8 ms·

The housing market isn't for single people

64 points by pseudolus 10mo ago

necovek 10mo ago
Isn't this obvious? Yes, per-adult, multi-generation family homes are even more cost-effective than for couples (even accounting for smaller pensions compared to salaries), and both are more cost-effective compared to singles. Apart from growing prices, my experience (not in Canada though) is that living spaces are growing too, as we are not satisfied to live in the same cramped 20m2 studio as singles were 30 or 50 years ago.
- KK7NIL 10mo ago
  > we are not satisfied to live in the same cramped 20m2 studio as singles were 30 or 50 years ago. I conjecture that this is, at least partially, caused by modern people being more isolated and even when they do socialize there's less "third spaces" to get together with friends so someone ends up having to host the superbowl watch party in their apartment, for example.
- darth_avocado 10mo ago
  > living spaces are growing too Median home sizes have gone from 1400 sqft in the 70s to 2400 sqft in recent years. https://www.bankrate.com/real-estate/average-home-size/ https://www.bankrate.com/real-estate/average-home-size/ Part of it is the economics of construction. Part of it is growing threshold for “bare minimum”. In unit laundry was optional in the 70s and I’ve heard people wanting a “laundry room”. Pandemic has pushed the need for an office. Larger kitchens and more storage space is also a big difference in newer units vs older ones.
  - SoftTalker 10mo ago
    In the '70s, in-unit laundry in a rental apartment was almost unheard of except at perhaps very top end. An on-premises shared laundry room was normal but having to go to a laundromat was not uncommon either. I did not have laundry facilites of my own until I bought a house.
    - DauntingPear7 10mo ago
      It’s $1.75/load where I live now. Small washers and dryers
  - potato3732842 10mo ago
    >Median home sizes have gone from 1400 sqft in the 70s to 2400 sqft in recent years. Because you literally need more square footage to amortize all the regulatory required and industry checkbox required bullshit over. Ain't no different than General Motors saying "no more small cars from us in the US".
- jeffbee 10mo ago
  30 years ago I did not need to rent a 20m² studio. As a young college student I rented a spacious 750 sq. ft. 1-bedroom, furnished apartment that was more than affordable on my paycheck from driving a forklift at the pipe yard.
  - lifestyleguru 10mo ago
    Currently it's impossible to rent 70 sqmt furnished apartment anywhere in the developed world from a warehouse, agriculture, or hospitality job. Maybe if you worked in Amsterdam and lived in Cambodia.
    - jeffbee 10mo ago
      Indeed. We need a lot more small apartments for individuals. It goes against conventional wisdom that we need more "family-sized homes" but in reality every jurisdiction just needs a ton of 1-bed units.
      - bryanlarsen 10mo ago
        Toronto overbuilt tiny condos and now prices are down 15% from 2023 peak. Other types of house prices are roughly stable. Hard to draw too many conclusions since "down 15%" is still "way to fricking expensive", but...
        jeffbee 10mo ago
        "overbuilt" seems editorial. Drive the price to zero. Nobody says that we overproduced potatoes just because they are all ten kilos for a dollar.
        bryanlarsen 10mo ago
        They certainly do say that about potatoes in producer contexts.
- bryanlarsen 10mo ago
  30-50 years ago, a cramped 20m2 studio as a single was a luxury; the standard was to have roommates if you didn't have a partner.
- notatoad 10mo ago
  >we are not satisfied Some of us might be satisfied, but zoning and development approvals seems to have a hatred of small apartments. The ones that get proposed meet fierce opposition from locals who are afraid of having too many neighbors who aren’t rich people.
wagwang 10mo ago
[flagged]
- bluGill 10mo ago
  No, the modern ideas are fine for what they are. You can disagree with them if you want, but they are just ideas and for many people they are good. The problem is we are setting government policy based on a one-size fits all idea of expectations and those who don't want those are forced to either follow anyway or live a worse life in other ways for not.
  - necovek 10mo ago
    Not really, governments have been encouraging family formation because it brings up new taxpayers since, well, forever. Which does not make single-living idea weird or dumb, ofc, but it makes it additionally expensive on top of the natural cost (just like multi-floor houses are cheaper per surface built).
  - wagwang 10mo ago
    yes thats how society works, you give up certain freedoms for structure, safety, and access to resources. This idea that society should conform for lifestyles that dont support the continue existence of the society is pretty dumb
HPsquared 10mo ago
This fact makes the high levels of singledom in recent years even more remarkable and concerning. Even with strong economic incentives, a large fraction of people really don't want to pair up.
- joe_mamba 10mo ago
  > a large fraction of people really don't want to pair up. Don't want to pair up, or can't meet/find someone with which to pair up? Because from your massive oversimplification, you're making it sound like everyone has 50 potential partners knocking on their door daily asking to hook up or get married, and they tell them to get lost so he/she can keep play videogames in peace. Have you asked single people why they're single to better understand the issue? I think you'll find that most people actually WANT some sort of loving partner in their lives. Otherwise the pet industry wouldn't be so massive in the west if people were so happy living alone without any company.
