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Apartment rent growth is declining, shifting the market to the tenant’s favor

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Re: Apartment rent growth is declining, shifting the market to the tenant’s favor

#61

Post by stemlord »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #22
rcme wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being close to work is the biggest benefit. Especially for young professionals who don’t need a lot of space and are looking to grind in their careers. Also, when they’re not working, being able to have fun is a plus.

If you have a job that is specifically NY based that is hard to get elsewhere and is an actual paid in money, not cachet career (i.e not working for a magazine) like banking or software, you should earn the 180K pretty easily.

Why would someone live in new york city if they don't make $180k? Do you realize how out of touch the implications of that question are? There are so many nuances to life that drive people to be in certain places. NYC is a huge metropolis. Get real.

Re: Apartment rent growth is declining, shifting the market to the tenant’s favor

#62

Post by midoridensha »

dehrmann wrote: post #6
sergiotapia wrote: post #5

I wish the government would do more to control this terrible situation. If you can't afford a home with a 40 hour job, something is sick in this country. Even an apartment is beyond reach. Blackrock and Vanguard are blights on this planet.

> Blackrock and Vanguard are blights on this planet. Corporate landlords weren't the ones saying "you can't build here because it ruins the neighborhood's 'character.'"

Yep, as usual, people keep whining about "the corporations!" and "the billionaires!" and blaming them for America's problems. The problem isn't them so much, it's the regular middle-class voter. The NIMBYs aren't billionaires or big corporations, though some corporations (not most) have been taking advantage of the situation. The problem is that regular, everyday Americans are greedy assholes, and expect (no, demand!) to make a huge profit after buying a house and owning it for a couple of years, and will do whatever they can to ensure this, no matter how it hurts the rest of society.

Re: Apartment rent growth is declining, shifting the market to the tenant’s favor

#63

Post by sk0g »

alwayslikethis wrote: post #47
kelnos wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it's because most Americans don't want to live in a little box; culture is just different here. And not having a kitchen seems like a deal-breaker for many people (myself included; even when I was in my 20s and ate out most of the time, I don't think I would have tolerated that). And I believe some municipalities in the US won't consider a space legal to rent out if it doesn't include access to a kitchen. O…

Eating out in the US is also much less affordable than it is in Asia, even countries like Japan.

Yeah coming from Australia, the ramens were like $5 a pop instead of $20+. I couldn't even cook it for as little, never mind the labour costs involved.

Oh and the food was amazingly fresh and tasty, without too much in terms of flavouring.

Re: Apartment rent growth is declining, shifting the market to the tenant’s favor

#64

Post by ausbah »

>A year-long drop in rent would be a potential problem for the many investors who took out large loans to buy buildings where they thought they would be able to keep raising rents.

a healthy economy would disincentivize this sort of behavior

Re: Apartment rent growth is declining, shifting the market to the tenant’s favor

#65

Post by fragmede »

nomel wrote: post #18
sergiotapia wrote: post #5

I wish the government would do more to control this terrible situation. If you can't afford a home with a 40 hour job, something is sick in this country. Even an apartment is beyond reach. Blackrock and Vanguard are blights on this planet.

> If you can't afford a home with a 40 hour job I think this has always been the difference between a "job" and a "career". My first full time job was making pizzas. I worked 40 hours a week, dropping sauce and toppings onto squished bread. Nobody would have been able to afford a pizza if I would have been able to afford a home, in my state.

You do realize that wasn't true in the past, right? In the 1950's, it was entirely possible for man to support a family with kids on the income from a job and not a career. There is no shortage of problems in that era, but the American dream wasn't fiction.

Re: Apartment rent growth is declining, shifting the market to the tenant’s favor

#66

Post by sowbug »

stemlord wrote: post #61
throwawaysleep wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a job that is specifically NY based that is hard to get elsewhere and is an actual paid in money, not cachet career (i.e not working for a magazine) like banking or software, you should earn the 180K pretty easily.

Why would someone live in new york city if they don't make $180k? Do you realize how out of touch the implications of that question are? There are so many nuances to life that drive people to be in certain places. NYC is a huge metropolis. Get real.

This is ChatGPT's attempt to rephrase your comment in polite, constructive language.

It's important to consider the various factors that influence people's choices, as the question seems to overlook the complexities of life. New York City is a vibrant and diverse metropolis with a multitude of reasons that attract individuals. Let's try to be more realistic and understanding.

