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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?
The number of renters is decreasing. Coincidentally, the number of homeless people seemed to increase by an almost identical amount.
Umm, no.
California's issues generally affect everyone eventually, but housing, being non-mobile, isn't an exportable issue. Lack of rental housing in California won't really affect the availability of rental units in New Orleans, nor will it affect the prices there.
Yeah, it's going to suck trying to rent in CA for a while, but that's going to be a purely local issue....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It's not just driving people out, employers are moving out too where possible. It's creating some trouble, here around the suburbs of Austin there's a lot of consternation about (of all things) the number of democrats moving in, or at the very least some of the demands and conflicting cultural values of people moving in. I do not live in Austin proper, which has been blue for quite some time, but in surrounding counties which had been very, very red. There was an actual fight at a school meeting where someone stood up and said they don't care about the football team, why are our SAT scores so far below the national average.
The irony that red-state is good for business (and giving attractive tax breaks) comes with an inrush of comparatively liberal population is enjoyable to observe. It turns out that you can't have your cake and eat it too.
>While it will eventually result in higher-density housing being built in some of the affected areas, eventually improving rental pricing,
Human societies are similar to forests in this aspect - occasionally we need a fire (or other disaster, like a big war) to wreak some destruction so in the long run we remain healthy.
In the case of humans, we invest in infrastructure and then as long as we have a choice, are extremely hesitant to tear it down and rebuild with something better. Even if we see other, newer places, are leaving us behind.
Burn it down and that option is no longer viable, so we move forward.
California's issues generally affect everyone eventually, but housing, being non-mobile, isn't an exportable issue.
People are already leaving California due to housing issues, so it is completely bananas to suggest that it's not exportable. The people will be exported, and they will need housing. You don't seem to understand how long it takes to get this much housing rebuilt. It literally cannot be done fast enough to avoid many people having to leave the state.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Just wait 'til everyone who mortgaged their home to buy bitcoins has to pay that mortgage back, that should put some cheap houses into the market.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Housing in California is generally more of a localized issue rather than a state-wide issue. The fires fall into the same category; Marin, Napa, and Sonoma are pretty messed up in housing stock due to the fires (and SF, Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, and San Mateo were already screwed up).
Southern California is a different issue; the car culture lacks rational limits on commuting time. Temecula is now a bedroom community for Los Angeles, as are several other cities 70+ miles away. The sprawl is what limits rational development.
California logically needs more quality housing stock in self-sufficient, walkable communities; there is a large population that lives here until they have kids, then move "back home." This is a natural situation where renting works, but condos are fine too. Until the problem is addressed you will keep having people move to Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and spreading the same problems there.
Nation-wide though, the real issue is smart development and anticipating 20-50% higher populations in 10 years in communities. You don't do that with "master planned communities" with thousands of single family homes 50-80 miles from where the jobs are.
You've clearly never been to Flint. I have...I grew up about twenty miles away,
Okay, the place my lady spent the biggest part of her childhood was Flint, so while I'm not an expert I do have some first-hand information about what it was actually like to live there. Her brother visited the old neighborhood and less than one house in ten is still standing and in good condition; the rest are lots full of weeds, rocks, and broken glass, or burned-out husks — presumably set alight either by looters, junkies, or residents trying to burn out looters and junkies. I'll pass, thanks.
I manage a team a team in northern CA, and travel there frequently. You've got nothing on MI except higher taxes.
This is not about the state as a whole, or a hole, or even about any state in particular, really. It's about the specific places where rents and homes are actually cheap. You don't want to live in them. Flint is just the one I hear about the most, since I live with a former Flinturdian.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Running the numbers is important. When I moved to Los Angeles, I expected to be here for a year or two max. Have been renting for 11 years now. While housing prices have appreciated beyond rational levels, it is only that which makes the equation for buying (retroactively) work. We put offers in on a few houses over the years, but our monthly costs would double, and the net return on investment is basically on par with what we get in our brokerage account, at best. (We bought a vacation home instead for what our down payment would have been.)
Real-estate is mainly an inflation hedge in the long term. It is helpful for diversification, and it can be something useful for survival, and it is a good way for people that can't save otherwise to be forced into it. It is a poor investment if you need to sell in less than 5-6 years, or if you end up buying a much bigger house than your present needs dictate to accommodate long-term family plans.
