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

Many FBI agents are struggling to make ends meet. Housing costs are to blame

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 167 posts

Re: Many FBI agents are struggling to make ends meet. Housing costs are to blame

#111

Post by nurple »

gedy wrote: post #101
buro9 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also caused by the idea that housing should be an asset to make someone else money, rather than solely a place in which a person/family can live. This leads to the AirBnB culture, the landlord culture, and compounds inequality whilst driving unaffordability. I'm sure the idea is abhorrent to the USA, but perhaps removing incentives to be a landlord at every step should be considered... mortgages should be puniti…

> I'm sure the idea is abhorrent to the USA, but perhaps removing incentives to be a landlord The problem is what will happen is that any US regulations around this will end up targetting middle-class “landlords” who rent out an extra home. And the real issue of huge corporate real estate holdings will be just fine. It’ll scratch the itch of people wanting to beat down someone in their neighborhood, "boomers", etc wh…

If so, it'll be a great first step and a powerful beachhead to fight from. Making homes into investments, even by you and me in the middle class, is the exact moral failing underlying our problems and creates a positive feedback loop that cannot be stopped. If it's true this is one of the only inflation hedges left, then that needs fixing, not the protecting of usury.

Re: Many FBI agents are struggling to make ends meet. Housing costs are to blame

#112

Post by anonuser123456 »

mrktf wrote: post #48
dwheeler wrote: post #27

The broader problem is lack of housing that can be afforded by the non-wealthy, which is caused in significant part by zoning laws. If more housing was available, the increased supply would better match the demand.

That is broader problem to solve, not taking account any civil infrastructure the houses will be bought by corporate rent company and renters will be charged "fair price" - pretty same as now (not long ago the was article with discussion about rent price fixing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39575803 )

Well, as long as builders aren’t colluding to fix supply, it doesn’t matter.

Corporations can buy up all they want… but idle units are unprofitable. Between property taxes, borrowing costs and maintenance (which accrues whether units are empty or not), units need revenue or they are a drag on profits. Cartels fall apart very rapidly under these conditions.

Right now demand outstrips supply by a wide margin. This makes it profitable to buy and rent it out. Build enough housing to put some slack in the market and that equation will rapidly reverse.

TL;DR corporate ownership is a symptom, not a cause of housing supply issues.

Re: Many FBI agents are struggling to make ends meet. Housing costs are to blame

#113

Post by cscurmudgeon »

listenallyall wrote: post #100
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root cause is the state or local govt preventing new housing. If there were enough housing, rent fixing wouldn't even make a dent.

That may be one cause, in some towns and cities, but it is far from universal. For one thing, demand growth has accelerated in many places, so building homes at a historic rate went from sufficient to meet to demand, to insufficient. You have flippers taking low-priced homes off the market, and you have AirBnb'ers taking other homes off the market (or not selling theirs when they move). There are higher expectations…

> but it is far from universal

None of what you said contradicts that. Supply is always measured relative to demand.

Re: Many FBI agents are struggling to make ends meet. Housing costs are to blame

#114

Post by antiframe »

AstralStorm wrote: post #88
kilotaras wrote: post #59

Housing theory of everything[0] strikes again. Situation: Housing demand outstrips housing supply. First order effect: housing prices go up Second order effect: your FBI agents are now experiencing financial instability and worries Third order effect: your FBI agents are now more susceptible to bribes [0] https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-every...

Housing supply is perfectly adequate. The prices are not, however.

If that were true, then many units would be empty. In my city prices are high but vacancy is low. So, how are the prices too high? People are paying them. If there were more supply, prices would drop, but laws prevent increasing supply.

Re: Many FBI agents are struggling to make ends meet. Housing costs are to blame

#115

Post by JaimeThompson »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #72
JaimeThompson wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why are rents going up drastically all over texas, even in small towns where damn near anything can be built?

Sigh, it is always supply and demand. If demand is higher than supply, prices rise. It is a universal law of economics that people pretend doesn't apply to housing. In these towns, do you have evidence demand is stable and yet prices rise? https://scott-wiener.medium.com/yes-supply-demand-apply-to-h...

Adam Smith would disagree.

Re: Many FBI agents are struggling to make ends meet. Housing costs are to blame

#116

Post by readyman »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #73
readyman wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, capital accumulation is an inherent quality of capitalism, and accumulated capital then controls the state making so-called regulation impossible. It's only a matter of time.

Only in certain regimes, like when labor competition is high. The challenge is houses are the product of both capital and labor, so even if real capital returns are negative, you get stuck with high prices for construction.

Nonsense. Capital simply regulates labor competition to be low. Whether it's by increasing migration of cheap labor, policing worker organizing, company towns, regressive taxes, or many other strategies. There was one single period in history when this changed for a brief moment and capital learned its lesson to always use its power to keep the workers down. It has done so ever since.

Re: Many FBI agents are struggling to make ends meet. Housing costs are to blame

#117

Post by Gunnerhead »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #34
buzzy_hacker wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In NYC, you typically need to earn 40x the monthly rent in annual income to not need a guarantor. 73k / 40 = $1825/month in rent. The median 1 bedroom apartment in NYC is $3,263 according to Zillow https://www.zillow.com/rental-manager/market-trends/new-york...

you're saying people look at gross income to determine if someone can rent a place rather than net ?

Yup!

Re: Many FBI agents are struggling to make ends meet. Housing costs are to blame

#118

Post by nurple »

dragontamer wrote: post #102
sneak wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think this argument holds water. US lawmakers make millions of dollars beyond their salaries; the salary for the position is basically irrelevant. You could eliminate the salary and no fewer people would try for the job. Conversely, you could 10x the salary and no more people would try for the job. The paycheck simply isn’t a significant factor in whether or not someone wants to be a senator or representative…

> US lawmakers make millions of dollars beyond their salaries 1. For those where this is true, this is a MAJOR problem. 2. For those where this is false, this means that we're underpaying lawmakers severely. > The paycheck simply isn’t a significant factor in whether or not someone wants to be a senator or representative. Should it? I think the primary pay of Senators / Representatives should be their paycheck. Not d…

Or we could just abolish representative government that was created to work around limitations in the predominant communication tech at the time, horseback.

The corruption does feel inevitable here as we sit and watch the federal gov rob the country blind while shamelessly enriching their families. No, I wouldn't take a rep's job for even $500k/year, and neither will anyone with the moral mettle to make changes, exactly because they can see the impossibility.

More money is not a solution to greed and self-dealing.

Re: Many FBI agents are struggling to make ends meet. Housing costs are to blame

#119

Post by api »

fifteen1506 wrote: post #7
api wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew people making 100K in California spending up to 60% of their income on housing. Housing prices are destroying everything.

What about the free enterprise????

Housing is a cartel with very artificially restricted supply. It’s not a free market.

Places in the US that allow housing construction to meet demand have more reasonable housing costs.

Re: Many FBI agents are struggling to make ends meet. Housing costs are to blame

#120

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

JaimeThompson wrote: post #67
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root cause is the state or local govt preventing new housing. If there were enough housing, rent fixing wouldn't even make a dent.

Then why are rents going up drastically all over texas, even in small towns where damn near anything can be built?

Never mind the small towns. Houston has no zoning laws at all, yet:

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/housing/2023/07/...

Post reply on HN