people here on HN? :)

riku_iki 2y ago
not rich enough to drop low interest mortgage rate.

pixelatedindex 2y ago

More like I need to be rich to move to where my friends are - I went to college in the Bay Area and I can’t afford to live there. But honestly it’s not hard to keep in touch these days if you want to so I’m not the least bit bothered. As a renter, I’m constantly on the move because I can’t afford homeownership - the price to rent ratio is firmly between 19 and 20 at the moment, and that’s after moving from the Bay Area. Buying is a minimum of a 48% increase here in Seattle, that absurd.

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
> More like I need to be rich to move to where my friends are Like most folks, we live where we can. Being able to pick a spot on a map has never been a possibility. It's been tighter than that tho. In 2021 we beat loooong odds to find any housing and insane odds to score a decent place that fit all of us. People with money in the bank were going homeless.
- kidneystereotyp 2y ago
  [dead]
  - pixelatedindex 2y ago
    > i dont think finding a place in city like SF should be considered long odds lol To rent or to buy? Because those are vastly different things in today’s economy. Rent, sure - you can find one. Buying? You need 250K+ saved and jobs that lets you pay 8K/mo for at least 10 years. But I do agree that people in areas with high RE who own a home and two cars shouldn’t be included in the poor category. That’s easily 1M in assets.
  - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
    > what were the long odds please do tell These were the calculable factors for this area, in mid 2021. Each rental listing had ~400 unique applicants per day. For total number of rentals, a generous est is ~100 new listings per month in the 3 counties we searched. In our 4 mo of searching (of a 6mo window) I found 2 good fits but 1 was at the extreme end of affordability. For a decade of complex reasons (inc. extreme poverty, responsible spending and unforeseen changes in the rental market) I had a ~0 credit rating. That rules out most/all software managed rentals - over 95% from what I can glean. The ad for the rental we scored inc a crayon layout on lined paper. It was posted for 2 hrs and received >50 applicants. We scored it by offering 6mos up front plus a 2x sec dep. Having that much money on hand followed another set of timely and unlikely circumstances. The long odds, they are whatever all the above maths out to.
  - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
    > eugenics, poisoning, dictatorships, genocide, identity theft, torture, blackmail while moving. No. > simply wanting to live in a specific area? Needing to live where existing jobs/clients were, for our multi-income household. Moving anywhere else at all would have stranded us without reasonable prospects.
em-bee 2y ago
why does renting force you to move? how does owning a home allow you to stay if other considerations may force you to sell the house and buy another one? my mother lives in a rental apartment that my family has been in since 150 years ago.
- linguae 2y ago
  When I was 12 years old, we had to leave a rental house because the landlord sold it. It was very disruptive for us since my parents were low-income and didn’t have much savings. It also took place at a time when market rents increased quite a bit. My parents struggled to find housing; we moved into an apartment temporarily, and two months later we finally found another house to rent that we could afford, but it was in a more dangerous neighborhood. I recently moved out of an apartment complex in Santa Cruz County in California that got sold after being owned by a family for about 50 years. Some of the tenants lived there for decades. The new owners submitted plans to the local government to upzone the 1960s-era apartment complex, which will involve residents needing to move during construction. Thankfully for me, the sale coincided with a major career change (WFH researcher to a professor who teaches in person) that required me to move anyway, so I moved. However, I feel for long-time residents of my former apartment complex going through the uncertainty of the future and the difficult housing market in Santa Cruz County should they be forced to move. Renting, by definition, means you don’t own your place. While there are some people who are able to have stable renting situations, there are others who have the bad luck of receiving an eviction notice due to a sale. Owning a place means not having to worry about a landlord.
  - em-bee 2y ago
    that's only true in the US though. most other countries have better renter protection. my point was that it's not just renting that forces you to move. you moved yourself because of a job. if you had owned a house you would have had to sell it at that point.
    - pixelatedindex 2y ago
      Well for one, I am in the US. Secondly if you owned a house you can rent it out - you don’t have to sell it. It’s a better deal especially in the Bay Area since property taxes are capped. Thirdly, I move to find better deals on rent - many places I’ve lived don’t have rent control so moving is really the only option to keep costs as low as possible. I moved states because of a job, but within the Bay Area it’s the only way to keep up a desirable savings rate. Also, try commuting from SF to SJ every day. It’s an incredible waste of time, particularly if you don’t live near the Caltrain (and now BART) corridor.

xhkkffbf 2y ago

Rilly? In my experience, many of the rich people are isolated and paralyzed by concerns about status and wealth and family connections and .... It's the poor who are often able to put those issues aside because they have so little status and wealth. They have nothing to lose.

devonkim 2y ago
Resources are not always in terms of material terms. Poor people with family, friends, associates, familiarity of a region, etc. stay there. What's a bit unique for American migration patterns in the past 60-ish years people have become less and less mobile for economic opportunities and the cultural shift has sometimes become more resentful toward those that feel betrayed by those leaving regions for better economic opportunities. In a lot of countries people are happy and even envious of those leaving their areas of origin. The underlying reasons for lack of mobility is another heatedly debated topic altogether but there's absolutely plenty of things the poor, particularly rural ones, absolutely have plenty to lose.
WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
A granular housing choice is a privilege not afforded to poor people. They live where they can, typically in places heavy with compromise.