Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

priceonomics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 154 posts

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#131

Post by alkonaut »

rhapsodic wrote: post #125
alkonaut wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsure. But equality is one factor. At least where I live women outnumber men at universities - meaning that if one partner in the relation has an "important career", it's very soon going to be more often the mother. Another factor is rents and house prices. If everyone you are competing with for that house can pay the mortgage on two incomes, you aren't going to afford it on one. So that's economic necessity I guess…

> At least where I live women outnumber men at universities - meaning that if one partner in the relation has an "important career", it's very soon going to be more often the mother. You can't logically conclude that based on that one data point.

I’m an anecdata scientist...

Jokes aside, it was a data point to illustrate a change that I know takes place also in other countries; that women account for an ever larger fraction of people with higher education. The number of families where the mother makes more money than the man is slowly increasing.

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#132

Post by rhapsodic »

alkonaut wrote: post #131
rhapsodic wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least where I live women outnumber men at universities - meaning that if one partner in the relation has an "important career", it's very soon going to be more often the mother. You can't logically conclude that based on that one data point.

I’m an anecdata scientist... Jokes aside, it was a data point to illustrate a change that I know takes place also in other countries; that women account for an ever larger fraction of people with higher education. The number of families where the mother makes more money than the man is slowly increasing.

>Jokes aside, it was a data point to illustrate a change that I know takes place also in other countries; that women account for an ever larger fraction of people with higher education. The number of families where the mother makes more money than the man is slowly increasing.

I think if you dig into the data for US universities, you'll find that women are underrepresented in high-paying STEM majors and over-represented in low-paying majors like Dance or Early Childhood Development or Pre-1860 Russian Literature. Until that changes, I don't think your prediction is likely to come to pass.

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#133

Post by alkonaut »

rhapsodic wrote: post #132
alkonaut wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m an anecdata scientist... Jokes aside, it was a data point to illustrate a change that I know takes place also in other countries; that women account for an ever larger fraction of people with higher education. The number of families where the mother makes more money than the man is slowly increasing.

>Jokes aside, it was a data point to illustrate a change that I know takes place also in other countries; that women account for an ever larger fraction of people with higher education. The number of families where the mother makes more money than the man is slowly increasing. I think if you dig into the data for US universities, you'll find that women are underrepresented in high-paying STEM majors and over-represen…

Oh I have no hopes for the US

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#134

Post by throwawayboye »

surfingtheweb wrote: post #124
throwawayboye wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Detroit is in a hype bubble, I think (sauce: lived there for a bit). You can absolutely pay $2,000 for an apartment in a part of town with some blown-out buildings nearby and nothing much to walk to. Why you’d do that, I don’t know, but you can. There are jobs if you wanna work for GM or Quicken Loans, but that’s about it. There are affordable rents there, but what you save in rent you pay in car insurance. Michigan…

Is the $2000 amount the monthly rent, or the total purchase price of an apartment in Detroit?

Heh. Monthly rent if you want walls and running water, purchase price if you don’t (be sure to leave extra for the back taxes).

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#135

Post by meej »

drngdds wrote: post #48
Jormundir wrote: post #29

I'm genuinely curious why they bothered publishing this in its current state. They don't make tax calculations, so they assume you're paying rent with untaxed income, which makes the comparison all but meaningless.

They also weirdly assume you have a 2BR on a single income, which is not the norm.

2BR units are used for rent price comparisons in the US because they are the most common size unit nationwide, and are the easiest to collect data on. They're what HUD uses in their Fair Market Rent analyses and many organizations follow their lead.

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#136

Post by vitaflo »

zdragnar wrote: post #114
rsync wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The rents seem absurd to me- $1300 for a one bedroom apartment?" I think these numbers are unduly skewed by the relatively very large build-out of condo buildings that has occurred in Minneapolis in the past 4-5 years. Prior to 2005 (or so) Minneapolis was a very, very white-flighted downtown area with only a very few condo buildings extant. The notion of living in downtown minneapolis, to most metro area residents,…

I think that build out has been going on since at least 2004, at least around the University. Plenty of luxury student apartments around there with even more inflated prices for the value. Even in the suburbs, sketchy one bedrooms were 900-1000 last I had looked, though I was limited in options because I had a small dog. I ended up going way out to savage to get one for 700 / month back in 2010

I mean, just look at the North Loop. When I worked there in 2000 there were no condos at all, just drug dealers and prostitutes on corners.

Now they can't build condos there fast enough, and the rent on them is insane.

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#137

Post by loeg »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #50
loeg wrote: post #27

Where the heck do they get $2800 for a 2BR in Seattle from? That seems high to me. A year ago I was renting a 3BR for $2100. Well, ok, "average" across all 2BR in the city. That doesn't really tell the full story and will be drawn up by high outliers. There are a lot of methodology problems here.

Capitol Hill last year I was paying $3200/mo for a mediocre 1br. These prices seem accurate. Studios downtown are pushing $2000. 2br are pushing $4000. Check Zillow. I now live 9ish miles outside of the city and pay $2000 less for a 1br rental condo with an actual yard I can garden in, and patio.

Cap Hill (or maybe downtown) is the most expensive neighborhood in the city. It is not representative.

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#138

Post by loeg »

pmiller2 wrote: post #35
loeg wrote: post #27

Where the heck do they get $2800 for a 2BR in Seattle from? That seems high to me. A year ago I was renting a 3BR for $2100. Well, ok, "average" across all 2BR in the city. That doesn't really tell the full story and will be drawn up by high outliers. There are a lot of methodology problems here.

I'm interested to know how one could arrive at a more reasonable number for a 2br apartment. Obviously, what you say is true: a luxury 2 BR with a doorman, gym, pool, onsite parking, and pets allowed is going to be vastly more expensive than your basic 2BR with none of that included. How do you tease them apart?

Median is a good place to start. You might also try to factor in how relative income affects relative rental spend choices. I.e., (on average) someone making $50k and someone making $100k in the same town are looking at different parts of the rental market. If there's a rental market floor at $2800/mo, that's extremely relevant but the average rental price definitely doesn't capture that.

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#139

Post by loeg »

tjr225 wrote: post #60
loeg wrote: post #27

Where the heck do they get $2800 for a 2BR in Seattle from? That seems high to me. A year ago I was renting a 3BR for $2100. Well, ok, "average" across all 2BR in the city. That doesn't really tell the full story and will be drawn up by high outliers. There are a lot of methodology problems here.

Sshhh. Nobody move to Seattle. Its too expensive - you're looking for Austin or Minneapolis. ;)

Ah, right, I forgot. Also: it rains all the time, San Francisco is barely any more expensive, etc etc.

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#140

Post by j88439h84 »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #83
j88439h84 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two parents, one working, seems pretty common to me.

While it is common, it's more common to have both parents working, 61.9% are dual-income. [1] [1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/famee.pdf

Should add in the single parents, no?
Post reply on HN