  - torginus 10mo ago
    In my experience, financially savvy/well-off young people usually get an apartment before they get married - they either get it (or a large downpayment) from their parents or they buy one some time in their 20s - but don't get married until their late 20s to 30s. People of my parents' generation got married way earlier, typically in early to mid 20s, so it was natural for them to build a life together.
    - joe_mamba 10mo ago
      Have you seen the statistics? 20-somethings who own a house are super minority right now. And plus, rich kids with properties from parents money, has nothing to with the growing loneliness epidemic I was discussing on why people don't pair up despite economic pressure to do so.
      - torginus 10mo ago
        I'm sure most young people who have at least decent jobs could save up for a 10% downpayment in a year or two.
Barrin92 10mo ago
All the justified complains about housing prices aside, I want to focus on this part "Some people are fine with getting a roommate, but what if you’re not?[...]Usually, people get to a certain stage of life, and they like their independence.”" No usually it's the other way around. You get to a certain stage of life, your household size grows. There's exogenous factors like lack of construction but all other things being equal, housing used to be more affordable because the entire nation didn't consist of single person households. Multi-generational homes and large families were the norm because it saves resources. People who decide to want to live independently are going to take a financial hit. If you're not interested in a traditional family I'd strongly suggest societies think about cooperative housing collectively and having a flat mate or two individually.
- bluGill 10mo ago
  We are missing the private bedroom, shared kitchen/dining/living space that a lot of single people want. There are people I couldn't live with, but for the most part people crave some human contact and having the ability to grab a meal with a random person who happens to want to eat at the same time is nice. When you are married (or acting like married) a shared bedroom is good. However single people often want that personal/private space all to themselves.
  - QuadmasterXLII 10mo ago
    In college in the university dorms I was logistically and emotionally fine day to day sharing a room with a friend and a hall bathroom with a hall of acquaintances, although in hindsight the price was absurdly inflated for that amount of real estate. https://housing.unc.edu/apply/rates/ https://housing.unc.edu/apply/rates/ Yep, at the moment renting a room at UNC costs 2200 a month if you share it, nearly twice the mortgage on a 3 bedroom house. There's some disease in the american economy where cost cutting code actions magically inflate costs, and we buy it.
    - bluGill 10mo ago
      University is the one place where you find a lot of single people and thus housing the fits their needs. Though I agree the costs seem out of control.
bluGill 10mo ago
Adam Smith observed in his "wealth of the nations" that when people get more money they almost always spend it on better housing. There is a limit to how large a house people will want before they decide not to (many rich are living in mansions smaller than they could afford - and in some cases the size of their mansion seems to be set because they want to be the biggest not because they want/use the space), but I don't know where that limit is.
- zeroonetwothree 10mo ago
  I guess I’m unusual because my house is far cheaper than I could afford. It’s quite modest compared to the surrounding area.
- HPsquared 10mo ago
  "The rent of land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or to what he can afford to take; but to what the farmer can afford to give." — Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter XI "Of the Rent of Land"
OGEnthusiast 10mo ago
Hasn't this been true forever? Of course people who have a partner will be better off financially since they can pool incomes and split expenses.
- chung8123 10mo ago
  It has not been forever true that households have had two incomes. Now it is common.
  - OGEnthusiast 10mo ago
    I meant it's been true forever that people with partners generally have a financial advantage over single people. (Even if they're not in a two-income household.)
    - fh973 10mo ago
      What has changed is that dual income became the norm, and is no longer an advantage, but mandatory to compete on the housing market.
      - bryanlarsen 10mo ago
        When single income was the norm, the norm was to put a family of 6 in an 800-1200 sq ft residence. That's still roughly equivalently affordable today.
  - zeroonetwothree 10mo ago
    Well, only because one of the household did a huge amount of unpaid labor. A lot of which now has been replaced with paid labor (child care, restaurants, house cleaners, and so on).
- mperham 10mo ago
  "Flophouses" or SROs used to provide affordable housing for young people new to a city, single people, workers, etc but they depend on density and transit to be cheap. They were largely made illegal in the mid-20th century. Land use/zoning laws are why we've built nothing but car-dependent suburbs for the last 50 years.
chung8123 10mo ago
The book the two income trap describes this. It talks about better schools etc but if you are competing with people that have two incomes as an individual you better have two incomes worth of salary. The issues starts to arise that people with two income households are more likely to lose one of those jobs and that puts a lot of pressure on the finances if you need both jobs for your house payment.
- globular-toast 10mo ago
