Rent growth is slowing (where housing got built)
nymag.com
nymag.com
We need local and state industrial policy that actually builds affordable housing.
They both work, at different ends of the market.
Good - multi family dwellings/apartments are a blight, proudly NIMBY
No. They work for the residents, independently if whether they are taxpayers or homeowners.
> not non-residents wanting to move here from other places, who'll require subsidized housing and likely, dip into the general assistance fund (its just welfare, which they can claim on top of federal and state benefits).
Yeah, the assistance fund for low-income residents is for residents, not non-residents.
> There are almost no employers/jobs here.
That is a common cause of low-income residents.
Some have done away with single family zoning, but it's still perfectly legal to build SFH there; it's just not the only thing that's allowed to be built.
What exactly do you mean by that?
- New arrivals bring crime and disorder? Enforce the law, lock criminals up, problem solved.
- Overcrowded schools/overused city services? Tax new residents as needed to support new services.
- Packed roads? Public transit is one option, there are others but I confess to not being an expert in this area.
- Just want to keep your town's culture the same? Legitimate desire, but consider how achievable it is—if young families can't afford to live in your area, it will just die out eventually.
And I do believe you have control over how your town is shaped. You can shape zoning and ordinance laws to prevent certain types of projects - whether it be fast food, drive-thrus, strip clubs, or dispensaries. Housing developers are trying to make money, and if you make it difficult to make a profit, they won't build.
It truly is about the character of your town.
If your current residents wants to hire a teacher, firefighter, restaurant worker, etc that person may need to move in from out of town. So you can decide how / where people live through zoning.
You also decide how easy/hard it is for people to live in your town, and thus how much goods and services costs.
It's entirely in your hand...
I just think most people focus on one aspect (buildings near them) and don't think about other tradeoffs (all the consequences of how/where people your town 'hires' could live as the economy grows). It's complicated and the whole point is you get to work with your zoning board to make those decisions informed by the data and needs of the town.
You are arguing two completely unrelated topics as if they are connected: zoning and welfare.
Your town could seemingly cut out the middleman (the taxpayer) by raising minimum wage (which would either decrease opportunities or increase housing affordability). Ideally, increasing the highest margin progressive property and income taxes also to reduce income inequality and housing prices - while lowering the lower marginal brackets.
Which is it? "Town residents" or "non-residents"?
Well, this is a very old racial dog whistle — so much so that I don’t think it’s only a dog whistle even today: only the (white) land owners get to vote and have a say in government! Make sure housing prices stay high so that they buy folks with generational wealth today can buy in my “small town”!
Absolutely fucking gross.
Internal movement restrictions come with their own problems, so probably not the best solution.
Perhaps if your town allowed for development, there would be sufficient supply, and you wouldn't need to subsidize housing?
You say that like it’s a bad thing. Why shouldn’t people be getting help to afford homes?
In a huge amount of US small towns, the largest downtown buildings in most of them, forming the economic core of that town, are also some of the oldest, and it would be illegal today to build the buildings around which those towns revolve.
It was true in NY and Pennsylvania when I lived in that area, and it's true here in Oregon.
Just like inflation the effects of these economic indicators are cumulative. Total inflation is up over 37% over last year and half (when you combine over quarters and that doesn’t even include housing), your average rent in most livable cities with jobs in the country are over 2000, and guess what wages haven’t gone up meaningfully compared to that. And cherry on top, a good chunk of people don’t have a 1000 dollar saving.
Yet everyone is cheering - rent growth is slowing. Inflation is down.
If there ever was a most delusional group of people, that would be the economics experts making commentaries in media. Good lord.
The important bit is “(where housing got built)”. It’s arguing that increasing the housing supply is reducing rent pressure, and the situation is worse where nothing is being built.
It’s not trying to convince you that things are great and you should be cheery, it’s arguing a policy position.
The places that aren’t building should be, and the places that are building should build more. The only way to arrest rent growth or bring about a decrease in rents is to increase the housing supply or crash the economy.
I don't think you have that right. If they say inflation was 8% for a quarter or whatever, that means it's 8% above the year-ago quarter. You don't sum the 8% over consecutive quarters. Each instance is comparing to a year ago, to account for seasonal effects.
(Also, remember that all these year-over-year numbers are skewed by pandemic effects. Inflation in 2022 looked high because demand was pent-up and time-shifted into that year. Inflation in 2023 will look less compared to the high baseline of 2022.)
This is kind of a myth. The Bankrate.com survey that this figure comes from indicated that 37% of Americans don't have $1,000 lying around to pay for an emergency.
What most people don't say is that of the remainder, 23% would pay for it by cutting back spending in other areas, and another 15% would simply put it on a credit card. Only 15% of respondents said they would borrow from friends and family.
That is to say: most Americans don't have $1,000 lying around because credit is easy to obtain in this country, and for most things there is no need to have it available in cash.
The divide between the haves and the have-nots has exploded. Unfortunately its the haves who have the power (not just the 1%, its that 30%) and shoot down anything that will detract from their personal wealth or quality of life.
"I support affordable housing and new builds, but we cannot lose the character of our neighborhood!"
"I support a higher minimum wage, we are simply moving product sourcing overseas to maintain growth targets"
"I support taxing the wealthy, we only make $5M annually, go after those making $50M."
"I support taxing the wealthy, we only make $1M annually, go after those making $10M."
"I support taxing the wealthy, we only make $500k annually, go after those making $5M."
"I support taxing the wealthy, we only make $250k annually, go after those making $2.5M."
.....
The hard pill to swallow is that those who "made it" over the last few years are the ones who need to "take it" to balance things out.
But don't worry well compensated average HN reader, nobody is gonna allow your home value to drop much.
That's the 4th %-ile not 30th %-ile; the 30th %-ile is 75k [1]. I'm not sure people making 75k are that enthusiastic about the past few years given that they're now paying 1/3 of their pre-tax income to rent [2] (previously 1/4). But yeah people in the 4th %-ile are going to be pretty happy with their rent control err 2% mortgage.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_States
[2]: https://www.rent.com/research/average-rent-price-report/
The 70-percentile US household income was $113,200 in 2021. In 2023 it's likely over $120k (since the median growth of 2022 vs 2021 was 5.4%). The 2023 median US household income is probably around $75k
120k is going to be like 85k after tax so assuming they use the median rent rate they went from 21% to 28% of their post-tax salary going to rent. That's certainly going to be noticed (5.5k / month to 5k / month; 10% drop)
And the median household definitely noticed considering their income decreased [1].
[1]: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/09/median-househ...
I know personally some very well compensated HN users in the Bay area who can’t even afford a home that could drop in value.
Mind telling me how you arrived at this figure?
You can find the real numbers at bls.org
Edit: yes, of course, bls.gov
If people thought in terms of the cost of housing going up xx% because of lack of supply or the cost of energy going up xx% because fossil fuels are produced largely by cartels and hostile powers they might consider policy tools to decrease housing and energy costs by addressing those issues directly.
Instead we think in terms of “inflation” and the only solution for “inflation” is some magical monetary policy lever that has a side effect of destroying working peoples’ lives.