Housing Nightmare Continues, as Rent Soars and Home Prices Rise

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Those of you renting your living space have likely experienced major increases in your monthly payments.

That rent inflation will almost surely continue.

In April, the median U.S. rent hit a record high for the 14th month in a row of $1,827, according to Realtor.com, a residential real estate information service.

"If recent trends continue, we expect the typical U.S. asking rent to eclipse $2,000 by August," it said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/housing-nightmare-continues-as-rent-soars-and-home-prices-rise/ar-AAXtTlF

[empedocles]

1. New, 5% mortgage rates, may have impact.

[Tree Lady]

2. My daughter in Bay Area

wanted to buy a house and realized she would have to spend almost a million for a decent home so she is staying with renting which is crazy. She said if I buy a horrible house for $800,000 and my payments are $5000 a month that's insane! And now that they capped interest rates on taxes it doesn't help people with that.

[usonian]

7. I'm selling my home and living in a tent so my daughter can buy a home in the Bay Area.

I am sure your daughter already thought about WFH, which means you can live elsewhere in CA for less than half of the Bay Area.

Know where to buy a nice tent?

With a view?

[Tree Lady]

8. Cool pic!

She is top manager of large honda dealership with 300 employees under her constantly having to deal with people and sign checks and approve deals. We talked about whether she could do some of her office work at home and she said her job needs her to be there.

She makes good money but not enough for million dollar home. Well maybe would if her deadbeat stay at home out of work boyfriend would get a job....but don't get me started on that!!

[usonian]

10. Good luck!

Too bad about the boyfriend. I worked for some 42 or so years, including 4 in the service. Most of it in the bay area.

Age discrimination kind of ended it. I once interviewed at a company not to be named (Snapfish) and completely aced their "exam" and interview. So they hired a couple of young guys instead. One weekend, they decided to party in Tahoe while the photo servers crashed hard.

No problem! Startups don't actually DO anything, but are designed to be sold or go public as quickly as possible.

HP bought the company, and "it was all good".
And then there were the all psychopathic bosses. But that's for the upcoming novel.

[Johnny2X2X]

3. They'll need a crowbar to pry me out of my house

Hold hold hold. Owning your home provides a lot of security and protection from rent and rates increases.

[Bucky]

4. This is the direct effect of rising wages. Whenever workers' wages get a break...

The real estate industry is there to suck up any efforts by renters to start saving. It's an almost entirely unregulated monopoly. There is supposedly some competition between lessees. But it's not like switching from one brand of soap to another. So from purchase to purchase, rents on homes effectively are serial monopolies.

"The rent of the land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or to what he can afford to take; but to what the farmer can afford to give."

--Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776)

[Initech]

5. I'm convinced I'll never be able to really own a home.

Thanks Wall Street and hedge fund fuck faces.

[hunter]

6. There are plenty of disused cities throughout the U.S.A.

Maybe we could train an army of specialists to refurbish and modernize these cities with high speed internet, excellent public transportation, and carbon-free power sources.

Then we could offer them up for homestead, with free water and utilities for a year, no rent or mortgage for two, first dibs to the people actually doing the reconstruction.

Those who don't make the transition to self-sufficiency in two to five years would be offered more conventional publicly subsidized housing and other opportunities.

All the resources required to do this, money and manpower, could be diverted from our overheated military budget.

I don't think it would take a great fraction of those resources to nearly eliminate homelessness and wage slavery in the U.S.A., and it would also create a more welcoming environment for immigrants and refugees whom we need to prevent demographic senescence.

That probably sounds too much like communism to some people. It's actually an investment in our future.

Libertarians like to believe such progress can be accomplished by the "invisible hand of the free market," but it's not happening. Gentrification is not the same thing. For every "winner" in the gentrification game there are more losers -- mostly lower income people who are driven away by high rents and evictions.

[roamer65]

9. Don't worry folks.

Eventually the Federal Reserve will more than likely raise rates too high and burst the bubble.

It will all come crashing down worse than 2009.

[Chainfire]

11. Home buyers are competing with investor groups to buy homes.

That certainly drives up prices. The investors have deep pockets and are in it for the long game. The investors want to corner the market and make everyone a renter. It is part of corporate America's mission and motto, "What can we take from you today?"

[Bettie]

13. This right here

is the answer.

Another way to price gouge.

Corporations are taking everything and leaving us with nothing.

As for "oh, because people have higher wages"...um, the increase in housing costs have been MUCH larger than the raise some people got. The increase in food costs have been higher than that raise, the increase in gas too...because right now, they are testing us, to see how much they can make it all go up before no one is able to buy anymore.

Then, they'll set their prices at that level, where we can sort of manage to keep a roof over heads, buy food and get to work, but nothing more.

Right now, what they are doing has little to do with the actual economy. It's all about consolidation. There is little or no competition in any industry these days.

[Marius25]

12. And as usual, everyone will blame Democrats

and think Republicans (who haven't proposed any solutions for anything) will magically fix it if they're given a chance.