  You need more than two incomes worth of salary in any country that does income tax bands. In the UK, two people earning 30k each will take home a combined 50k. A single person needs to earn almost 70k to take home the same. And for council tax you end up paying 75% of what an entire household would pay.
  - alex43578 10mo ago
    In the US, two moderate incomes see a similar federal tax bill to a single person, with things actually getting worse at higher incomes for the married couple. Is the UK tax code really that different?
    - khuey 10mo ago
      Huh? In the US the married filing jointly tax brackets are exactly double the single tax brackets for every rate except the top 37% rate. A single person making 100k definitely pays a lot more in tax than than a married couple making 100k together. It's generally advantageous to be married filing jointly unless you're at the absolute top 37% rate, at the very bottom (where means tested benefits phase out), or both spouses make roughly equal incomes (in which case MFJ vs two single filers works out around the same).
      - alex43578 10mo ago
        Huh? In your $100K scenario, that single person pays about $6K more in taxes, but has $36K more in take home pay per person, so that additional tax bill seems reasonable in light of their ability to pay it and pay for their cost of living.
paganel 10mo ago
Travelling isn't, either, found that the ward way during the last few years. If anyone has a good-ish solution for how they've handled that, feel free to share.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- jddj 10mo ago
  I'd be surprised to learn that backpacking is no longer singles-friendly
- jselysianeagle 10mo ago
  Hmm I think this depends alot on the individual and their particular life situation though. I've done a ton of travel solo over the years and the vast majority of the time it was really fun.
- _23sd 10mo ago
  You mean the costs? Travel is expensive but I don't think there's much of an argument that it's gotten more expensive like housing. International flights used to be quite a luxury, now it's so easy that the popular destinations are getting swamped. Most of the relaxation-oriented holiday industry is definitely designed for couples and families, but backpacking, adventures, and cultural immersion are, in my opinion, better alone so that you don't have the easy escape of sitting around with your partner. And if you want to relax nothing's stopping you from booking a few nights alone at a Japanese onsen or one of those treehouse style resorts in a Central American rainforest. I've spent many nights at onsens in between more outdoorsy climbing and skiing legs of trips in Japan.
- knallfrosch 10mo ago
  You need to provide more information about your specific problems. Last I checked, two seats on a plant cost twice as much as a single one. That can't be it.
  - paganel 10mo ago
dreadsword 10mo ago
And yet people bemoan the number of batchelor / studio / one bedroom condos cluttering up the market in places like Toronto or Vancouver. And why shouldn't it be easier to own property with the resources of two people behind the purchase?
noahbp 10mo ago
It's frustrating that the problem is acknowledged (Housing prices are too high) but the solution seems to evade the author and nearly everyone involved in setting housing policy; not because of a lack of rent control. Housing is too expensive because it's illegal to build enough of it. No, multi-generation households will not save us. We should not make it impossible for young people to move to cities where high-paying jobs are, or force anyone to stay in abusive homes because we have made it impossible to live on your own.
- fkfkafjfjk 10mo ago
  > Housing is too expensive because it's illegal to build enough of it. This is part of the problem, and one that many people actively want to avoid discussing so it is important to discuss it, but it is only part of the problem. I think for real reform in this area you need to have the government strictly regulate rental properties. That includes determining the rental price, and imposing fines for empty units. Every time there is a stimulus check or an increase in minimum wage the detractors say "this will just be captured by the landlords". We need to have clear stipulations for rental prices and ideally link it to another value that also changes over time. I would argue a 1 bedroom apartment should have its rent capped at less than 40% of the monthly take home of someone on minimum wage. Let the landlords and employers battle over who gets the bigger slice of that pie, while allowing the workers to survive their petty skirmish. Here is Adam Smith talking about a minimum wage: > A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more, otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation. Mr Cantillon seems, upon this account, to suppose that the lowest species of common labourers must everywhere earn at least double their own maintenance, in order that, one with another, they may be enabled to bring up two children; the labour of the wife, on account of her necessary attendance on the children, being supposed no more than sufficient to provide for herself: But one half the children born, it is computed, die before the age of manhood. The poorest labourers, therefore, according to this account, must, one with another, attempt to rear at least four children, in order that two may have an equal chance of living to that age. But the necessary maintenance of four children, it is supposed, may be nearly equal to that of one man. The labour of an able-bodied slave, the same author adds, is computed to be worth double his maintenance; and that of the meanest labourer, he thinks, cannot be worth less than that of an able-bodied slave. Thus far at least seems certain, that, in order to bring up a family, the labour of the husband and wife together must, even in the lowest species of common labour, be able to earn something more than what is precisely necessary for their own maintenance; but in what proportion, whether in that above-mentioned, or any other, I shall not take upon me to determine. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm#chap10 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm#chap1... In what US city can someone on minimum wage raise two children? On the US federal minimum wage?!
