6 ms·

Can confirm via my own experiences. Had a job in a SV firm, and paid just barely enough to try and get on the housing ladder. Four years and a 40-60% price incr

Can confirm via my own experiences. Had a job in a SV firm, and paid just barely enough to try and get on the housing ladder. Four years and a 40-60% price increase later, and I got laid off without managing to successfully buy a home. Since the layoffs, I’ve taken a sizable paycut (~$75k TC) to make ends meet with whatever I could find, but kept a pulse on the market in case things turned around. Locally, rents have gone down by ~$100-$500 a month (depending on when you renew) with one to two months free rent, while home prices have finally stopped rising. Homes are staying on markets longer, and bidding wars have dried up. I get about one to three price cut messages a day from Redfin, though nothing in my area or price range post salary cut. Unfortunately, I don’t expect this trend to continue. My landlord just introduced a new RealPage-alike to keep rents high, local developers have put a hold on new housing construction as resources get consumed for AI datacenters, and the same old red tape blocks meaningful progress in addressing availability gaps. The only real bright spot is that renters are pushing for statewide rent caps and controls with better progress than ever before, so there might be some relief in sight next election. It’s bad out there, ya’ll.

monero-xmr 11mo ago
[flagged]
- jacquesm 11mo ago
  You are mistaking your own opinion for a generalized truth.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- jwilber 11mo ago
  You work in tech and are somehow convinced working on a blockchain app is a good thing? We should make employees pass a basic economics test!
- varenc 11mo ago
  If you're currently renting, and expect to keep renting for a long time, state-wide control does seem in your interests? It might ultimately depress new construction and certainly isn't good for landlords, but makes sense to me a renter would want rent control.
  - shuckles 11mo ago
    No, because rent control isn't portable and most people's housing needs change over time. The person who can hold onto a house for 20 years straight is the outlier.
  - JuniperMesos 11mo ago
    Unless you expect to be renting in literally the same physical house, state-wide rent control isn't in your interests.
4fterd4rk 11mo ago
You say rents are going down... but you want rent control? That's one way to ensure rents will never, ever go down. Every landlord will charge the statutory maximum.
- Hacktrick 11mo ago
  >RealPage This monopolistic pricing is a massive part of the issue. Hopefully the case the DOJ brought against them is progressing well. They've essentially created a cartel of landlords trying to squeeze you for every single penny.
  - jihadjihad 11mo ago
    > Hopefully the case the DOJ brought against them is progressing well They reached a settlement with the DOJ last week [0]. 0: https://www.realpage.com/news/realpage-reaches-settlement-with-us-department-of-justice/ https://www.realpage.com/news/realpage-reaches-settlement-wi...
    - salemh 11mo ago
      [dead]
  - vel0city 11mo ago
    The case concluded with a settlement that RealPage would no longer share data between competitive landlords. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-realpage-end-sharing-competitively-sensitive-information-and https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-r...
    - cjbgkagh 11mo ago
      In theory that sounds like an undermining of their core value proposition, I think in practice it'll be less effective than so called 'Chinese walls'
      - 11mo ago
gbriel 11mo ago
Rent control is not a great solution long term since it reduces the incentive to build more housing which is the only real fix. It ends up making the problem worse. I could see in times of economic downturns, a temporary rent control that automatically expires to help people figure out their situation short term (moving is expensive).
- phantasmish 11mo ago
  If house prices and rent being this much higher than they were in, say, 2000, relative to wages, wasn’t enough to trigger an enormous housing construction boom, I don’t think further-increasing rent or house prices are likely to do much good. Something about that “signal” is already badly malfunctioning.
  - crooked-v 11mo ago
    The lack of construction is mostly to do with most major US cities just not allowing enough construction. You can see the contrast with the handful of places like Austin that do allow construction, where rents have consistently dropped year-to-year even though the population has increased significantly.
    - reactordev 11mo ago
      This. It’s NIMBY politics at the local level. Go to your county/city board meetings and ask for plans.
      - potato3732842 11mo ago
        You're gonna go to those meetings and find that it's not "what's allowed" that's fucking people out of the ability to construct things, it's all the capricious requirements that the process saddles them with before being allowed to do what is allowed.
      - gregw2 11mo ago
        Agreed. And local NIMBY can get surprisingly personal and politically vicious fast. I have a friend who argued in public forums (local newspapers+blogs) for denser housing being more walkable and sustainable (in a wealthy small neighborhood we both lived in.) "Small towns" was/is the nationwide name for the trend. Unknown opponents dug up and published dirt on him that even his wife, friends and employer didn't know. It was quite sobering.
JoshTriplett 11mo ago
> My landlord just introduced a new RealPage-alike to keep rents high You should get in touch with your state AG, and point to the precedent for this being considered illegal.
- yieldcrv 11mo ago
  RealPage just settled with the feds, and that settlement only includes data collection to determine if its collusion in the future So I would say anyone in the present is out of luck here
balderdash 11mo ago
I'm not advocating for gutting renter's rights, but anecdotally having lived in 6 states, and adjusting for general costs of living it was easier to rent, and rents were cheaper in states that were less renter friendly than states that were very renter friendly. As a renter in the central time zone, first months rent, a month's rent security deposit and a credit check and i was handed the keys vs. renting in NYC you'd think i was buying the home with level of financial scrutiny. I suppose this is just a long winded way of saying that there appears to be a ton of friction and cost by renter friendly polices that are ultimately passed on to renters rather than owners. As an aside I'd also say that renter friendly policies were also highly correlated with higher regulations around zoning/building so this may account for a meaningful portion of the above.
- bpt3 11mo ago
  I said this elsewhere, but I would anecdotally agree as a landlord. Everyone is paying for the costs to evict a non-paying tenant in jurisdictions where it can take 12+ months to regain control of a unit. More friction = more costs, and more regulation = more friction. I'm not advocating for gutting renter's rights either, but it's not a coincidence that the places with the highest rents also have the most protections for renters.

