The rent crisis in America is going to get worse

mojaveman · 09-21-2015, 21:05

Forget buying a house, it seems like even renting an apartment can be a challenge for the average person. It now takes two incomes to get a decent apartment near where I live and still have money left over for a car and groceries.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...et-a-lot-worse

Sigaba · 09-22-2015, 00:37

MOO, conservatives could make some serious inroads with voters from different walks of life if they could find more ways to participate meaningfully in conversations about affordable housing.

sinjefe · 09-22-2015, 01:51

^^^^^Affordable housing? What does that even mean? Affordable to who?

**Joker** · 09-22-2015, 02:55

So do you expect the property owner to provide cheap housing below the mortgage amount?

This has always been a problem for young folks...

1stindoor · 09-22-2015, 06:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joker

This has always been a problem for young folks...

So is living beyond their means. I constantly remind my children of the small car we had to cram in to take vacations when I was a kid. The size (and squalor) of my first apartment. The neighborhood my first rental house (actually a duplex). I try to get them to realize they're not going to be able to afford the big car and big house right out the gate. Takes years and some sacrifices to get there.

CSB · 09-22-2015, 08:19

Quote:

Forget buying a house, it seems like even renting an apartment can
be a challenge for the average person. It now takes two incomes to get a
decent apartment near where I live and still have money for a car and groceries.

mojaveman is offline
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Sur de California
Posts: 2,140

Well, there's a large part of the problem.

Bring that money to Tennessee and see what you can buy/rent.
Did I mention no state income tax?

Trapper John · 09-22-2015, 08:26

Sigaba has a reasonable point.

It seems that we (Dems and Repubs alike) always address the economic issues from the POV of government policies and regulations: Price controls, raise the minimum wage, etc.

This is exactly why the conservatives need to beat the drum of economic reform, tax reform, and free market enterprise and stop with the "conservative" social reform crap. There is a positive vision for America in the economic reform theme. Shit, just emphasizing infrastructure rebuilding will solve the jobs problem. And this can be done with private sector money - recall the War Bonds program? And while we are at it we can link welfare reform to these jobs and provide a skill for the participants in the process. It's a win-win-win and a no-brainer folks!

Stimulate the economy and achieve 4+% annual growth in GDP (a minimum IMO), provide > 500,000 new jobs/year, reduce the tax burden, balance budgets, etc. and the social issues will correct themselves as a natural consequence of increasing prosperity.

Just my $0.02 worth

Sigaba · 04-10-2016, 23:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by sinjefe

^^^^^Affordable housing? What does that even mean? Affordable to who?

Broadly, housing is affordable if it costs less than 30% of one's income.

An aim of affordable housing policies is to encourage private development of housing in urban areas for qualifying lower-income applicants. (The determination of lower income is based upon local criteria.)

In return, developers may qualify for bonuses/incentives. For example, a developer could build a multi family building in an urban core with a density higher than code and a parking requirement for the entire complex lower than code.

Hypothetically, this could mean a twenty story building with the affordable housing units packed a bit more closely on several floors and the rest of the units having more traditional floor plans. If you live in one of the conventional units, you're going to save money because the developer will be passing along fewer construction costs--specifically parking--to you. Your savings can also increase if the building is part of a larger transit orientated design (TOD) project.

IME (based upon fieldwork), affordable housing complexes in the L.A. area are inhabited by citizens who understand the rules and play by them. They know they're getting good bang for their buck and if they screw it up they're going to be driving more than two hours a day to work.

An aside. If Trump becomes the next American president, I augur that there will be a historic surge in urban development. This surge will include an acceleration/stream lining of the affordable housing approval process. While such a development will be great for my company (my division and department in particular), I will not vote for him.

GratefulCitizen · 04-10-2016, 23:56

Sigaba, there are occasions where I really enjoy your writing style and appreciate your vocabulary (sincerely).

Augur.
Excellent word choice.

sinjefe · 04-11-2016, 02:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sigaba

Broadly, housing is affordable if it costs less than 30% of one's income.

Again, so what? 30% of my income and 30% of my daughters income are radically different. What is affordable to me is not affordable to her.