Re: Apartment rent growth is declining, shifting the market to the tenant’s favor

#67

Post by midoridensha »

nancyhn wrote: post #8
sergiotapia wrote: post #5

I wish the government would do more to control this terrible situation. If you can't afford a home with a 40 hour job, something is sick in this country. Even an apartment is beyond reach. Blackrock and Vanguard are blights on this planet.

Completely agree about Blackrock and Vanguard. But didn't the government create this situation by making it hard to build, thus keeping supply down? While at the same time near 0 interest rates to boost demand. While at the same time inflating the supply of money.

"The government" isn't to blame for making it hard to build; that's the fault of countless local governments run by a bunch of NIMBYs. The national government has nothing to do with it, and the US is set up to give way too much power to state and local governments, so the federal government is mostly powerless to improve the situation.

Re: Apartment rent growth is declining, shifting the market to the tenant’s favor

#68

Post by midoridensha »

oivey wrote: post #30
nomel wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can't afford a home with a 40 hour job I think this has always been the difference between a "job" and a "career". My first full time job was making pizzas. I worked 40 hours a week, dropping sauce and toppings onto squished bread. Nobody would have been able to afford a pizza if I would have been able to afford a home, in my state.

Are you sure? Restaurant labor usually works out to a small percentage of the price of the food. Besides that, people could afford pizza back when minimum wage was much higher adjusted for inflation.

>Restaurant labor usually works out to a small percentage of the price of the food.

I don't see how this is true. It's more than 20%, since that's what you're expected to tip in the US, and that just covers the server.

Re: Apartment rent growth is declining, shifting the market to the tenant’s favor

#69

Post by dzhiurgis »

Larrikin wrote: post #35
throwawaysleep wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you live in NY without an income like that?

What I always found interesting about Tokyo was that you could live in all of the various hotspots around the city, alone, on a semi reasonable middle class salary. You would live in a tiny little box, but you could be a 10 minute walk to the middle of Shinjuku or Shibuya. If you are single and don't care about cooking at home it really seemed like a great option. I don't know why in the US we have to be priced out o…

IIRC most of the houses in Japan are on leasehold. If you actually wanna buy land it costs more than in NZ.

Re: Apartment rent growth is declining, shifting the market to the tenant’s favor

#70

Post by piva00 »

midoridensha wrote: post #62
dehrmann wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Blackrock and Vanguard are blights on this planet. Corporate landlords weren't the ones saying "you can't build here because it ruins the neighborhood's 'character.'"

Yep, as usual, people keep whining about "the corporations!" and "the billionaires!" and blaming them for America's problems. The problem isn't them so much, it's the regular middle-class voter. The NIMBYs aren't billionaires or big corporations, though some corporations (not most) have been taking advantage of the situation. The problem is that regular, everyday Americans are greedy assholes, and expect (no, demand!…

Housing affordability is not an American issue though, it's happening in any major developed city across the globe. There is something else to it that isn't purely zoning laws, building codes or whatever.

My personal opinion is that it's the culmination of policies incentivising housing as an investment vehicle, I know plenty of people who bought a first house when interest rates were low (or negative like here in Sweden), taking a loan as large as possible, which in turn pushed prices up, with the assumption that house prices always grow in value. When they grow in value the plan is to sell the first house, use the gains as a down payment springboard for their next loan on a larger house, rinse and repeat until you've built wealth.

Cheap loans inflated the price of housing very fast, building new housing got anchored on that price point, and now loans are not that cheap and developers don't want to build more if prices are crashing.

I have no idea how to break this cycle without a crash/bubble popping. If a government intervenes to create cheap housing (such as Sweden's Miljonprogrammet in the 60s-70s [0]) it will crash prices. It's a massive political issue because no one who has bought on inflated prices want to see their assets devalue, no politicians would survive in their career by implementing policies that would crash house prices.

Corporate landlords are just another facet of this imbalance, they can play around with their stock of vacant homes to keep inflated prices (something that a private landlord with a few units on mortgage really can't afford to do for long), they have money to scoop up houses selling below their target price, etc.

It's happening everywhere I see, everywhere where my friends and family live at, in multiple continents... There's something broken, and the correction is going to be very painful.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_Programme

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