Hacker News Reader

Tax and land use policies. Who would have thought...

Median salary for Houston: $61,708. Median salary for SF: $77,734. Does a 26% increase in salary explain a 250% increase in rents?

View on HN

Market-rate rents are driven by young, above-median workers - a young software engineer in SF probably earns significantly more than a young professional in the energy industry in Houston.

You have the causal chain backwards. Market rate rents are driven by high demand low supply. If you add 30,000 people to an area and only 7,000 new units, the price of existing units rise. The employers hiring new workers have to pay higher wages due to higher cost of living. Normal people like cashiers and teachers can’t afford it and have to commute from cheaper areas. It’s supply and demand.

Yes, I was specifically talking about the kind of demand that can result in such high rents (if supply gets constrained).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com