When politicians talk about making housing "affordable", they are not expecting any critical thought as to what that means.

**Pete** · 04-11-2016, 03:43

Most affordable housing problems are laid at the feet of local politicians.

Most of those politicians are liberal.

Most of the "I've got mine" folks aren't going to vote conservative just so the others can have affordable housing.

They like their posh little enclaves.

**Pete** · 04-11-2016, 04:02

The CO floods a year or so ago took out a bunch of trailer parks - "affordable housing" - near Denver. Built on cheap land years ago that were on flood plains.

Nobody is going to build expensive homes on that land.

Builders have to make a profit to stay in business. Costs include development costs which cover fees to the local government and site development. Those can be pretty steep depending on location. Then there is the actual construction costs and the contractor's profit.

If he's building rental homes all those costs need to be covered by the market rent.

Market rent is based on supply and demand. Few units - higher rents. Over build and you can't get rents to cover costs.

Which is why, as Sig noted, local governments try and tweak the system by offering deals to developers - we'll give you a permit to build a 20 floor multi use building if you make 3 floors of affordable housing.

Builders put a lot of study into any deal like that because they want a profit at the end.

Richard · 04-11-2016, 07:05

FWIW - lots of new housing being built around the area out here and people seem to be finding ways to finance them without the crazy risk so common a decade ago.

Homes are energy efficient with large solar arrays which reduce electricity costs and allows them to put 'excess' electricity back into the local power grid and further reduce their costs.

Homes were being built with smaller square footage a few years ago and hardly moving on the market, but construction is going full-swing again and the houses are now larger and many of them are offering a 'multi-generational' arrangement whereby the house includes a large, separated suite for a relative. Many of the younger families (Gen-X, Millenials) buying these homes are including this option as they have a parent move in with them. This arrangement off-sets having a parent living alone or in an assisted living facility, allows more flexibility in having a live-in child care provider so the younger generation can more easily follow their career paths, it keeps the family closer together, and the grandparent assists in off-setting the financing arrangements. It also helps the neighborhood because it provides a more visibly secure environment as you see the grandparents out walking and visiting among themselves throughout the day - the neighborhood doesn't become a sort of 'ghost town' during the day when thee kids are in school and the parents are at work.

These houses are being sold as quickly as they can be built, and the area around here has become a sort of 'bedroom community' for the Bay Area whereby people live here in the Sac-Joaquin Valley because they cannot afford housing closer to the coast and are willing to endure the several hours a day commute to buy into the housing market.

Will it last? Time will tell.

But so it goes...

Richard

Streck-Fu · 04-11-2016, 08:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pete

Which is why, as Sig noted, local governments try and tweak the system by offering deals to developers - we'll give you a permit to build a 20 floor multi use building if you make 3 floors of affordable housing.

Builders put a lot of study into any deal like that because they want a profit at the end.

And then the existence of 'affordable housing' in a development suppresses the values of the rest of the units because those that can afford the primary residences don't want to share or be co-located with 'affordable' tenets.

Dean Jarvis · 04-11-2016, 11:16

Here's what's killing the housing market. It's a generation of young adults in hock up to their eyeballs with Student Loans and a loss of middle class jobs. You've all heard last week that Ford is building a new plant in Mexico. These are $85K a year jobs leaving the U.S.

I'm a Cruz supporter but he spouts tax cuts like the Republicans have been spouting for years and it's meaningless. A lame tax cut on a lame income doesn't get you squat, let alone enough to make a house payment.

Burney and Trump have it right.....NAFTA and China getting free duty rates on most of their imports is killing the middle class jobs.

Back in 1999 I bought a Dodge truck with a Cummins diesel. It was made in the U.S. A friend of mine bought the same truck made in Mexico. So do ya think he got a better deal because they only paid 50 pesos a day to the workers that made his truck...HELL NO, he paid the same a me. So where did the money go

Bigger profits at the expense of the U.S. auto workers.

So all this hysteria of INFLATION is not necessarily true. It's just about more profits and bigger margins.

My suggestion to enable more people to afford houses is to put a halt to NAFT and increase tariff rates on China imports so that decent good paying jobs come back for the U.S. workers.