BanAntiVaxxers 10mo ago
What about in LCOL areas? When I moved to SF when I was 25, I sure could not afford a house or even a condo. But I sure could have bought a house in the Tahoe area. Would the commute suck? Yes. Could I have made a go of it? Slept in my car during the week? I sure would have built a lot of equity, plus you'd have a cool place to go on weekends and invite your friends.
- ebiester 10mo ago
  There is no world where a 4 hour commute to work is reasonable. That said, Stockton and Tracy seem like they happen more often at an hour and a half (to San Mateo or San Jose) But why are we building a world where that is necessary? That's an awful world.
  - bombcar 10mo ago
    That world isn’t necessarily until that four hour commute is driving past houses the whole way. But it isn’t. I think a big part of the problem is we’ve lost the shitholes; it used to be 20/30 years ago you could be making good money in the city and choose to live in a crappy apartment/house that others of your salary tier wouldn’t look at; that option is mostly gone. The shitholes are infinity dollars a month.
    - ebiester 10mo ago
      That's a problem with constrained supply. But nobody is willing to build up south of San Francisco as far as I still understand.
tptacek 10mo ago
Ironically, the Argument just a few months ago ran a long and well-researched piece on how the housing market isn't for parents --- in many rental markets, there are policies that lock out parents, particularly through permitting processes that favor developments for seniors while icing out any other developments. https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/no-country-for-young-families https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/no-country-for-young-famili... Meanwhile, a really important dynamic to keep in mind is that in most inner-ring suburbs in the US, the primary driver of home values (and of property taxes) are school systems. If you don't actively enact policies that work against the dynamic, you get trapped in a spiral of increasing prices, in part because parents can bid up prices and suffer them only for the span of time their kids are in school --- "renting the schools".
- knallfrosch 10mo ago
  When people pay higher rent while their kids are in school and compete with FAANG software engineers, isn't that the market working? Both groups could live somewhere else, but don't.
  - tptacek 10mo ago
    It's not a free market, so it's hard to appeal to market purity arguments. The market is deeply distorted by zoning rules. Most popular/expensive locales would look differently if the market was actually allowed to function.
    - bombcar 10mo ago
      Even more so it’s distorted by people only moving every seven years or longer. But when they do move, they take all changes into account; not just recent ones. So it can be hard to determine causal trends.
- Multicomp 10mo ago
  Sounds like a school choice policy would help decouple property tax zones / addresses to particular schools.
TrackerFF 10mo ago
Where I live you're pretty much screwed if you're single, or a family that needs extra bedrooms. Extra screwed if you're a single parent, obviously. People spending 50%-60% of their net pay on rent alone, basically stuck renting, because housing prices have increased 10% annually for almost 15 years. It is also a town that has seen explosive growth in tourism, so the new trend is that people are only willing to rent 6-8 months to normal people. Rest of the year they'll rent out their unit on airbnb, where they can earn 3-5 times more.
- lifestyleguru 10mo ago
  Actually Airbnb received a firm push back, nowadays everything lands on Booking. There are virtually no places in developed world cheaper than 100EUR/USD/GBP per night, the standard price is closer to 200. Why bother with long term rental if full month rent can be fetched within a week, or within two days if there is a concert or event nearby.
  - TrackerFF 10mo ago
    Some of the people I studied with become landlords, and during peak tourist season they can earn close €5000-€7000 / month renting to tourists. Long-term rent for equivalent apartment would be around €1500-€2000 / month. So what happens, is as I wrote, they only rent short-term during tourism season, and then find regular renters that are willing to live 6-8 months in the apartment.
johnea 10mo ago
This brings to mind one of my all time favorite quotes. Paraphrasing madd scientist, Dr. Frankenfurter, from the Rocky Horror Picture Show: I didn't make it, for you!
hnburnsy 10mo ago
Are roommates still a thing?
camgunz 10mo ago
The housing affordability crisis only exists in places that are very desirable, which is to say if you only build homes, you won't solve the problem, because most people don't want to live in a huge belt of suburbia. You have to build 15 minute cities, and you have to connect them with clean, reliable, safe public transit. This is a huge economic opportunity for exactly the people we've been shafting: build us millions of zero emissions buildings and infra. I have no idea why Democrats aren't making this the front page of their platform.
dntrshnthngjxct 10mo ago
Good.

