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Wages in America Are Too Low for the 30% Rule to Work for Renters Anymore

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Re: Wages in America Are Too Low for the 30% Rule to Work for Renters Anymore

#61

Post by bee_rider »

gonzalohm wrote: post #2

Is it the wages or that shitty one bedroom apartments go for $2000+

That’s a sort of interesting question. On one hand, landlords are easy to resent, they extract a lot of income primarily by owning something rather than doing anything productive.

On the other hand, wages haven’t kept up with inflation and the super-wealthy are constantly capturing more of the value. At least in the case of small-scale landlords, maybe they are just the only lower-to-middle class people who’ve managed to defend the deal they had in the 90’s, proportionally speaking…

Re: Wages in America Are Too Low for the 30% Rule to Work for Renters Anymore

#62

Post by Aurornis »

whoknowsidont wrote: post #20

Landlords are the least productive class in society, and it's not even close in terms of ranking.

The market rate and supply and demand are going to determine the price of housing whether or not you have landlords. Remove landlords from existence and the alternative is to make everyone buy homes. I guess that would drive housing prices down a little because so much of the population would be living with their parents until they save up enough for a down payment, which might not occur in their lifetime. So demand would go down, but it would not be fun for the people who wished they could rent.

Re: Wages in America Are Too Low for the 30% Rule to Work for Renters Anymore

#63

Post by vorpalhex »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #26
mc32 wrote: post #4

[flagged]

Never the less, without people undermining wages ... Never the less, without corporations hiring people to undermine wages there would be pressure to pay higher wages for low skill low education workers, no doubt. But this isn't just about "low skill low education workers". Higher skilled and educated workers are making less too. There is a systemic effort to gut the middle class. And once this effort is complete and…

> without corporations hiring people to undermine wages there would be pressure to pay higher wages for low skill low education workers

Supply and demand. If you increase labor supply, prices go down.

More workers will in fact depress labor prices.

> Higher skilled and educated workers are making less too.

This is outright false. Skilled trades are suffering from an inability to fill vacancies and salaries are going up.

> There is a systemic effort to gut the middle class

The middle class is shrinking.. because the middle class is becoming upper class.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/upper-middle-class-income-us-wh...

The middle class earners are earning enough to become upper class.

Re: Wages in America Are Too Low for the 30% Rule to Work for Renters Anymore

#64

Post by [deleted] »

gravypod wrote: post #12
gonzalohm wrote: post #2

Is it the wages or that shitty one bedroom apartments go for $2000+

In 1970 a $300/month apartment would be ~$2000/month in today dollars. I do think rents are too high as productivity and supply chains are much more efficient. I think in the 70s we were still using black pipe for gas, iron septic lines, and copper pipes for water. But, I don't think new builds or renovations are cheaper inflation adjusted (harder to estimate). Cost of money (inflation), building, and maintenance is…

[deleted]

Re: Wages in America Are Too Low for the 30% Rule to Work for Renters Anymore

#66

Post by bglusman »

gravypod wrote: post #24
foolfoolz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one bedroom (and living alone) is a luxury and always has been

Is this true? I think SROs were very common in the US in metropolitan areas. It was common plot point in media to: 1) kick your kids out at 18, 2) if two men lived together they were assumed to be dating.

I think SRO's are very different from "One bedrooms" and even from studios? a studio or a one bedroom has a kitchen, a bathroom, and some living space... I think SRO's typically have a bed, a chair, and sometimes a desk. Bathrooms were shared, I'm not sure how kitchen/cooking space worked?

Re: Wages in America Are Too Low for the 30% Rule to Work for Renters Anymore

#67

Post by WarmWash »

The problem is absolutley that housing is too expensive, which of course a bunch of realtors are not going to point out.

Increasing wages will not fix the housing crisis, and will just drive prices higher. How convenient for a bunch of realtors...

Re: Wages in America Are Too Low for the 30% Rule to Work for Renters Anymore

#68

Post by inglor_cz »

Arodex wrote: post #45

Again seeing some blaming poor immigrants for this in the very first answers. Meanwhile, where do the money for OpenAI and the SpaceX IPO comes from? Who got hold of so much money? How did they got hold of it? And here's the killer question: would they, and the rules and system supporting them, change in any way if there were less immigrants?

No amount of money will help jurisdictions that still refuse to permit new buildings in face of a constant influx of people.

You cannot live in Musk's banking account. You have to have the actual physical structure, and current laws in hotspots like San Francisco and New York do their utmost to prevent new development.

Places like Austin, which are less restrictive, don't have this problem.

Re: Wages in America Are Too Low for the 30% Rule to Work for Renters Anymore

#69

Post by JohnFen »

sethjgore wrote: post #30
ajmurmann wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at real, median household income. It's been going up and up. The things that have gone up in relative cost are housing (because we heavily regulate building it) and premium services like healthcare and education because of Baumol.

Does median represent the normal anymore?

When it comes to income and wealth, I don't think so. There aren't enough people in the middle ground between rich and poor for that to be a meaningful stat for most things.

Re: Wages in America Are Too Low for the 30% Rule to Work for Renters Anymore

#70

Post by throwforfeds »

gravypod wrote: post #12
gonzalohm wrote: post #2

Is it the wages or that shitty one bedroom apartments go for $2000+

In 1970 a $300/month apartment would be ~$2000/month in today dollars. I do think rents are too high as productivity and supply chains are much more efficient. I think in the 70s we were still using black pipe for gas, iron septic lines, and copper pipes for water. But, I don't think new builds or renovations are cheaper inflation adjusted (harder to estimate). Cost of money (inflation), building, and maintenance is…

Were apartments $300/month in the deep suburbs of cities though? Because I'm always surprised to hear my parents tell me rents for 1 bedrooms in the place I grew up in outside of Boston are in the $2-2.5k range (confirmed just now, not an affluent suburb). Census data seems to put the equivalent in Massachusetts at $120/month in 1970, which would be roughly $1k/month in 2026. $300/month in 1970 might even be high for what people were paying in Manhattan in 1970.
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