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Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

businessinsider.com

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Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#161
post #126
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing saying that increased supply always leads to higher supply in relation to demand, which is what affects price.

So you're arguing that demand increased more than supply in the same period? By your logic, that's the only way that prices could fall while the new housing was built.

I'm not sure what you mean, but I'll try to express myself more clearly.

In the most basic sense of economics for prices to fall supply has to increase more than demand. If demand increases more than supply the opposite is true. There's nothing saying that a more supply can't also increase demand or even increase demand more than supply.

When more wealthy (or ambitious) people move into an area it often leads to that area becoming more attractive (schools, restaurants, entertainment get better) increasing demand.

Therefor there's nothing particularly strange about arguing that luxury condos could lead to higher rents as the op makes it out to be.

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#162

Clicked on that list hoping to see good news in Seattle... turns out we're up more than any other city in the top 10. Sigh. There actually is a decent amount of housing construction in progress but it seems like it's not nearly enough.

Also Seattle Resident, has a few things going against it:

* Highly constricted physical space, poor public transit and almost continuous traffic problems due to natural bottlenecks. This means people have to live close or else risk a 60 min+ commute one way.

* Single family homes drive a lot of property demand here, not just luxury apartments. Those are still expensive and hard to come by, and they are not building much more of that within the city proper. Average home value is hovering around 500k. Apartment building will not offset this very easily.

* In general, the city was historically undervalued given the insane density of highly skilled and highly paid jobs. We have some heavy hitters and offices of some large international tech companies but rents remained low for quite awhile. This is just the adjustment.

The prices for apartments will level out eventually, but we still have some way to go imo.

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#163
post #132
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a 2 bedroom lease in Adams Morgan, one block off 18th, for $2500 last year. We've since bought a place a few blocks away, so I'm unsure if it's risen.

How expensive was it to buy vs. to have continued the lease?

Well, it's much better to buy. But only if you have the capital. At the time listings were only on the market for one to two days.

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#164
post #122

Los Angeles though... :( One of my friends just moved here and is sharing a 5-bedroom home with 25 other people. I thought he was bullshitting me, and I still couldn't believe it when I went over. He's paying $600 a month to share a bedroom with four other guys. He told me it was the best thing he could find on 1-day notice. He pays for rent online, and he has no idea who the actual owner is, nor who is actually rece…

Woah, I knew about things being bad in the USA, but I didn't know living conditions are going towards third-world standards :/ Where I live (The Netherlands) there are laws that even protect foreign workers (i.e. from Poland) from all being stuffed in a single room. At this point it's starting to look like even jail cells have more room and privacy.

I don't think it is the "third-world standards" that is making everyone rush over to these locations.

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#165
post #122

Los Angeles though... :( One of my friends just moved here and is sharing a 5-bedroom home with 25 other people. I thought he was bullshitting me, and I still couldn't believe it when I went over. He's paying $600 a month to share a bedroom with four other guys. He told me it was the best thing he could find on 1-day notice. He pays for rent online, and he has no idea who the actual owner is, nor who is actually rece…

Woah, I knew about things being bad in the USA, but I didn't know living conditions are going towards third-world standards :/ Where I live (The Netherlands) there are laws that even protect foreign workers (i.e. from Poland) from all being stuffed in a single room. At this point it's starting to look like even jail cells have more room and privacy.

> protect

Curious about what exactly does it mean in this content. Is it about banning full grown and consenting adults from signing a deal because government think it knows best what's good for them?

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#166
post #7

A friend used to rent out a spare room in SF on a regular basis. Two years ago, he could get $1850 for a single room with it's own bath room, furnished. We're talking 6-10 replies from a Craiglist post within 24 hours. Stopped renting it out about a year ago. He just posted it again. Zero takers at $1850. Finally got someone for $1600 (-13% decrease in rent) after a month. A dramatic change. The rental market in SF i…

Yet $1600 is still absurdly high for such a simple living space.

I think it's more about the location than the space.

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think Seattle's growth in housing costs is sustainable? Certainly the cost increases in single family detached units have been large and rapid. My naive interpretation of that would be that such increases are a) unlikely to continue indefinitely and b) are pushing demand for 2+br apartments to unusually high levels. That's weakly supported by this data, which show a 6.4% increase in 1br prices and 8.2% for…

seattle has more growth counted in the number of construction cranes than any city in the us. prices of standlone houses seem to be increasing, apartment pricing is less clear, but this article seems to know.

A lot of the expensiveness of Seattle is the home prices, not just rent. Those will continue to be expensive for quite awhile. Apartment building will not completely offset the price of the city.

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#168

Do we know what policies are genuinely effective at improving housing affordability? This is the one biggest thing the (proverbial?) middle class have been struggling to make gains on over the last generation in a lot of otherwise successful places.

Public Transit/road infrastructure helps costs too. If you can get around an area faster you effectively increase the number of units that are available for people working at your location keeping prices a bit lower.

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#169
post #122

Los Angeles though... :( One of my friends just moved here and is sharing a 5-bedroom home with 25 other people. I thought he was bullshitting me, and I still couldn't believe it when I went over. He's paying $600 a month to share a bedroom with four other guys. He told me it was the best thing he could find on 1-day notice. He pays for rent online, and he has no idea who the actual owner is, nor who is actually rece…

Isn't this just called a hostel?

That just sounds like your friend is living in a hostel dorm. $20/day actually sounds cheap now that I'm looking at hostel rates in LA:

http://www.hostelworld.com/search?search_keywords=Los+Angele...

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#170
post #122

Los Angeles though... :( One of my friends just moved here and is sharing a 5-bedroom home with 25 other people. I thought he was bullshitting me, and I still couldn't believe it when I went over. He's paying $600 a month to share a bedroom with four other guys. He told me it was the best thing he could find on 1-day notice. He pays for rent online, and he has no idea who the actual owner is, nor who is actually rece…

>one day notice

That's probably most of the problem...

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