It's much better to rent a different property. You really, really, REALLY don't want to live in the same building with a bad renter. People do it, but it adds stress to your life that isn't worth the money (in my opinion, of course).
Generally that's going to mean having your primary residence be smaller, and having it paid off. I guess that means adding a decade to your schedule for becoming a landlord, but I highly recommend it. I haven't done it (yet), but I have a couple of friends who have.
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.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
It is incredible for 60% of the Americans, the home they live forms more than 50% of their networth!. Homes are very very illiquid. It ties you down. You are not able to follow the economic trends and go where the jobs are. Makes you do stupid things to "protect the value of home". They are expensive to maintain. It is really a dumb way to save money. Renting is a far better solution for most Americans.
This especially true now. The babyboom peaked in 1952, and their retirement is peaking in 2017. The market is awash with four bedroom, three car garage, quarter-to-half acre lots. The demand will fall, not rise for these properties. Younger generation is not as car obsessed as the previous generations. They do not see the point in maintaining lawns or raking leaves. Any fool buying a half a million four bedroom 0.5 acre lot home in the suburb today would be lucky to sell it at cost 20 years from now.
You can add me to that list of fools. I could not convince my own wife about this. "Millions of people can't be fools. We do what they (meaning richer White people) do". Lucky for me, I can secure my retirement even if lock away half a mill in such a non performing asset. So I agreed to be smack dab right in the middle of affluent white neighborhood. Government always takes care of them, so I would not lose much.
But for younger generation starting out, "stay away from owning homes. Wait for a down turn, buy only if the mortgage is less than rent, and you are assured of job safety for 20 years, and you are planning to stay in that neighborhood for 20 years. Always watch the affluent white class is doing and do that". Invest in index funds. Put 33% in SDY, VNQ or such high dividend yield large cap. 33% in MidCap, 33% in SmallCap. Treat your credit card limit as the emergency funds. You have six month lead time to cash in some securities. Don't fall in love with cars. Start with civic, corolla level, and upgrade to pilot, crv, rav4 level. Don't pay for luxury car brands. Enjoy life.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Government regulation and standards allow for prosperity.
Public (or semipublic) health insurance means that employers can be free to do whatever they do, not be benefits managers. It means that employees can choose the job that best fits their skill set, not one that they're chained to via the prospect of losing insurance.
Environmental standards -- people without access to clean water, food, and air are less productive.
Rule of law means that business or personal property generally (outside of abominations like civil forfeiture) can't be stolen at random without redress.
True, there are excessive regulations like environmental-impact rules on infrastructure that drive up costs massively, but no one who has a sense of history wants to return to Love Canal and the burning Cuyahoga River.
You know, we spend more on education than just about any other country. There is always a hue-and-cry for single-payer medicine to control costs, but we have, essentially, single-payer education, and costs are high - and the results aren't very promising. Maybe those poor school results aren't a result of "gutted budgets" (even though they tend to be the highest in the world), but a bankrupt mentality of how to educate, and what forms the basis of a good education?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Yeah, and the paternalistic charade of the GOP wears thin.
Cheap storage VM.
Except there is no evidence that ACA/Obamacare actually raised insurance prices for equal insurance policies more (on average) than they'd have gone up under the old system. Absent market manipulations that deliberately worked against it, of course.
It also got rid of abominations like a friend of mine with epilepsy living in CA, being quoted $2000/mo for individual insurance minimum. Sure put a damper on his plans to start a business in 2010.
Most of the policies that people whined about losing were shit policies with low lifetime caps and a list of exceptions 100 pages long.
C'mon it's not that bad - I'm sure the homebuilders have already begun the 6-month long application process and environmental assessment needed in order to begin the 6-month long public review phase required for project approval. Heck, in just a year they'll be on to the specific reviews and approvals for actual building plans!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Averages say very little about a nation as large and diverse as the United States. Every school district is different. There are some districts close to where I live that are amongst the best in the world, with the majority of graduates ending up at Ivy League or comparable universities. Some, just a little bit further away, are below national average, with many students not even going to community college. And these are public school districts, mind you.
The key with regulations are that some are good, and some are bad. Every regulation has a cost, and for good regulations, the benefit outweighs the cost.
The goal is to make good regulations, and get rid of bad regulations. The only way to do that is to consider each regulation on its own merit.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."