Guest Post by Martin Armstrong
I reported how BlackRock is now the largest landlord in the US. Institutions have purchased hundreds of billions in real estate across the nation and have no plans to sell because rentals are a lucrative venture. Inventory is at a historic low and people simply cannot find a place to live if they need to relocate. Rental price gouging has reached astronomical levels and demand far outweighs supply.
There are eight prospective renters for each available apartment in the US, and the average occupancy rate is 94.2%. Of those occupied leases, 60.7% chose to renew. New housing grew by a measly 0.43% as building costs have increased substantially. The high-density state of New Jersey has become the most competitive real estate market in the US. This is particularly true for the northern part of the state, which is no surprise as the average cost for rent in NYC is $5,186 monthly. That price tag makes places like Los Angeles look cheap, with an average rental price of $2,600. Miami, the new Wall Street of the south, has become the second most competitive market in the US. Apartments in Miami-Dade County last an average of 33 days on the market if a unit even becomes available.
Housing is completely unaffordable and people with good-paying jobs are struggling to find a place to live if they do not already own. Purchasing property was once the smart financial choice, but that is out of reach for the average person. In fact, over three million Americans earning over $150,000 annually still choose to rent as there is simply no alternative at this time.
Rentals across America are almost at total capacity. The typical person locks in a 12-month lease, but the landlord (in most states) can raise the price at the end of that term and there are little protections for residents. In fairness to the landlords, their costs have increased substantially as well in terms of taxes, insurance, and maintenance. The price of a renewal increase is typically lower than what it would cost to relocate, aiding in the decision for the majority to renew their leases.
Where I live, we also face seasonal rental price gauging. Off-season one-bedrooms in the Tampa Bay area are over $2,000 monthly and rising. But once the “snow birds” return during the winter months, prices increase substantially. There is a 13% tax here on short-term rentals as well, but finding a full 12-month lease is increasingly difficult.
Adding to this crisis is the mass influx of migrants as cities across the nation develop ways to house tens of thousands of people at the expense of taxpaying citizens. Landlords typically require renters to earn 3X the monthly rental price as well, forcing many to leave the cities and more desirable areas even if they earn a good living.
Shelter costs are unsustainably high for both buyers and renters. People cannot find a place to live. Those who rent often become stuck in a cycle of renting perpetually, unable to save as all their income goes toward shelter.
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Nah, people just don’t want to work hard and save.
Avg cost of living, avg pay, taxes, value of things like education, competition, population, regulation, demographics, … all exactly the same as when I struggled in my salad days in the sixties and seventies. I made it then, therefore anyone who can’t make it today is lazy.
It’s good that we have so many immigrants willing to do the work that lazy Americans won’t do, we need to subsidize them more by taxing those lazy Americans more. But keep your hands off my Social Security cuz I paid in and I have a right to it.
Did you make a lot of money tossing salad in the 60’s and 70’s?
He did he likes tounging asshole.
Iggy you like your tounge to be toilet paper after your mothers explosive diarrhea!
Iggy
Your wife laps up my ranch dressing off her face.
Iggy = commy pig
Doesn’t sound like any accountant I know. Commie pig?Got rid of the wife 17 years ago . If you see her ,fuck her in the ass with no lube.
Don’t worry you’ll still get your social security so you can put it into a slot machine at the local casino each month.
Troll post.
Jew rent seekers making life unbearable once again. Keep voting slaves you’re free lol.
Iggy is welfare rent seeker.
Iggy is a card carrying member of the free shit army.
You don’t even make sense.
Iggy, you’re a disgraceful blemish on what a free speech site could look like had you any conception of shame. You and many others here. Pitiful.
Well if I’m aggravating you my free speech is working let me know when you see the redcoats poser.
Could we please knock off with the endless jew-bashing ?
It is most unpleasant to encounter.
“You will own nothing and be happy”
That must be why I see more and more smiling faces everyday!
With a bankruptcy bloodbath around the corner, there will be so many more happy faces.
We’re well on our way to nirvana…..fingers crossed.