64 points by pseudolus 10mo ago

Isn't this obvious? Yes, per-adult, multi-generation family homes are even more cost-effective than for couples (even accounting for smaller pensions compared to salaries), and both are more cost-effective compared to singles. Apart from growing prices, my experience (not in Canada though) is that living spaces are growing too, as we are not satisfied to live in the same cramped 20m2 studio as singles were 30 or 50 years ago.

KK7NIL 10mo ago
> we are not satisfied to live in the same cramped 20m2 studio as singles were 30 or 50 years ago. I conjecture that this is, at least partially, caused by modern people being more isolated and even when they do socialize there's less "third spaces" to get together with friends so someone ends up having to host the superbowl watch party in their apartment, for example.
darth_avocado 10mo ago
> living spaces are growing too Median home sizes have gone from 1400 sqft in the 70s to 2400 sqft in recent years. https://www.bankrate.com/real-estate/average-home-size/ https://www.bankrate.com/real-estate/average-home-size/ Part of it is the economics of construction. Part of it is growing threshold for “bare minimum”. In unit laundry was optional in the 70s and I’ve heard people wanting a “laundry room”. Pandemic has pushed the need for an office. Larger kitchens and more storage space is also a big difference in newer units vs older ones.
- SoftTalker 10mo ago
  In the '70s, in-unit laundry in a rental apartment was almost unheard of except at perhaps very top end. An on-premises shared laundry room was normal but having to go to a laundromat was not uncommon either. I did not have laundry facilites of my own until I bought a house.
  - DauntingPear7 10mo ago
    It’s $1.75/load where I live now. Small washers and dryers
- potato3732842 10mo ago
  >Median home sizes have gone from 1400 sqft in the 70s to 2400 sqft in recent years. Because you literally need more square footage to amortize all the regulatory required and industry checkbox required bullshit over. Ain't no different than General Motors saying "no more small cars from us in the US".
jeffbee 10mo ago
30 years ago I did not need to rent a 20m² studio. As a young college student I rented a spacious 750 sq. ft. 1-bedroom, furnished apartment that was more than affordable on my paycheck from driving a forklift at the pipe yard.
- lifestyleguru 10mo ago
  Currently it's impossible to rent 70 sqmt furnished apartment anywhere in the developed world from a warehouse, agriculture, or hospitality job. Maybe if you worked in Amsterdam and lived in Cambodia.
  - jeffbee 10mo ago
    Indeed. We need a lot more small apartments for individuals. It goes against conventional wisdom that we need more "family-sized homes" but in reality every jurisdiction just needs a ton of 1-bed units.
    - bryanlarsen 10mo ago
      Toronto overbuilt tiny condos and now prices are down 15% from 2023 peak. Other types of house prices are roughly stable. Hard to draw too many conclusions since "down 15%" is still "way to fricking expensive", but...
      - jeffbee 10mo ago
        "overbuilt" seems editorial. Drive the price to zero. Nobody says that we overproduced potatoes just because they are all ten kilos for a dollar.
        bryanlarsen 10mo ago
        They certainly do say that about potatoes in producer contexts.
bryanlarsen 10mo ago
30-50 years ago, a cramped 20m2 studio as a single was a luxury; the standard was to have roommates if you didn't have a partner.
notatoad 10mo ago
>we are not satisfied Some of us might be satisfied, but zoning and development approvals seems to have a hatred of small apartments. The ones that get proposed meet fierce opposition from locals who are afraid of having too many neighbors who aren’t rich people.

wagwang 10mo ago

[flagged]

bluGill 10mo ago
No, the modern ideas are fine for what they are. You can disagree with them if you want, but they are just ideas and for many people they are good. The problem is we are setting government policy based on a one-size fits all idea of expectations and those who don't want those are forced to either follow anyway or live a worse life in other ways for not.
- necovek 10mo ago
  Not really, governments have been encouraging family formation because it brings up new taxpayers since, well, forever. Which does not make single-living idea weird or dumb, ofc, but it makes it additionally expensive on top of the natural cost (just like multi-floor houses are cheaper per surface built).
- wagwang 10mo ago
  yes thats how society works, you give up certain freedoms for structure, safety, and access to resources. This idea that society should conform for lifestyles that dont support the continue existence of the society is pretty dumb

HPsquared 10mo ago

This fact makes the high levels of singledom in recent years even more remarkable and concerning. Even with strong economic incentives, a large fraction of people really don't want to pair up.

