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

Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 312 posts

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#291

Post by jraby3 »

beebmam wrote: post #36

In large cities across the US (and probably most of the world), there is some very large scale foreign speculation in the housing market going on. This is leading to rising rents and rising home prices. In Seattle, for example, many (newly) wealthy Chinese people are buying houses purely for investment purposes. I know some of them. One of them has purchased 10 houses, and lives in only one of them (when they are in…

Disagree. It costs much more to build a house or apartment than it did 50 years ago. This is primarily because of changes in city requirement to make the houses safer.

I recently had a house burn down in a neighborhood with numerous $150k houses. Cost to rebuild a similar structure was over $200k. I got three bids and every contractor told me the cost was much higher than nearby existing properties because legally, the house would need to be built with different materials and different building requirements.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#292

Post by polskibus »

jraby3 wrote: post #291
beebmam wrote: post #36

In large cities across the US (and probably most of the world), there is some very large scale foreign speculation in the housing market going on. This is leading to rising rents and rising home prices. In Seattle, for example, many (newly) wealthy Chinese people are buying houses purely for investment purposes. I know some of them. One of them has purchased 10 houses, and lives in only one of them (when they are in…

Disagree. It costs much more to build a house or apartment than it did 50 years ago. This is primarily because of changes in city requirement to make the houses safer. I recently had a house burn down in a neighborhood with numerous $150k houses. Cost to rebuild a similar structure was over $200k. I got three bids and every contractor told me the cost was much higher than nearby existing properties because legally, t…

Or maybe because local wages have also risen due to local housing price increase. The workers also need to pay their mortgages.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#293

Post by [deleted] »

jraby3 wrote: post #291
beebmam wrote: post #36

In large cities across the US (and probably most of the world), there is some very large scale foreign speculation in the housing market going on. This is leading to rising rents and rising home prices. In Seattle, for example, many (newly) wealthy Chinese people are buying houses purely for investment purposes. I know some of them. One of them has purchased 10 houses, and lives in only one of them (when they are in…

Disagree. It costs much more to build a house or apartment than it did 50 years ago. This is primarily because of changes in city requirement to make the houses safer. I recently had a house burn down in a neighborhood with numerous $150k houses. Cost to rebuild a similar structure was over $200k. I got three bids and every contractor told me the cost was much higher than nearby existing properties because legally, t…

[deleted]

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#294

Post by moultano »

chimeracoder wrote: post #52
moultano wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land Value Tax. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax This is distinct from a property tax in that it only measures the value of the soil it sits on, so doesn't punish the landlord for improvements. The value of the land itself is almost entirely outside of the landlord's control, it's determined by the community around it. As a result, this is one of the least distortive taxes.

> This is distinct from a property tax in that it only measures the value of the soil it sits on, so doesn't punish the landlord for improvements. The value of the land itself is almost entirely outside of the landlord's control, it's determined by the community around it. As a result, this is one of the least distortive taxes. When land value is taxed at a higher rate than property value, it creates a perverse incen…

How would a landlord go about blighting a community that they don't control?

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#295

Post by bo1024 »

techiferous wrote: post #8
maxxxxx wrote: post #6

Seems the economy is finding the sweet spot where education, housing and health extract the maximum amount of money from people right before they break. Finding that spot while a avoiding a revolution has been the biggest challenge for ruling classes throughout all of history.

That's a simple take on a very complex system.

The simpler the insight, the more valuable and powerful it is -- if correct.

I think it does capture a key basic principle underlying current trends. In any economic system, there is some total amount of "welfare" or value generated, and it gets split in some way.

So maybe you have a constant value of $2,000 per month for having a place to live. 10 years ago your rent was $1,000 per month and so of the $2,000 worth of utility generated by you living there, you got half and your landlord got half.

Now your rent is $1900 and you still would rather pay it than be homeless, and by many reasonable metrics the economy is better than ever, but your landlord is capturing almost all of the value in the system and you are reaching the breaking point.

And I personally don't think it's too simplistic to be true that, as powerful companies optimize (including politically), this kind of transfer is occurring in a lot of sectors in the US this decade.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#296

Post by uiri »

closeparen wrote: post #279
neilparikh wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why it matters if the buyer is foreign or American. You would get the same issue if an investor from Texas decided to buy 10 houses and live in 1. The key issue here is that there's housing that's unoccupied, even under lots of demand. The fix for that is to tax or ban unoccupied housing, not ban foreign housing.

