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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

#261

Post by chadgpt3 »

cpburns2009 wrote: post #119
estearum wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landlords do not create apartment buildings. Developers do that. Developers should get more reward for developing things and landlords should get less. Landlords do not manage properties. Property managers do that. Property managers should get more reward for managing properties and landlords should get less. Sometimes these are the same individuals and they lump their fees into a single check, but these are not the…

How else do live in an area short term, with no desire to purchase property, without the existence of someone owning the rented property?

How would I own a microwave if I only needed a microwave for two months?

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

#262

Post by Ekaros »

stefanfisk wrote: post #185
win311fwg wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One main driver is that there's not being built enough new housing. I recently entertained the idea of building a new house. Not terribly surprising, but worth mentioning that the time and materials to put up the structure was going cost even more than buying a used house. If nobody can afford to buy a less expensive used house then naturally nobody is going to build the much more expensive new house either. Therei…

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately. I live in an apartment in Stockholm but I also own an old forest cabin. It’s perfectly legal for me to live in said cabin permanently, but it would be strictly illegal for me to build a new house to the same simple standard. The building codes are basically making it illegal to be poor. Similar patterns exist for student housing. The old style of student corridors wit…

And then when you end up with actually accessible version of those it is different again. Which I had for a few years as student. No under sink cabinets. Even more massive bathroom. The bathroom was nearly the size of those small bedrooms.

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

#263

Post by amazingamazing »

TFNA wrote: post #252
amazingamazing wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very simple. Housing is not built.

The price of homes has drastically gone up even in some communities around the world where no housing is being built because there is no demand for it; the given region is experiencing severe depopulation as everyone leaves for the faraway big city, except for a few elderly holdouts. Yet owners feel some kind of pressure to keep their asking prices high. To me, that means the situation is far from simple.

Areas even in the USA where housing is not built but people leave and there is low demand are very cheap.

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

#264

Post by dfxm12 »

armchairhacker wrote: post #81
pelagicAustral wrote: post #58

I think right now, the only place I can afford a house (in a place I would actually like to live in), is in some derelict, abandoned Italian town in Sicily, or something like that.

> derelict, abandoned Italian town in Sicily That sounds like a great place to live. Good weather, quiet, Italian food & culture, safe & stable, public transit to the city…and you can work remotely.

The famous cheap (€1?) houses in Sicily (and other places with similar schemes) likely do not meet most of these criteria. It's not like real estate is cheap in Giardini Naxos...

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

#265

Post by zugi »

jader201 wrote: post #180
WarmWash wrote: post #67

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...

Of all the jobs to get replaced by AI, I would be happy to see realtors to be first in line (but I also think this is wishful thinking). I feel like I get very little value out of what seems to be a mostly fixed/required price. I know flat fee realtors exist, and if/when we sell our home, I’ll be looking into this heavily. But I feel like they rank up there with car salespeople/dealers.

I used a discount buyer's agent and it worked great! We viewed houses on the internet ourselves, went to open houses ourselves, and arranged showings with seller's agents ourselves. Once we had it narrowed down to two houses, we brought our buyer's agent to look at both houses, offer suggestions, and do all the bidding and purchase paperwork.

The realtor cartel still enforced a 6% commission, with half to the seller's agent and half to the buyer's agent. Our contract with the buyer's agent refunded half of his commission to us. So basically we got a 1.5% home discount. Our buyer's agent still made 1.5% but didn't have to babysit us while traipsing through dozens of potential homes, so it feels like everyone wins.

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

#266

Post by shlant »

pc86 wrote: post #223
shlant wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Increasing wages will not fix the housing crisis, and will just drive prices higher. This is true though?

Did you mean "isn't"? The tone of your comment sounds like you mean to disagree with the quoted point.

No I am mostly agreeing with the quoted point

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

#267

Post by [deleted] »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #96
lifestyleguru wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite cruel how Germans still keep up appearances with applying for the apartment with elaborate portfolio, full personal and financial data, letters and so on. While the only portfolio that matters is envelope with EUR 1500 in cash, or at least was 2-3 years ago and now is probably higher. 5-8 years ago it was maybe funny but now is simply cruel.

I have never heard of someone paying cash to get an apartment tbh

[deleted]

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

#268

Post by throwaway041207 »

amazingamazing wrote: post #174
throwaway041207 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my neck of the woods (New England), home prices have doubled since March of 2020. I have yet to read a comprehensive overview of how this happened and how we get out of it. Of course, people went nuts offering over the asking price when interest rates were super low so I understand, to some degree, that baselines were reset. But the current housing market doesn't feel sustainable. I don't understand how a proper m…

It is very simple. Housing is not built.

This reductionism doesn't seem useful. The population of people who want to buy homes has not grown in any way that is proportional to the cost of a home.

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

#269

Post by smallmancontrov »

fooker wrote: post #246
smallmancontrov wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When ownership shows up at zoning meetings, the main risk they seem to be concerned about is accidentally letting someone build enough housing. Heaven forbid!

Are you perhaps too privileged to have seen situations where owning land is a liability? As we speak, close to a billion people are in the middle of ongoing wars. There are entire countries where land is worthless. Ukraine has several hundred square kilometers of land with a thick covering of fiber optic cables from drones.

Why on Earth should I feel the slightest obligation to make whole some jerk who bought the right to kick me off a piece of land and lost money when that right became less valuable?

I have a much better idea: point, laugh, and say "sucks to suck!"

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

#270

Post by m4ck_ »

If companies would allow people to spread out more we could probably improve that situation some, but they want us all concentrated in 10-20 major metro areas. There's cheap housing in this country, its just in places where the job market is extremely limited.
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