joe_mamba 10mo ago
> a large fraction of people really don't want to pair up. Don't want to pair up, or can't meet/find someone with which to pair up? Because from your massive oversimplification, you're making it sound like everyone has 50 potential partners knocking on their door daily asking to hook up or get married, and they tell them to get lost so he/she can keep play videogames in peace. Have you asked single people why they're single to better understand the issue? I think you'll find that most people actually WANT some sort of loving partner in their lives. Otherwise the pet industry wouldn't be so massive in the west if people were so happy living alone without any company.
- torginus 10mo ago
  In my experience, financially savvy/well-off young people usually get an apartment before they get married - they either get it (or a large downpayment) from their parents or they buy one some time in their 20s - but don't get married until their late 20s to 30s. People of my parents' generation got married way earlier, typically in early to mid 20s, so it was natural for them to build a life together.
  - joe_mamba 10mo ago
    Have you seen the statistics? 20-somethings who own a house are super minority right now. And plus, rich kids with properties from parents money, has nothing to with the growing loneliness epidemic I was discussing on why people don't pair up despite economic pressure to do so.
    - torginus 10mo ago
      I'm sure most young people who have at least decent jobs could save up for a 10% downpayment in a year or two.

Barrin92 10mo ago

All the justified complains about housing prices aside, I want to focus on this part "Some people are fine with getting a roommate, but what if you’re not?[...]Usually, people get to a certain stage of life, and they like their independence.”" No usually it's the other way around. You get to a certain stage of life, your household size grows. There's exogenous factors like lack of construction but all other things being equal, housing used to be more affordable because the entire nation didn't consist of single person households. Multi-generational homes and large families were the norm because it saves resources. People who decide to want to live independently are going to take a financial hit. If you're not interested in a traditional family I'd strongly suggest societies think about cooperative housing collectively and having a flat mate or two individually.

bluGill 10mo ago
We are missing the private bedroom, shared kitchen/dining/living space that a lot of single people want. There are people I couldn't live with, but for the most part people crave some human contact and having the ability to grab a meal with a random person who happens to want to eat at the same time is nice. When you are married (or acting like married) a shared bedroom is good. However single people often want that personal/private space all to themselves.
- QuadmasterXLII 10mo ago
  In college in the university dorms I was logistically and emotionally fine day to day sharing a room with a friend and a hall bathroom with a hall of acquaintances, although in hindsight the price was absurdly inflated for that amount of real estate. https://housing.unc.edu/apply/rates/ https://housing.unc.edu/apply/rates/ Yep, at the moment renting a room at UNC costs 2200 a month if you share it, nearly twice the mortgage on a 3 bedroom house. There's some disease in the american economy where cost cutting code actions magically inflate costs, and we buy it.
  - bluGill 10mo ago
    University is the one place where you find a lot of single people and thus housing the fits their needs. Though I agree the costs seem out of control.

bluGill 10mo ago

Adam Smith observed in his "wealth of the nations" that when people get more money they almost always spend it on better housing. There is a limit to how large a house people will want before they decide not to (many rich are living in mansions smaller than they could afford - and in some cases the size of their mansion seems to be set because they want to be the biggest not because they want/use the space), but I don't know where that limit is.

zeroonetwothree 10mo ago
I guess I’m unusual because my house is far cheaper than I could afford. It’s quite modest compared to the surrounding area.
HPsquared 10mo ago
"The rent of land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or to what he can afford to take; but to what the farmer can afford to give." — Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter XI "Of the Rent of Land"

OGEnthusiast 10mo ago

Hasn't this been true forever? Of course people who have a partner will be better off financially since they can pool incomes and split expenses.

chung8123 10mo ago
It has not been forever true that households have had two incomes. Now it is common.
- OGEnthusiast 10mo ago
  I meant it's been true forever that people with partners generally have a financial advantage over single people. (Even if they're not in a two-income household.)
  - fh973 10mo ago
    What has changed is that dual income became the norm, and is no longer an advantage, but mandatory to compete on the housing market.
    - bryanlarsen 10mo ago
      When single income was the norm, the norm was to put a family of 6 in an 800-1200 sq ft residence. That's still roughly equivalently affordable today.
- zeroonetwothree 10mo ago
  Well, only because one of the household did a huge amount of unpaid labor. A lot of which now has been replaced with paid labor (child care, restaurants, house cleaners, and so on).
mperham 10mo ago
"Flophouses" or SROs used to provide affordable housing for young people new to a city, single people, workers, etc but they depend on density and transit to be cheap. They were largely made illegal in the mid-20th century. Land use/zoning laws are why we've built nothing but car-dependent suburbs for the last 50 years.

