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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?
In my neighborhood there were a whole bunch of rental homes, all owners who couldn't sell their homes because the home values have dropped (some have been holding onto those since before 2008). This year home prices finally reached pre-2008 levels and a whole lot of those rental homes suddenly went up for sale - owners happy they can finally get rid of them without writing the bank a large check.
Perhaps the idea was that California is so populated that significantly rising rents in California may outweigh on average the decline elsewhere?
No, but it's that too. The rents up here in much of nocal (anywhere you could conceivably commute from) have about doubled. There are literally people commuting through Lake county where I live to get from where they live in Mendocino county to where they work in Napa county, or even the hind end of Sonoma, and that was true even before the fires up here. You can expect essentially the same thing to happen in socal now. Probably central California will not rise too much, but since the rents there are already exorbitant and well beyond the reach of the average family, this is not much consolation.
California has taken on a large number of people from other states, who came here seeking a liberal refuge. Thanks to the way our presidential selection system works, this has had a deleterious effect on political sanity in America. It will be interesting to see what effect some degree of exodus results in, which will depend very much on where those people wind up. That will be fascinating in itself...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
>People tend to become more conservative once they have accrued things that they'd like to conserve. Also water is wet and rocks are hard.
Which shows a sad lack of empathy in both directions - when younger, a lack of respect for people who have worked to own things, when older, a lack of respect for those who want to own things. And it seems to get more extreme when the younger folks feel entitled and demand the previous generation just give them things they haven't earned, and the older generation wants to hoard resources that they've apparently forgotten were provided to them and helped them get where they are.
But the average person being a selfish hypocrite is also one of those 'wet water, hard rocks' things, isn't it?
I've been a landlord for 25 years (in my 40s now). I've sold my rental assets only once before -- right before the housing bubble popped. That's because I always live by the method of buying properties when they're selling for less than 60X rent, keeping them if they're 60-120X rent and if they breach 150X rent, I sell them.
My areas are consistently edging up towards 150X rent, which means it makes more sense to sell than rent them. They're 100% occupied and stay that way always (I have a waiting list on one or two units consistently).
So right now I am 90% certain I'll sell everything. I bought a new home (for cash) 2 years ago and the comp price in my neighborhood is up 40% -- totally unsustainable. Folks again are competing to buy homes and then paying way too much compared to income.
In the last bubble, I sold a rental I had bought for $43,000 to a bidding war that ended up paying $120K for it. After the crash, the new "owners" foreclosed pretty quickly and I bought it at auction with no other bidders for $60k. Now that same unit 8ish years later is back up to $110K but it only rents for $785 a month (just over 140X rent). So if it edges up a bit more ($120K) in comps, it'll be on the market and I'll be out and hope that I can buy it back in 3-5 years at a significant haircut.
This market is yet again pushing bubble stages at least in my neighborhoods. As I get older, I realize these are the paths to wealth because people are too emotional about "their" home that they don't even have a title to.
Put 33% in SDY, VNQ or such high dividend yield large cap. 33% in MidCap, 33% in SmallCap.
Do not put money in SP500 it is market cap weighted, and all the bubble companies producing no real income dominate that index. Large Cap Value, dividend index funds are better choices. Stay away from DOW. It is stupidly price weighted dumb thing. 100 years ago thats the best you could do. Not now.
If you can invest in only one fund, do it in SP400 midcap. No small company riff-raf. Growing companies enter, grow big, graduate to SP500. You will catch companies on the rise, and cash out regularly when they get into SP500. One mistake people do is to hold on to "successful" investment for too long, they feel emotionally attached to a good buy. SP400 will regularly sell winners and lock in the profits. It will also catch companies falling out of SP500, beaten down stocks, that often rebound, again regular profit making. Not without risk, companies fall out of SP500, into 400, and then fall so low, it goes private or gets bought up. Some loss there. But unemotional detached periodic profit taking is the hallmark of SP400. It will triggers taxable distributions. If you are concerned about that go for Vanguard midcap index.
SmallCap is also good, it routinely produces a bumper crop of growing companies that get in and get taken over at a hefty premium.
Stay away from owning homes. But do buy VNQ real estate will produce nice inflation adjusted returns. Become a landlord through VNQ, not a homeowner anxiously sitting over a plywood and Tyvek wrapped wooden frame plagued with creaky floor boards and leaky toilets. Rent, call the landlord to come and fix it.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
you are an idiot.... Texas is only blue in the large cities. Rural texas(including most of the area around those large cities) are so red the thought of a democrat running things sends locals into apoplectic shock.
The Texas house has 95 republicans and 55 dems while the senate has 20 republicans and 11 dems.
Gerrymandering has occurred in every state. Both dems and repubicans use it. If you do not believe me look at california senate districts in socal or the Illinois 4th congressional district. look at texas. every party since the early 1800's has used the technique. It is not new nor is it really even controversial.
As a general rule (an unresearched, unscientific gut-feeling kind of rule!), people do seem to get more conservative as they age. I think it's fear - fear of losing what they have accrued, fear of a lifetime of experience becoming less relevant as they age, and an unwillingness to re-examine things they think they got figured out decades prior.
I don't think becoming more conservative as you age has much to do with changing political views. In fact the only research I have seen who track actual individuals' views over time has shown that supreme court justices become more liberal as they age. (although that may be because they are already older when they become justices) From what I can tell it has more to do with the difference between social and fiscal liberalism and how societies become more socially liberal over time.
I for instance am a social liberal and fiscal moderate. This means in 2017 I clearly lean Democrat. But in 2047 all of today's socially liberal battles will probably have been won. Or at least not nearly as big of issues as they are today. So I will likely be a social and fiscal moderate in my 60's. My views of women's reproductive rights, LGBT issues, and safety net programs will not have changed, it will be society's views on them which have changed.
While I am a proponent of a basic income today, perhaps in 30 years I will be against it going up from $30k/year to $40k. Then I might consider myself a fiscal conservative.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke