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America's 'Rent Crisis' May Be Ending (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Fortune:
A new study suggests that nearly a decade of housing shortages and rising rents in the U.S. may be reversing course... From 2010 to 2016, America added nearly a million renter households a year. But the census showed a decline in that growth rate in 2016, and some early 2017 data shows an actual decline in renters so far in 2017. Recent census data also shows a rise in vacancy rates.
According to Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, that's because foreclosure numbers have declined and young homebuyers are re-entering the market. Home ownership in the U.S. took a big hit from the foreclosure crisis and Great Recession of 2007-2012, while the rental market struggled to meet the new demand. Other insights in the report mostly follow from that shifting reality. Rents are increasing more slowly. Fewer renter households are "cost-burdened," or paying more than 30% of their income in rent, than they were two years ago.
The report also predicts that many high-income households may continue renting rather than buying a home. But it'd be interesting to hear how that compares to Slashdot readers around the world. Are you renting or buying -- and if renting, do you feel that your rent is too high?
According to Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, that's because foreclosure numbers have declined and young homebuyers are re-entering the market. Home ownership in the U.S. took a big hit from the foreclosure crisis and Great Recession of 2007-2012, while the rental market struggled to meet the new demand. Other insights in the report mostly follow from that shifting reality. Rents are increasing more slowly. Fewer renter households are "cost-burdened," or paying more than 30% of their income in rent, than they were two years ago.
The report also predicts that many high-income households may continue renting rather than buying a home. But it'd be interesting to hear how that compares to Slashdot readers around the world. Are you renting or buying -- and if renting, do you feel that your rent is too high?
I was renting for a long time until a house in the neighborhood came on the market. We did the math and after mortgage, taxes, insurance, and other fees we came up with 300$ less than what we paid in rent. Buying not only saves us a lot of money, it builds equity. As a first time buyer we made use of the available assistance that allowed us to invest into remodel and a new roof. "New roof?" you say, an expense that a renter does not have to worry about. True, but even with the loan payment that will end soon we still pay less per month compared to renting....for a house twice the size.
You've clearly never been to Flint. I have...I grew up about twenty miles away, and while the city itself sucks, you can live in a very nice home with some of the best year round sports, shopping, and amenities just a few miles away, at prices Californians can only dream of.
I manage a team a team in northern CA, and travel there frequently. You've got nothing on MI except higher taxes.
Just another day in Paradise
How do I know this? Because I live in TX where they are building houses and apartment buildings as fast as they can throw them up.
That seems like trouble waiting to happen. Oh wait, Harvey already did. Expect more.
Reminds me of Homestead after Hugo. Of course, they've rebuilt, but I know a dozen people who left those communities because they were so soulless and lacking in neighborliness.
Houston has had stable rents and housing prices because they have lots of land and little to no regulation. It's why traffic movement there has steadily declined to the point that it's near NYC levels, except it's standing still on 16 lane freeways. (Proving you can't just build more lanes to solve the problem) More people came in, and instead of revitalizing a neighborhood it's cheaper to build the next few farms down the freeway. Repeat this for several decades, and you now have people commuting 30 miles or more on average, because the inner rings of neighborhoods are all run down and undesirable from any standpoint other than nearness to the city center. Oh, and pollution? You can have factories built right next to schools there. Check out the locations of the paper mills. That alone should be enlightening.
Until you're ready for social security and Medicare, at least. Then you'll scream and yell for entitlements.
It's not an entitlement if you paid for it, ya moron.
You should probably review the funding for Medicare and Social Security before claiming you "paid for it". Especially when tossing around words like moron.
Under both programs, the recipients paid in far less than they will receive. For example, Social Security recipients on average paid 1/3 what they will receive.
...which are financed by blue states.
That's right, the country simply could not afford to be all red states, because at some point they would run out of other people's money!
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
No, not just illegals. Hollywood hyped up California as a magical utopia where ... unicorns fart glitter
See, that's the problem. It's about education. Not enough people realize that unicorn farts twinkle, they don't fart "glitter".
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Then lower federal spending. Blue tends to be in the cities which tend to have big capital players like Silicone Valley, Hollywood, or Wallstreet which will help the state average for federal taxation. I have seen the idea about only giving federal benefits in proportion to their federal taxation but that undermines the whole point of a federal republic.
Puerto Rico gives exactly 0 in federal taxes. Should we not send federal aid to them when a hurricane hits? Or what about Louisiana or Alabama? Ok, not during disasters.
Do you think down-stream states (like California) do not benefit from the Bureau of Reclamation helping to manage water in upstream states? Do you think states that have big agriculture, like California, benefit from science to study the effect of wild fires and local pollinators done by the USGS ( I wonder how the science done in Idaho during their annual fire season will help California during this one)? How many federal initiatives are you willing to restrict in various states because some states do not have Silicone Valley to pick up the tab? Do you really think the urban centers do not benefit from from that disproportionate ratio? Those are just two that I know of personally.
Are you going to limit the federal unemployment of someone that has paid taxes their whole working life because they live in a red state?
Personally, I find it to the credit of the Founding Fathers that they were able to predict the largest division the nation would face and were able to create a federal republic to service that division. The urban and rural divide should not be widened because you think you do not benefit from federal spending in other parts of the country. If you don't like the spending of the federal government then you should be arguing to lower that spending not be vindictive to the individual based on where they live.