monero-xmr 11mo ago

[flagged]

jacquesm 11mo ago
You are mistaking your own opinion for a generalized truth.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
jwilber 11mo ago
You work in tech and are somehow convinced working on a blockchain app is a good thing? We should make employees pass a basic economics test!
varenc 11mo ago
If you're currently renting, and expect to keep renting for a long time, state-wide control does seem in your interests? It might ultimately depress new construction and certainly isn't good for landlords, but makes sense to me a renter would want rent control.
- shuckles 11mo ago
  No, because rent control isn't portable and most people's housing needs change over time. The person who can hold onto a house for 20 years straight is the outlier.
- JuniperMesos 11mo ago
  Unless you expect to be renting in literally the same physical house, state-wide rent control isn't in your interests.

4fterd4rk 11mo ago

You say rents are going down... but you want rent control? That's one way to ensure rents will never, ever go down. Every landlord will charge the statutory maximum.

Hacktrick 11mo ago
>RealPage This monopolistic pricing is a massive part of the issue. Hopefully the case the DOJ brought against them is progressing well. They've essentially created a cartel of landlords trying to squeeze you for every single penny.
- jihadjihad 11mo ago
  > Hopefully the case the DOJ brought against them is progressing well They reached a settlement with the DOJ last week [0]. 0: https://www.realpage.com/news/realpage-reaches-settlement-with-us-department-of-justice/ https://www.realpage.com/news/realpage-reaches-settlement-wi...
  - salemh 11mo ago
    [dead]
- vel0city 11mo ago
  The case concluded with a settlement that RealPage would no longer share data between competitive landlords. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-realpage-end-sharing-competitively-sensitive-information-and https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-r...
  - cjbgkagh 11mo ago
    In theory that sounds like an undermining of their core value proposition, I think in practice it'll be less effective than so called 'Chinese walls'
    - 11mo ago

gbriel 11mo ago

Rent control is not a great solution long term since it reduces the incentive to build more housing which is the only real fix. It ends up making the problem worse. I could see in times of economic downturns, a temporary rent control that automatically expires to help people figure out their situation short term (moving is expensive).

phantasmish 11mo ago
If house prices and rent being this much higher than they were in, say, 2000, relative to wages, wasn’t enough to trigger an enormous housing construction boom, I don’t think further-increasing rent or house prices are likely to do much good. Something about that “signal” is already badly malfunctioning.
- crooked-v 11mo ago
  The lack of construction is mostly to do with most major US cities just not allowing enough construction. You can see the contrast with the handful of places like Austin that do allow construction, where rents have consistently dropped year-to-year even though the population has increased significantly.
  - reactordev 11mo ago
    This. It’s NIMBY politics at the local level. Go to your county/city board meetings and ask for plans.
    - potato3732842 11mo ago
      You're gonna go to those meetings and find that it's not "what's allowed" that's fucking people out of the ability to construct things, it's all the capricious requirements that the process saddles them with before being allowed to do what is allowed.
    - gregw2 11mo ago
      Agreed. And local NIMBY can get surprisingly personal and politically vicious fast. I have a friend who argued in public forums (local newspapers+blogs) for denser housing being more walkable and sustainable (in a wealthy small neighborhood we both lived in.) "Small towns" was/is the nationwide name for the trend. Unknown opponents dug up and published dirt on him that even his wife, friends and employer didn't know. It was quite sobering.

JoshTriplett 11mo ago

> My landlord just introduced a new RealPage-alike to keep rents high You should get in touch with your state AG, and point to the precedent for this being considered illegal.

yieldcrv 11mo ago
RealPage just settled with the feds, and that settlement only includes data collection to determine if its collusion in the future So I would say anyone in the present is out of luck here

balderdash 11mo ago

I'm not advocating for gutting renter's rights, but anecdotally having lived in 6 states, and adjusting for general costs of living it was easier to rent, and rents were cheaper in states that were less renter friendly than states that were very renter friendly. As a renter in the central time zone, first months rent, a month's rent security deposit and a credit check and i was handed the keys vs. renting in NYC you'd think i was buying the home with level of financial scrutiny. I suppose this is just a long winded way of saying that there appears to be a ton of friction and cost by renter friendly polices that are ultimately passed on to renters rather than owners. As an aside I'd also say that renter friendly policies were also highly correlated with higher regulations around zoning/building so this may account for a meaningful portion of the above.

bpt3 11mo ago
I said this elsewhere, but I would anecdotally agree as a landlord. Everyone is paying for the costs to evict a non-paying tenant in jurisdictions where it can take 12+ months to regain control of a unit. More friction = more costs, and more regulation = more friction. I'm not advocating for gutting renter's rights either, but it's not a coincidence that the places with the highest rents also have the most protections for renters.