chung8123 10mo ago

The book the two income trap describes this. It talks about better schools etc but if you are competing with people that have two incomes as an individual you better have two incomes worth of salary. The issues starts to arise that people with two income households are more likely to lose one of those jobs and that puts a lot of pressure on the finances if you need both jobs for your house payment.

globular-toast 10mo ago
You need more than two incomes worth of salary in any country that does income tax bands. In the UK, two people earning 30k each will take home a combined 50k. A single person needs to earn almost 70k to take home the same. And for council tax you end up paying 75% of what an entire household would pay.
- alex43578 10mo ago
  In the US, two moderate incomes see a similar federal tax bill to a single person, with things actually getting worse at higher incomes for the married couple. Is the UK tax code really that different?
  - khuey 10mo ago
    Huh? In the US the married filing jointly tax brackets are exactly double the single tax brackets for every rate except the top 37% rate. A single person making 100k definitely pays a lot more in tax than than a married couple making 100k together. It's generally advantageous to be married filing jointly unless you're at the absolute top 37% rate, at the very bottom (where means tested benefits phase out), or both spouses make roughly equal incomes (in which case MFJ vs two single filers works out around the same).
    - alex43578 10mo ago
      Huh? In your $100K scenario, that single person pays about $6K more in taxes, but has $36K more in take home pay per person, so that additional tax bill seems reasonable in light of their ability to pay it and pay for their cost of living.

paganel 10mo ago

Travelling isn't, either, found that the ward way during the last few years. If anyone has a good-ish solution for how they've handled that, feel free to share.

deleted 10mo ago
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jddj 10mo ago
I'd be surprised to learn that backpacking is no longer singles-friendly
jselysianeagle 10mo ago
Hmm I think this depends alot on the individual and their particular life situation though. I've done a ton of travel solo over the years and the vast majority of the time it was really fun.
_23sd 10mo ago
You mean the costs? Travel is expensive but I don't think there's much of an argument that it's gotten more expensive like housing. International flights used to be quite a luxury, now it's so easy that the popular destinations are getting swamped. Most of the relaxation-oriented holiday industry is definitely designed for couples and families, but backpacking, adventures, and cultural immersion are, in my opinion, better alone so that you don't have the easy escape of sitting around with your partner. And if you want to relax nothing's stopping you from booking a few nights alone at a Japanese onsen or one of those treehouse style resorts in a Central American rainforest. I've spent many nights at onsens in between more outdoorsy climbing and skiing legs of trips in Japan.
knallfrosch 10mo ago
You need to provide more information about your specific problems. Last I checked, two seats on a plant cost twice as much as a single one. That can't be it.
- paganel 10mo ago

dreadsword 10mo ago

And yet people bemoan the number of batchelor / studio / one bedroom condos cluttering up the market in places like Toronto or Vancouver. And why shouldn't it be easier to own property with the resources of two people behind the purchase?

noahbp 10mo ago

It's frustrating that the problem is acknowledged (Housing prices are too high) but the solution seems to evade the author and nearly everyone involved in setting housing policy; not because of a lack of rent control. Housing is too expensive because it's illegal to build enough of it. No, multi-generation households will not save us. We should not make it impossible for young people to move to cities where high-paying jobs are, or force anyone to stay in abusive homes because we have made it impossible to live on your own.

fkfkafjfjk 10mo ago
> Housing is too expensive because it's illegal to build enough of it. This is part of the problem, and one that many people actively want to avoid discussing so it is important to discuss it, but it is only part of the problem. I think for real reform in this area you need to have the government strictly regulate rental properties. That includes determining the rental price, and imposing fines for empty units. Every time there is a stimulus check or an increase in minimum wage the detractors say "this will just be captured by the landlords". We need to have clear stipulations for rental prices and ideally link it to another value that also changes over time. I would argue a 1 bedroom apartment should have its rent capped at less than 40% of the monthly take home of someone on minimum wage. Let the landlords and employers battle over who gets the bigger slice of that pie, while allowing the workers to survive their petty skirmish. Here is Adam Smith talking about a minimum wage: > A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more, otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation. Mr Cantillon seems, upon this account, to suppose that the lowest species of common labourers must everywhere earn at least double their own maintenance, in order that, one with another, they may be enabled to bring up two children; the labour of the wife, on account of her necessary attendance on the children, being supposed no more than sufficient to provide for herself: But one half the children born, it is computed, die before the age of manhood. The poorest labourers, therefore, according to this account, must, one with another, attempt to rear at least four children, in order that two may have an equal chance of living to that age. But the necessary maintenance of four children, it is supposed, may be nearly equal to that of one man. The labour of an able-bodied slave, the same author adds, is computed to be worth double his maintenance; and that of the meanest labourer, he thinks, cannot be worth less than that of an able-bodied slave. Thus far at least seems certain, that, in order to bring up a family, the labour of the husband and wife together must, even in the lowest species of common labour, be able to earn something more than what is precisely necessary for their own maintenance; but in what proportion, whether in that above-mentioned, or any other, I shall not take upon me to determine. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm#chap10 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm#chap1... In what US city can someone on minimum wage raise two children? On the US federal minimum wage?!

BanAntiVaxxers 10mo ago

What about in LCOL areas? When I moved to SF when I was 25, I sure could not afford a house or even a condo. But I sure could have bought a house in the Tahoe area. Would the commute suck? Yes. Could I have made a go of it? Slept in my car during the week? I sure would have built a lot of equity, plus you'd have a cool place to go on weekends and invite your friends.

ebiester 10mo ago
There is no world where a 4 hour commute to work is reasonable. That said, Stockton and Tracy seem like they happen more often at an hour and a half (to San Mateo or San Jose) But why are we building a world where that is necessary? That's an awful world.
- bombcar 10mo ago
  That world isn’t necessarily until that four hour commute is driving past houses the whole way. But it isn’t. I think a big part of the problem is we’ve lost the shitholes; it used to be 20/30 years ago you could be making good money in the city and choose to live in a crappy apartment/house that others of your salary tier wouldn’t look at; that option is mostly gone. The shitholes are infinity dollars a month.
  - ebiester 10mo ago
    That's a problem with constrained supply. But nobody is willing to build up south of San Francisco as far as I still understand.

tptacek 10mo ago

Ironically, the Argument just a few months ago ran a long and well-researched piece on how the housing market isn't for parents --- in many rental markets, there are policies that lock out parents, particularly through permitting processes that favor developments for seniors while icing out any other developments. https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/no-country-for-young-families https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/no-country-for-young-famili... Meanwhile, a really important dynamic to keep in mind is that in most inner-ring suburbs in the US, the primary driver of home values (and of property taxes) are school systems. If you don't actively enact policies that work against the dynamic, you get trapped in a spiral of increasing prices, in part because parents can bid up prices and suffer them only for the span of time their kids are in school --- "renting the schools".

knallfrosch 10mo ago
When people pay higher rent while their kids are in school and compete with FAANG software engineers, isn't that the market working? Both groups could live somewhere else, but don't.
- tptacek 10mo ago
  It's not a free market, so it's hard to appeal to market purity arguments. The market is deeply distorted by zoning rules. Most popular/expensive locales would look differently if the market was actually allowed to function.
  - bombcar 10mo ago
    Even more so it’s distorted by people only moving every seven years or longer. But when they do move, they take all changes into account; not just recent ones. So it can be hard to determine causal trends.
Multicomp 10mo ago
Sounds like a school choice policy would help decouple property tax zones / addresses to particular schools.

TrackerFF 10mo ago

Where I live you're pretty much screwed if you're single, or a family that needs extra bedrooms. Extra screwed if you're a single parent, obviously. People spending 50%-60% of their net pay on rent alone, basically stuck renting, because housing prices have increased 10% annually for almost 15 years. It is also a town that has seen explosive growth in tourism, so the new trend is that people are only willing to rent 6-8 months to normal people. Rest of the year they'll rent out their unit on airbnb, where they can earn 3-5 times more.

lifestyleguru 10mo ago
Actually Airbnb received a firm push back, nowadays everything lands on Booking. There are virtually no places in developed world cheaper than 100EUR/USD/GBP per night, the standard price is closer to 200. Why bother with long term rental if full month rent can be fetched within a week, or within two days if there is a concert or event nearby.
- TrackerFF 10mo ago
  Some of the people I studied with become landlords, and during peak tourist season they can earn close €5000-€7000 / month renting to tourists. Long-term rent for equivalent apartment would be around €1500-€2000 / month. So what happens, is as I wrote, they only rent short-term during tourism season, and then find regular renters that are willing to live 6-8 months in the apartment.

johnea 10mo ago

This brings to mind one of my all time favorite quotes. Paraphrasing madd scientist, Dr. Frankenfurter, from the Rocky Horror Picture Show: I didn't make it, for you!

hnburnsy 10mo ago

Are roommates still a thing?

camgunz 10mo ago

The housing affordability crisis only exists in places that are very desirable, which is to say if you only build homes, you won't solve the problem, because most people don't want to live in a huge belt of suburbia. You have to build 15 minute cities, and you have to connect them with clean, reliable, safe public transit. This is a huge economic opportunity for exactly the people we've been shafting: build us millions of zero emissions buildings and infra. I have no idea why Democrats aren't making this the front page of their platform.

dntrshnthngjxct 10mo ago

Good.