The rise of the forever renters • Hacker News Board

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#31

Post by vlark » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:08 PM UTC

These developments are being built "stick and brick" style, with highly flammable softwood two-by-fours for their framing structures and less-than-an-inch thick brick veneers for the overlay over the Teflon building wrap. I don't want to be at the mercy of someone else's misplaced cigarette, grease fire, or electrical short circuit. We need to build more affordable, smaller homes instead of more ugly McMansions and apartment buildings.

Additional reading: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-13/why-ameri...

Non-paywalled version: https://archive.is/rfnFz

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#32

Post by dsgnr » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:08 PM UTC

dvh wrote: post #25

inamberclad wrote: post #8

The problem with renting is that it's so expensive that it's hard to stop renting. How, in this market, do you save enough to buy when you can't afford to pay less rent? Most people are being squeezed between a rock and a hard place.

Live with your parents, save money, then buy.

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Re: The rise of the forever renters

#33

Post by mupuff1234 » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:08 PM UTC

I wonder how the housing market will cope when we start seeing falling demographics around the world.

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#34

Post by plastic-enjoyer » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:09 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #19

blindriver wrote: post #16

This is exactly what they turn us into: subscribers. They want us to keep paying them month after month, year after year a portion of our earnings forever. It’s the exact definition of indentured servant. It’s insidious and evil.

What do you think homeownership entails? No maintenance, carefree profits from ever increasing land rents only? No property taxes? Who is "they" here, beyond the typical business person?

Apart from that, few people can afford a house without a loan from the bank. As long as you have to pay back this loan, the house doesn't belong to you, but to the bank. Where I come from, this loan is so high that you need 20 - 30 years to pay it back. If you become unemployed, you're pretty much fucked.

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#35

Post by xboxnolifes » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:10 PM UTC

inamberclad wrote: post #8

The problem with renting is that it's so expensive that it's hard to stop renting. How, in this market, do you save enough to buy when you can't afford to pay less rent? Most people are being squeezed between a rock and a hard place.

Unfortunately, the answer is roommates.

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#36

Post by Groxx » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:10 PM UTC

micromacrofoot wrote: post #30

dvh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Live with your parents, save money, then buy.

“just don’t be poor”

Also "be born somewhere with decent employment options".

Tons of people move to find work.

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#37

Post by reactordev » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:12 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #14

petermcneeley wrote: post #6

Are they happy?

I don’t understand how people are happy even when buying. The vast majority of homes I see being built around here have pretty much zero yards. How can anyone be happy when your neighbors are nearly close enough to reach out the window and touch on every side?

Kids don’t play outside anymore. The more room you have for their screens the better. /s

It’s an issue all around the United States. That and HOA’s. HOA’s had originally been a good thing (help a community pool together resources to pay for services the city can’t afford to provide). Things like paving, trash, landscaping, etc. Now, people see it as a business that they can run a “neighborhood” and charge $400/mo for each dwelling under their control. Add that to mortgage and insurance and some people end up having to pay more vs renting in the same area.

Most people who commented here that they moved further out to afford the space is pretty much the status-quo since 1960. Push people to the burbs. Jack up the city price. “Don’t worry, there’s always another sucker”.

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#38

Post by linguae » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:12 PM UTC

inamberclad wrote: post #8

The problem with renting is that it's so expensive that it's hard to stop renting. How, in this market, do you save enough to buy when you can't afford to pay less rent? Most people are being squeezed between a rock and a hard place.

To make matters worse, renting often means dealing with annual rental increases. Since the pandemic started my apartment rent has gone up roughly 8% per year, compared to the annual 2-3% raises I get for good performance at work. Some people have to contend with much more dramatic rent increases. Many people end up getting priced out of renting due to rent increases, forcing them to either move further away (which means longer commutes or even switching jobs) or downsize/downgrade, such as living in a smaller space or living with roommates. A fixed-rate mortgage would shield me from rent increases, but the price of a mortgage is substantially higher than market rents on equivalent properties in my area (San Francisco Bay Area), and home ownership has many costs that are not fixed, such as maintenance, HOA dues, property taxes, and insurance.

It's truly sad to see the price of owning or renting a home rising faster than most people's ability to keep pace. There's a major homelessness crisis in California, and one of the causes is very high home prices and rents.

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#39

Post by mattnewton » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:13 PM UTC

dvh wrote: post #25

inamberclad wrote: post #8

The problem with renting is that it's so expensive that it's hard to stop renting. How, in this market, do you save enough to buy when you can't afford to pay less rent? Most people are being squeezed between a rock and a hard place.

Live with your parents, save money, then buy.

“Just have well off parents”

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#40

Post by EA-3167 » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:13 PM UTC

blindriver wrote: post #26

epistasis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think homeownership entails? No maintenance, carefree profits from ever increasing land rents only? No property taxes? Who is "they" here, beyond the typical business person?

It’s generational ownership. My house will be paid off by the time I die. My kids will inherit it and probably in 25 years house prices will be so high that no one will be able to afford a house. I truly envision the situation so dire that they may need to both live in our house with 2 families but that will be better than suckling off the rest of the hedge funds buying up all the houses and developers forcing prices…

Houses don't last forever, you pay taxes, have to make fixes (sometimes really big ones), you need insurance and most people have a mortgage.

Even if you're able to buy a house outright, and the future maintenance is no bother, who's to say that anyone in your family will want to hang on to your idea of good property? Maybe they'll sell it for cash, or turn around and rent it. The odds of a single average dwelling staying in one family for a LONG time can't be that high.