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Comment by distances | Hacker News Reader

I'm missing something, why is it assumed that living in an apartment is short term?

USA bias I guess: they consider apartments undesirable, only to be tolerated by the younger and/or poorer - but families are expected to try for a house.

People who live in apartments in the US tend to move to another apartment frequently, either to get a better unit, to avoid a sharp rent increase, or to move to another neighborhood. We moved 7 times over a 20 year span.

Young people do move often but, once they settle and buy their family apartment, they are just as static as occupants of any other type of dwelling.

That sounds super stressful. Especially since moving is considered one of the most stressful moments in life.

It's definitely something you adapt to - I moved 7 times as a kid growing up with my family (one of those being overseas) and now it's something I actually look forward too when the comes around.

Most people in the US don't have any rent control, not even controls for percentage increase year to year.

When I was renting, I could expect a 10-15% increase year to year. With the current average apartment cost being $1700, that can mean paying an additional $500-$800 per month after 3 years. At that point it becomes worth it to look elsewhere.

Universal rent increases.

It's common both to own an apartment and rent a single-family house? I'm probably missing some US cultural assumptions.

No, if you live in an apartment your typical experience right now is one of rent increases pricing you out of your neighborhood - if you owned a home this wouldnt be a problem. So living in an apartment kinda has an implicit expiration - your time is up once you get priced out.

My point what I tried to make above -- why the assumption you're renting if you live in an apartment? Some naming convention I'm not familiar with that implies renting?

From reading other snippets - yes! Funnily enough, to me apartment exclusively refers to rentals, you would call it a condo if you purchased it but the connotations of condo to me are 'some one with too much money paying too much for too little'.

Too funny.

And why is it assumed that living in apartment is renting?

Generally the colloquial way to refer to an owned unit is as a "condo" whereas an "apartment" is assumed to be renting

It's more complicated than that but it's basically how it works in normal conversation

not everyone is in a tech hub and can jump jobs without moving. and the parent comment implies they're doing a 3-5 year jump / move.

that doesn't mean people can stay in the same place long term, but if you're going to be there for 10+ years it might make sense to buy. yeah yeah i get no one can do that in SF or London, but plenty of HN posters who aren't in those cities.

But if you buy, it would be more common to buy an apartment than a house, no? At least in European cities. Which would counter the assumption of short-term apartment living.

US bias. Sorry, should have clarified that in my comment.

No problem, I'm indeed not from US so I was just confused for a moment there.

United States

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