>if an investor from Texas decided to buy 10 houses and live in 1 An investor from Texas can simply open a Vanguard account. The theoretical mechanism for Chinese speculation is that real estate is the path of least regulatory resistance compared to stock markets, etc. under Chinese law.

Nothing to do with regulatory resistance. Chinese culture generally views the stock market as gambling in a way that US culture does not. Real estate is a safe investment. It is also protected against seizure by the Chinese government.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#297

Post by wheresmyusern »

right now i spend 80% percent of my money on rent. through a lot of thought and iteration, ive been able to reduce all of my expenses quite dramatically. but rent absolutely resists my efforts to reduce. it is unmitigated greed. i was talking to my previous landlord and i very carefully broached the subject of why he charges so much and his response was kind of a mental double-think -- he charges what the market can bare. he gets way more money than he needs, and so i call it greed.

i find it very strange to look at the situation in renting -- you have some people who are called "owners" who own the land and they make other people, "renters," pay to stay on the land. what is the difference between renter and owner? why do owners get to sit back and sit on their asses, contributing absolutely nothing, having all their bills paid, not working more than a few days in a month? why do renters have to break their backs all day long just to afford to be able to sleep underneath a roof at night? i just find it very strange that nobody thinks this is unfair -- it is unfair isnt it? one guy does no work and another does tons of work and the guy who works is worse off?

anyway, the whole system is completely unfair and insane, so i decided that i should get out of it. im planning on buying land within 100 to 200 miles of the city. im going to build an icf house with metal roofing and near passive climate control. interestingly, doing this can cost less than buying a new suv, which i would have never guessed before doing the calculations. if you add a healthy solar system and trade your car in for a chevy bolt, one might even commute 150 miles both ways for free quite regularly. as is usual, i expect there to be many people who will call me an idiot and say none of this is possible -- i am looking forward to scrutinizing actual arguments or evidence if they bring any to the table. for those who arent triggered by the concept of cheap, low maintenance living, i would love to connect and exchange tips. check out these awesome websites while youre at it.

http://earlyretirementextreme.com/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#298

Post by letlambda »

projectramo wrote: post #273
nerfhammer wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's either greedy, scheming tech workers or greedy, scheming Chinese speculators. Isn't there a pattern here? The problem simply must be caused by powerful, scheming outsiders. Despite lack of evidence, as this comment is a great example, defying the claim of lack of such by GP as if it simply hadn't been heard.

Yes, I think the largest property owner in the US is Blackstone, a private equity firm that bought the property at the downturn. From a strictly economic perspective they are helping increase demand when it was low and increase supply later on. They got rewarded for that.

How does owning a property increase it's supply? I'm not an economist, but I think you have got to build houses to make more of them.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#299

Post by xvedejas »

DougWebb wrote: post #267
xvedejas wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The effect of a tax on land works differently than other taxes do. Because the land value tax will free up supply (which was previously held for speculation), the result could just as easily be that rents drop. This is the entire reason that this tax is attractive, and you are right that without this feature, the tax would not make sense. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax#Real_estate_v...

That link is talking about the effects an LVT would have on unused land that's being held for appreciation, and land that's being held as an investment. I'm talking about landlords renting property to tenants. Increasing the taxes on the landlord increases their cost, which would force them to raise the rent they charge. This is just like anything else that would raise their costs: higher insurance rates, increased m…

Those other increases in cost do not simultaneously open up supply, though. When there can be more landlords renting out their properties, prices will fall in response. I agree it is counter-intuitive.

"Because the supply of land is essentially fixed, land rents depend on what tenants are prepared to pay, rather than on landlord expenses, preventing landlords from passing LVT to tenants."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax#Efficiency

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#300

Post by [deleted] »

rsync wrote: post #201
SandersAK wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mental health is one reason why people are homeless but it's not the only one. The reasons you're bringing up are strawmen at best. The people who are homeless or on the brink of homelessness are not complaining about artisanal food stuffs. In Oakland, a family of 4 has been living in a single family home for 15 years. This year, after new owners purchased the property, the rent went up 100% in one year. Needless to…

"If you want to understand the severity of the situation, I suggest just literally googling "homelessness housing crisis bay area" and read all the both qualitative and quantitive reporting done on the issue." As a resident of the bay area I assure you that I read about this topic every single day - and consume a wide range of reporting and editorial.[1] "... the rent went up 100% in one year. Needless to say, they a…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN