The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent • Hacker News Board

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#41

Post by imh » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 7:24 PM UTC

dougmwne wrote: post #7

It's interesting that some of the highest and lowest after-rent salaries are in the Bay area. That's a pretty clear indicator of SF's constrained housing supply in particular. It's also interesting so many low ranked after-rent cities are in Florida, which might reflect a strong desire to live there despite the lack of job opportunity.

It's also relevant that SF is only 47 square miles, compared to the metro area's 3.5k square miles. In many of our cities, people commute to work in different cities (hence the horrible traffic). You can end up with different salary:rent ratios comparing jobs in a city to rent in a city than you'd get looking at salary:rent ratios of jobs of people living in a city to rent in a city. Both are interesting statistics in their own right.

I'd bet the difference in those two statistics indicates uneven housing supply (residential areas aren't the same as business areas) and small cities (residential areas are counted differently than business areas).

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#42

Post by occamrazor » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 7:26 PM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #35

loeg wrote: post #27

Where the heck do they get $2800 for a 2BR in Seattle from? That seems high to me. A year ago I was renting a 3BR for $2100. Well, ok, "average" across all 2BR in the city. That doesn't really tell the full story and will be drawn up by high outliers. There are a lot of methodology problems here.

I'm interested to know how one could arrive at a more reasonable number for a 2br apartment. Obviously, what you say is true: a luxury 2 BR with a doorman, gym, pool, onsite parking, and pets allowed is going to be vastly more expensive than your basic 2BR with none of that included. How do you tease them apart?

The easiest way is taking the median instead of the mean. For more info and other methods, search for “robust estimators”.

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#43

Post by madcaptenor » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 7:26 PM UTC

jowiar wrote: post #26

Salary after rent is not necessarily an optimal metric. It works when looking at things like vacations and national products, but when you’re looking at local spend, that rent gets passed through everything that requires local land and labor. Food (especially prepared food) and entertainment tend to be priced in local dollars.

I agree with this. I figure I probably have the same number of dollars after paying for housing in Atlanta as I would working the same job in SF. But I can buy food, entertainment, etc. at Atlanta prices.

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#44

Post by 2trill2spill » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 7:27 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #21

Woofles wrote: post #15

I think Minneapolis is an interesting data point on there, since I've been told (and the data here reflects) that housing in Minneapolis is on par with Chicago right now, but the salaries haven't caught up. Minneapolis ranks as one of the worst Annual Salary After Rent cities, even behind LA and Seattle, which comes as a surprise. Also one thing I've found as I work through a move from an expensive city (SF) to a les…

Tech salaries in Minneapolis and the surrounding area aren't terrible if you're reasonably qualified and do some digging- think low $100k and up. The rents seem absurd to me- $1300 for a one bedroom apartment? - but that's because I grew up in a town where a two bedroom apartment above a quiet store would cost $450 a month, tops.

$1300 for a one bedroom apartment? I'm paying $1360 for a two bedroom and I'm in the heart of Uptown in a nice apartment.

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#45

Post by pmiller2 » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 7:27 PM UTC

rrdharan wrote: post #30

benwerd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty high, I'll grant you - but 1/3 that of San Francisco. And the rent is correspondingly lower. Chico etc are significantly lower than that, of course, but they're a longer drive away - Santa Rosa is just an hour on the 101 from SF.

I'm not convinced it's really just an hour during commute hours.

Not to mention it's completely inaccessible by public transportation, and more or less an undoable commute from most of the East Bay, South Bay, or Peninsula. Bay Area commuting in general is a shit show; it's bad enough that I'm basically locked out of any jobs in the South Bay or Peninsula, just because I choose to live in the East Bay to save on housing costs.

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#46

Post by cimmanom » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 7:28 PM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #35

loeg wrote: post #27

Where the heck do they get $2800 for a 2BR in Seattle from? That seems high to me. A year ago I was renting a 3BR for $2100. Well, ok, "average" across all 2BR in the city. That doesn't really tell the full story and will be drawn up by high outliers. There are a lot of methodology problems here.

I'm interested to know how one could arrive at a more reasonable number for a 2br apartment. Obviously, what you say is true: a luxury 2 BR with a doorman, gym, pool, onsite parking, and pets allowed is going to be vastly more expensive than your basic 2BR with none of that included. How do you tease them apart?

Median instead of mean?

Though it's not clear here which they used for the calculations.

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#47

Post by pascalxus » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 7:32 PM UTC

Jormundir wrote: post #29

I'm genuinely curious why they bothered publishing this in its current state. They don't make tax calculations, so they assume you're paying rent with untaxed income, which makes the comparison all but meaningless.

Absolutely. It's completely worthless in it's current state.

Also, the rent jungle numbers look a bit conservative for palo alto. In PA a 220 sq ft loft costs nearly 2000$/mo to rent. I think the 3900$/mo figure they have is a bit conservative for PA.

Furthermore, they compared 2BD as their normalization factor, rather than $/sq foot. I would imagine the more expensive areas get less Square footage for a given 2BD apartment.

And, notice how they conveniently didn't even mention any comparisons of salary to housing Buy costs.

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#48

Post by drngdds » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 7:32 PM UTC

Jormundir wrote: post #29

I'm genuinely curious why they bothered publishing this in its current state. They don't make tax calculations, so they assume you're paying rent with untaxed income, which makes the comparison all but meaningless.

They also weirdly assume you have a 2BR on a single income, which is not the norm.

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#49

Post by MrLeap » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 7:33 PM UTC

drngdds wrote: post #48

Jormundir wrote: post #29

I'm genuinely curious why they bothered publishing this in its current state. They don't make tax calculations, so they assume you're paying rent with untaxed income, which makes the comparison all but meaningless.

They also weirdly assume you have a 2BR on a single income, which is not the norm.

It's a better way to rend in places where that's affordable ;)

Re: The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent

#50

Post by prolikewh0a » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 7:35 PM UTC

loeg wrote: post #27

Where the heck do they get $2800 for a 2BR in Seattle from? That seems high to me. A year ago I was renting a 3BR for $2100. Well, ok, "average" across all 2BR in the city. That doesn't really tell the full story and will be drawn up by high outliers. There are a lot of methodology problems here.

Capitol Hill last year I was paying $3200/mo for a mediocre 1br. These prices seem accurate.

Studios downtown are pushing $2000. 2br are pushing $4000. Check Zillow.

I now live 9ish miles outside of the city and pay $2000 less for a 1br rental condo with an actual yard I can garden in, and patio.