The rise of the forever renters • Hacker News Board

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#51

Post by jmoak3 » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:33 PM UTC

mupuff1234 wrote: post #33

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

You don't need to wonder. Look to Japan for the broad strokes: property in cities will still have value while rural areas fall into decay.

In more words: young people will crowd into cities in order to meet other young people and find work, while aged areas descend into irrelevance and whatever this is: [1]

Due to this, Greater Tokyo now contains 1/3rd the population of Japan[2]. While you can find a number of articles claiming it's cheap compared to metros in other countries, or horrifically expensive[3][4], whichever it may be it is certainly better than what's in [1].

[1] https://unusualplaces.org/nagoro-a-creepy-japanese-village-w...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Tokyo_Area

[3] https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/surging-tokyo-property-...

[4] https://www.businessinsider.com/america-build-like-tokyo-hou...

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#52

Post by ljm » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:37 PM UTC

linguae wrote: post #38

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 me…

Ever since the dawn of 'trickle down economics', wealth has only continued to be distributed upwards and is becoming increasingly concentrated at the top.

This is because the cost of everything except labour has increased, forcing many to try and do more with less. It is completely and utterly unsustainable and I doubt anybody young will ever experience the kind of prosperity that came after WW2.

You can't even rely on getting a decent white collar job and climbing up the ladder any more - loyalty is expected from an employer but no longer offered in return.

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#53

Post by Gibbon1 » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:38 PM UTC

RecycledEle wrote: post #28

If you want to increase home ownership, you either need to change renters priorities, or pay them more, or make buying a house more affordable.

Old idea of mine was to institute renters old age insurance systems sort of like social security. Tax rentals and use the money to provide a subsidy for retired renters. I've gotten any number of objections when I've mentioned it. But I think it's fair when you consider the tax advantages homeowners and landlords get.

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#54

Post by tagami » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:43 PM UTC

From the article:

"Homes in Scranton—which is a roughly two-hour drive from Philadelphia, New York City and Syracuse and is now known for being where the hit mockumentary show “The Office” took place—are listed at a median price of $179,900 on listing platform Realtor.com. With a $150,000, 30-year mortgage at a rate of 7% on such a home, average monthly payments would be around $1,000. "

Homes are affordable. Just not where most people would like to live.

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#55

Post by RoyalHenOil » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:51 PM UTC

reactordev wrote: post #37

irrational wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

HOAs were never originally a good thing. From their very beginnings in the early 1900s, they served to exclude racial and religious minorities from buying homes.

These racial/religious covenants were only struck down in 1968 with the Fair Housing Act. But because HOAs still get to investigate, interview, and reject prospective buyers, many of them still discriminate unofficially. As a consequence, some minorities (e.g., Black people) are underrepresented in HOA neighborhoods.

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#56

Post by crtified » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 9:56 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.

There's no easy answer, beyond the two infinite (and equally, vague) options : "make more", and/or "spend less".

Many who make it have the key advantage of having been nurtured into that outcome across their first 2-3 decades of life, by a strong or effective family foundation. And from there, naturally, the so-called network effect opens that gap yet wider.

So it stands to reason that, for those outside that advantaged demographic, some degree of 'breaking the mould' is often required, in order to raise oneself up.

And there are so many ways.

Conversely, so many factors of inertia and lock-in. The average salary is so easily spoken for, in a life of weekly car payments, weekly phone payments and expensive phone plans, digital subscriptions for music, movies, TV, apps, games, quizzes, every spare dollar going to the endless and essential bargains on Amazon and Aliexpress, 1 x coffee or 1 x beer @ $5 a pop, throwaway fashion, neverending rubbish processed and convenience food in the trolley, while paying others to cook and deliver us food, a brand new service entering the market every day with an accompanying "small fee". A million ways and reasons to turn your money into the profit of others.

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#57

Post by RoyalHenOil » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 10:04 PM UTC

EA-3167 wrote: post #40

blindriver wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 st…

When you rent, you are still paying for taxes, fixes, insurance, mortgage, and all other costs associated with the home you live in.

But you pay even more, on top of all of that, so that the landlord can make a profit. Otherwise, there is no incentive to rent the home out.

If you own your own home, though, you are not paying for anyone else's livelihood: that profit all goes to you in the form of reduced living expenses. And in the end, you pay off your mortgage and now outright own an asset that can benefit your descendants for generations (whether they choose to keep it or sell it).

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#58

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 11:09 PM UTC

whateveracct wrote: post #9

skadamat wrote: post #3

Renting is underrated, especially in the US I feel where people are constantly encouraged to buy a house. https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/renting-is-not-a-waste...

Maybe in the market this very moment it's tougher to buy, but I bought in 2020 and my mortgage + other expenses pretty much match what I was paying in an expensive city (Seattle). I didn't buy in Seattle but it's an easy drive away. And my house is 3k sqft vs the 800 I had in the city. And that space is put to work: Proper office, guestroom, gym room, much larger and nicer kitchen (which in turn saves me even more mo…

[deleted]

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#59

Post by epistasis » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 11:14 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #50

ebiester wrote: post #21

Alternatively, the kind of real estate that these "forever renters" would like to buy are either not built or not available at the prices that they can afford. I wasn't able to buy in San Francisco or Boston without a two hour commute, but renting was achievable. Now that I live in a middle cost-of-living area making a remote salary, I was able to buy at a reasonable price relative to renting. On top of that, the lab…

Due to immigration, the demand is practically inexhaustible. You cannot build fast enough to fix the problem.

What will all those new people do, maybe some fraction will build homes...

For places like the US, which this article is about, we are nowhere near a high rate of immigration, and population growth is nowhere near historical rates.

What is at historical rates is restriction on the ability to build homes. We have never had greater artificial restrictions on growth than now. Our history do the past century is coming up with ways to prevent the natural densification that humanity has used throughout its history.

Re: The rise of the forever renters

#60

Post by antisthenes » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 11:23 PM UTC

skadamat wrote: post #3

Renting is underrated, especially in the US I feel where people are constantly encouraged to buy a house. https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/renting-is-not-a-waste...

A blog post supported by some twitter screenshots?

If there are arguments in favor of renting, this definitely isn't it.