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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?
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.
The millennials are having kids, and finding out that hip loft or apartment in the inner city, along with it’s school district, ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. They are fleeing to the suburbs. Soon they’ll be ditching the Feel the Bern shirts and voting Republican.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.'"
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
...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!
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.
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.