Rent prices are soaring as Americans flock back to cities

It’s a racket.

The rentier classes have too much free cash and bid the places up. Now regular working people have to pay the piper.

One positive thing that could come out of soaring rents is the nudge it provides to people to finally buy a house.

No, you can't save up the downpayment because of high rents.

Hedge funds and equity funds are buying enormous numbers of homes and turning them into rentals. There are so many new companies being founded just to do this because the yields are outrageous. (And the government keeping interest rates low makes this happen.)

America has a higher percentage of renters now than at any point in the last fifty years. This us dangerous.

For the longest it was just the poors in Europe who had to pay rent, now they've come for Americans.

While I think that there are limited instances where rent control laws are necessary, there ought to be laws that cap annual increases (something like 10% or inflation/CPI whichever is higher).

It's outrageous to increase rent by 33% in a single year.

I lived for 6 years in a little cottage on a place built for base housing during ww2 . When I went to renew the lease for my 7th year,the manager told me my rent was going up 25% . I was all "Bye felicia!" . That same cottage now rents for double what I was paying for it,and that was only 10 years ago I lived there. Insane. I do miss the hell out of that darling cottage though.

Everyone in the game will just say "if the market allows it ...." And clearly it does, because despite all the hand-wringing, someone is willing to pay the increased rent.

Rent used to be a portion of ones income and now it’s all the income you can muster. Seems rigged up to me.

They could move to the not-great parts of Mesa or something.

[quote] Rent prices are soaring as Americans flock back to cities

Quite the turnaround from an earlier thread today fear porning 40% of San Francisco residents were moving out. Also, has the anti-Seattle troll commented? He's so fair minded and knowledgeable.

Around here it's pay the high rent or move out to the county on septic and well water.

I still think that these huge conglomerate and local slumlords team up and infiltrate the local permit boards. This allows the rent profiteers to stop new development and therefore stop competition and stop rents from going down.

And then they blame the liberals and eco types when it was the evil slumlords all along.

Why wouldn’t they?

Americans in the past used to be able to handle change and the need to move on. Some people still can, like the people from California who are moving elsewhere. Others, like the people in the article who live in Phoenix, are having trouble adapting to change. If they are priced out of renting in Phoenix, they just need to move to a lower cost area, like the Californians are doing, or buy a house. It’s not the end of the world. When I decided to buy a house, it was because of a rent increase. You have to be able to adapt to changing conditions.

Yeah, screw freedom, just adapt to whatever makes the rich richer.

The universe doesn’t owe you an affordable rental property in the exact location you want.

Exactly. Why is it that the rich get all types of welfare from the goverment but the average person gets stuck with the bill?

It’s so obscene now. The inequality. How does this sustain?

Let’s all just let the rich have everything and we will just sleep in the dirt and bathe in the rivers.

Oh wait, they own the rivers now too.

R17 = Theresa May

R3 Housing prices are rising too.

Governments regulate all types of stuff so we won’t become serfs again.

Why don’t they regulate housing?

At least get the slumlords off the local boards. That’s a good start.

Build tons of new housing everywhere. All of the country.

That will make the hedge funds go broke. So expect resistance.

The housing crisis is a supply issue. You will never hear the slum conglomerates say that.

[quote] Why don’t they regulate housing?

They do, which is another thing that increases housing costs.

My rent in Denver is going up $130 from $1140 to $1270 at the end of this month. Unfortunately, I wasn't finding anything at all comparable for less or even that same rent. I would wind up paying movers, deposits, and not saving anything monthly, so I just had to suck it up.

I did make some changes to some of my services (example, a few years ago I added a low end TV package back onto my Cable Internet because it actually made it cheaper. I never actually hooked up the cable box, and looking at my bill the local broadcast and regional sports fees were $25 bucks by themselves. Removing the TV portion dropped my bill by $61.00), and paid off some stuff to offset the increase, but it still sucks.

I feel like it is a combination of the real estate market being out of control, and the landlords using me to offset unpaid rent from other tenants during the pandemic.

Thank you for continuing to pay the rent throughout the pandemic, your reward is an 11% rent increase.

Don't know if I'm the anti-Seattle "troll" referenced above, but I left there earlier this year; the place has been going downhill for years.

r26, you did the right thing.

I'm in Los Angeles and have been in rent control for the last 25 years. I would encourage anyone who is renting to find one and stay there.

I literally just read this article on my phone, suggested to me on my news screen, and thought this was DL catnip. Obviously these people don't have rent control. A $400 rent increase in Phoenix seems shocking, but supply and demand. In LA, rent can only be increased by 3% annually under rent stabilization. Municipalities like BH and WeHo sent their own but they are around 3% as well. I did a multiple year lease at one price just before lockdown and was questioning whether I wanted to stay during the thick of it, but now I am glad I did. I knew everyone would return to the main cities and those who are living are looking for the new hot spots, which are all the places having drastic increases. $1400 for a house with studio referenced in Boise sounds like heaven, but then salaries are probably much lower and it's Boise.

This is a quote I saved a while back. I forgot to save the attribution. Sorry.

“ It's all part of the United States decline into a feudalist economy. It's been specifically set-up to keep the vast majority of citizens in permanent debt servitude. Anything that is critical to having a decent life is weaponized as a debt engine. Housing, health-care, higher education...the prices have exploded and have no relationship to what most people actually earn or can afford. It's not a coincidence or an accident. It's been planned out to work like that. It's the desired result.”

R30 has it

“but supply and demand.”

I do t think this is the culprit anymore. It’s been a century since there was a free market. All the laws and systems favor the rich and the immoral. The system is rigged now so there is no more supply and demand. There is only demand.

They rigged the stock market too. There is no crashing anymore. It only goes up.

The profiteers have figured out the algorithm for perpetual money while the rest of us suffer the rigged system.

R30 I agree that a small cabal has somehow found a way to control the invisible hand using tech, algorithms, etc....

perfect information is now a thing because of the internet and all the data that fools turn over to the cabal.

People like Mitch McConnel, Kevin McCarthy etc they are all just pawns. Bought an paid for by a more organized group that is running the show.

We got close to outing them through slow steps of progress so they decided it was getting too hot in the kitchen and they built off the tea party and used that group to protect them and stay In power.

They deplorables are their mindless soldiers, fighting a fake war that is a cover to keep the group in power.

The antidote is through the deplorables. If they could somehow wake up and realize they are on the wrong team. We all need to fight together against this group.

Everything is up - inflation, gas prices, rent. If you are getting priced out of Idaho, where can you even live these days. I don't think democrats have our best interests at heart as much as most think.

Democrats are the only thin line between average citizens and complete destruction.

Only an idiot, or a some kind of evil monster can’t see that.