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Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

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Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#231

Post by rsynnott »

lkrubner wrote: post #20

From previous: " In nations in the West, an important limiting factor is the ability to get one’s own apartment. That is, the ratio of average male wage to average rent. In the USA, the happiest year for this ratio was 1958, when people were spending 22% of their income on rent, on average. Not by coincidence, this was the peak year of the Baby Boom. In some sense, it was the best year in history to be a young white…

> In nations in the West, an important limiting factor is the ability to get one’s own apartment. That is, the ratio of average male wage to average rent.

The average male wage? Most couples are double-income these days, surely?

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#232

Post by isostatic »

Swizec wrote: post #202
isostatic wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

300k a year post tax, 50 weeks a year, 50 hours a week, that's $120 an hour. If it takes an extra hour a day and $500 a month that's $3000 to save a month in housing costs

Don’t forget to take transportation cost out of your $3000 per month. I live across the street from the office and yes the rent is stupid, but my commute is a 5 minute walk. And rent is still stupid in a 30min radius (for a total of 1h/day). You really have to go 1h+ radius to make a significant dent in rent around here (SF).

I did - $500 a month. I have no idea what communitng costs, and little idea about rent.

I have a 5 second commute from the bedroom to the office (3 minutes if I go downstairs and boil the kettle first), far easier. Monthly Mortgage is less than the weekly rent that one colleague pays in London, and he still has a 45 minute commute each way.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#233

Post by nopinsight »

rsynnott wrote: post #230

I don't really buy this. A really, really obvious counter-example; Germany. Germany has pretty cheap housing by Western European standards, but also a low birth rate by Western European standards. On the other hand, Ireland has the highest birth rate in the EU, and some of the most unaffordable housing.

Across countries, culture and perhaps public policies are huge confounding factors. Comparison within the US is at least less influenced by those factors.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#234

Post by Retric »

mseebach wrote: post #197
kgwgk wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about you , it’s about aggregate housing costs. If everyone was earning $1mn and spending $750k on rent, the remaining $250k may not be a lot of money. But of course you’re right, everything else being equal I would also be happy to earn $1bn and spend 99% on rent.

No, the aggregate isn't important: the thought experiment is the same as if everybody earned $251k and spend $1k on rent -- but the percentage of income spend on rent would be radically different. But yes, if everybody suddenly had $250k disposable income, prices would be higher. I think the point GP is trying to make, is that it matters more if you can afford in absolute dollars to have a family on whatever is left…

The problem is you need more space after having kids. If your already spending 75% of your income on rent adding another room is not feasible.

Or more basically you need a significant surplus to be able to afford kids.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#235

Post by astura »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #125
hshehehjdjdjd wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won’t, because you were smart and rented instead. :)

Woah, when did renting became the smart choice?

I'm general, when the price-to-rent ratio is too high. Last I heard San Francisco averages >30. It only makes sense (financially) to own if the price-to-rent ratio is under ~15. If you're an investor looking to become a landlord don't even consider buying a property if the price-to-rent ratio is greater than 8.

Its a smart choice in other situations too - like when you are intending to live somewhere on a temporary basis, for example. You would certainly be better off (again, financially!!) if you were renting a room for a couple hundred bucks a month if that allowed you to sock away $2,000 a month into your retirement funds. That's provided you have the ability to actually save/invest the extra money you have, a mortgage can act like a forced savings account for some people.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#236

Post by arendtio »

adrianN wrote: post #193
arendtio wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when you need to be married to have kids? Sounds like correlation, but likely not causation.

The better question is since when can you have kids without being married? Until quite recently you were ostracized if you had kids out of wedlock and illegitimate children had fewer rights.

The answer to your question is: Since a few million years. Nevertheless, I understand your point.

My point was more along the lines of criticizing 'correlation vs. cause' and providing equally weak arguments.

What I believe is that there are multiple factors at work here. So higher home prices are probably one reason why people are deciding against children, but most certainly not the only one. And 'deciding against children' doesn't mean they will never have any children, maybe they just wait a few more years before they get the first and in the end there will be one less for some couples.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#237

Post by throwawaymath »

AstralStorm wrote: post #219
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For NYC it can be an easy 30-45 minute train ride where you are free to occupy your time with something productive.

Something productive that can be done in a car or train you mean. Not, say: - Being with your kids, spouse or helping them out to school or work - Housekeeping - Working out - Doing anything that requires undisturbed attention

To your last point: in NYC it's pretty easy to do things requiring "undisturbed attention" on a 45 minute express Metro North train into the city from the suburbs. It's a very different experience from the subway.

As for the other three, I guess I could say that I'm not sure it's realistic to try and budget your time so efficiently that a 30-45 minute commute is intolerable. Many people have commutes for which that's a margin of error on how long it will take them - that sounds like a real problem.

Aside from working from home full time, what kind of commute are you looking to have, and at what distance from work? It's not realistic for most people to achieve a 15 minute commute, so 30-45 in a train really isn't that bad. If it really matters then you could do things on the train that would normally keep you from your spouse or kids at home :)

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#238

Post by anoncoward111 »

rsynnott wrote: post #226
anoncoward111 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've visited Denmark before as an American :) It's a pretty nice place-- sure there are pretty generous payments to most members of society, but there is still some petty crime and different social classes and lack of major mobility. I am not precisely sure if they have less working hours. I mean, anecdotally, I don't know any Danes who have 10 minute commutes working 4 days a week, 6 hours a day or something like th…

> ure there are pretty generous payments to most members of society, but there is still some petty crime and different social classes and lack of major mobility. By most metrics, Denmark has one of the largest degrees of social mobility in the world. The US usually comes out worst or second-worst in the developed world (the UK is gaining on it lately).

the rent, salary, taxation, net worth and expectancy data for denmark's 5 million danes is comporable to the AVERAGE american city/suburban resident of similar background

in the USA we just have 100 million people that are literally in debt up to their eyeballs and die horrible unhealthy deaths every year.

im not saying this system is justified, im saying it skews our statistics. the US is like south africa-- a deliberately created class distinction between the rich and the poor which heavily skews along racial lines, but not always.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#239

Post by gm-conspiracy »

wil421 wrote: post #169
shados wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There IS a reason why rent in high cost areas are so, well, costly. If you go to NYC or SF and make 400k/year after tax, who cares if housing costs you 300k out of that. Especially if you're buying, in which case you can get part of your money back once you sell.

Yea and the majority of people don’t make anywhere near 400k. You still need a huge low paid workforce to get things running. Firemen, police, teacher, retail and grocery workers, cleaners, bus drivers, plumbers and the like.

I do not consider plumbers low-paid.

Re: Birth Rates Dropped Most in U.S. Counties Where Home Prices Grew Most

#240

Post by kamaal »

Swizec wrote: post #202
isostatic wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

300k a year post tax, 50 weeks a year, 50 hours a week, that's $120 an hour. If it takes an extra hour a day and $500 a month that's $3000 to save a month in housing costs

Don’t forget to take transportation cost out of your $3000 per month. I live across the street from the office and yes the rent is stupid, but my commute is a 5 minute walk. And rent is still stupid in a 30min radius (for a total of 1h/day). You really have to go 1h+ radius to make a significant dent in rent around here (SF).

If you are working for somebody else, you can't exactly make any extra money by working extra hours. At least in a programmers case.

The only real thing to gain in this case is convenience.

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