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Comment by al_borland | Hacker News Reader

Who are these people who can afford $6k/month for a rental? It has to be a very small percentage of the population, yet I see these kind of numbers thrown around a lot.

Statistically, I’m in the top ~5% of income earners (from the data I can find), with no debt, and I couldn’t afford $6k/month.

I bought a house because I don't understand the rental market anymore. I don’t really like being a home owner, but the rent prices these days are so out of hand. I think the most I ever paid for rent was $1,680 and I felt irresponsible doing that. I don’t know how all these rentals are full with the prices they’re charging. Does everyone have roommates?

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The $6k number is a touch high, but the answer is realistically 30-something DINKs and up. I make $150k a year, let’s say, and if I have a spouse with a corporate career let’s say it’s similar so maybe $250k-300k per year in income? Well that’s about $12,000 in income after taxes, medical, and a 10% retirement contribution.

So, yes, $6k per month is house-poor numbers, but it’s workable for sure. If you’re even better off, good for you, it may fall into affordable range.

Making that much, I wouldn’t want to put anymore than 25% of my take-home toward rent. That would mean making $312k take-home… after taxes, retirement, etc.

Maybe I’m conservative, but being house poor while making $300k is insane.

I’m thinking someone would need to be pushing $400-500k for household income. That would put them in the top 3%. I don’t get the supply and demand curve on it. Making that much, and renting. It’s an even smaller market than the full 3%.

I wouldn't want to purely out of the waste, but from a risk perspective, why not? Your other costs don't scale with housing or income, so if you're spending $70k on housing, you might be at $100k overall expenses. Add another $50k for income taxes and $50k for retirement savings and you're still at 50-100k left over for whatever you like (using 250-300 household income).

6k for a mortgage would be scary in case of job loss, but for rent, whatever, just move.

The lease terms would be important. Not all leases let you out whenever you want.

Plus, if a sizable portion of that household income is in the form of stock or a bonus, that isn’t showing up each month in the paycheck, lowering the monthly cash flow. If there is a layoff early in the year before the bonus pays out, and you can’t exit the lease, that would be a bad spot to be in.

There is still risk on the table, depending on how some of this is structured.

With the numbers I had it only takes 1-2 years to save 1 year of runway, so just do that first (presumably you've had a chance to save before getting your 250-300k income anyway). I suppose that the type of people to spend 6k on rent probably aren't saving much, but they could if that were their goal for some reason.

> I’m thinking someone would need to be pushing $400-500k for household income. That would put them in the top 3%. I don’t get the supply and demand curve on it. Making that much, and renting. It’s an even smaller market than the full 3%.

I know a couple in that range of HHI (doctor/lawyer) who sold their house and moved to a rental in that range.

Their take is that their time is very valuable to them, and dealing with their house involved a bunch of time spent on management and administration that can’t be made to adequately go away without effectively hiring a house manager.

House in the north bay. https://tinyurl.com/bdhzx9xd

People who live with roommates.

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