(s)
It’ll be a dandy. My prediction of firefights in the streets began yesterday in Tejas.
I mean what could go wrong? A multi-trillion dollar company buying up all the affordable housing, who’s plan is to put you in a 15 minute city and live on a steady diet of cock roaches, psychotropics and poronagraphy.
Paranoid Much?
I’m glad I lived when I lived and housed myself on the cheap for the first 15 years of post-university life. A 3-bedroom 2nd floor 900 sq ft. brownstone walk-up in the south part of the City rented for $521 heat included (at the start), and with 2 roomates my rent was less than $200 per month. This allowed me to invest enough surplus money over those 15 years to buy my first house without any mortgage.
I don’t know how Gen Z is going to deal with this situation today. Frankly, the laws of supply and demand have been grossly distorted by TPTB with the agenda to import, legally or otherwise, masses of 3rd worlders. Many live with 10-12 family members in rented 2 or 3 bedroom townhouses, across 3 generations, some with jobs but most on welfare, making the per-head costs affordable to them, but not to those actually footing the bill through increasing taxation. That kind of reverse-gentrification destroyed the character of the neighborhood I lived in, forcing me to sell and relocate. More importantly, that kind of living arrangement could never work for my 19 year old nephew or his cohorts. The supply of dwellings like the one I started out in is now zero. Relocated 3rd world families get fast tracked into housing here, while the new generation of working, and working age 20-somethings are forced to live in their parent’s basement ad infinitum.
Amen , rents here have doubled do to an endless stream of foreign college students ,section 8 housing and various other govt vouchers . If you work you are displaced. My neighbor upstairs just got his lease renewal they raised him 325 a month no way he can absorb that.
The control grid tightens…wait till they outlaw tents and camping.
You’re correct. My florida county and others have put a moratorium on RV living. This, sadly was a last refuge for substandard income or those (like me) that used a remodeled Airstream to “get skinny” , living in it for 3 years.
I’m currently trying to sell a 31 footer and am seriously considering keeping it for my kid. Just in case!
It affects a lot of things. We live in a touristy area (ski, lake, etc) and there is very little housing for these kind of employees. There are still a few trailer/ RV parks and the rich areas make their own dorms but that increases tourist prices.
We had a fire where quite a few people were evacuated for awhile. Nowhere to go. Even if you had a camper the parks were filled with tourists. Neighbors pitched in however.
We have a studio apt (in disarray right now cuz of frozen pipe/water) we are saving for emergencies or the right person. Many around here have them and if the right young person was willing to help out with labor they could live free. Rural, LOTS of labor to do.
Of course many are now rented for big bucks as whatchacallits- over night, but the real residents need labor.
Also there are still places to get into homes but you have to arrange your life/job to do it. Go ahead and live in a city and even larger towns now. Lots of jobs….
The article states areal problem (definitely in areas of my state) but there were always obstacles. I’ve said this before but our first house was at like 12% interest, a fixer upper with us on a low hourly wage. We worked until we made the payment back then. Why not get a loan if your rent is huge anyway?
Ha! Next thing will be bankruptcy as a jailable offense. Debtors prison but only for the plebes.
This will encourage the acceptance of UBI and a pod to live in. Bug rations will be cheap and the sheeple will go along with it. Do people own houses or does the house own them? actually, until it’s paid for the bank owns it. even then there are property taxes. with a CBDC they may take all of your known bills out automatically and deposit what’s left, kind of like the company store at a coal mine. my town has a problem with all the locals who make it run and work the majority of the jobs can’t afford a place to live here. Many B&B places(hundreds) suck up places to live also.
The higher the rent prices the more immigrants you’ll get to crowd into 1 room. They will out compete the natives . Which In turn, will lead to more immigrants and in turn higher rent prices.
It’s like adding more lanes to decrease traffic. The more lanes , the more cars, the more traffic.
This what happens when the cost burden of the commons is not proportional. Institute private schooling and much of this goes away.
What’s wrong with housing? Government. Just like financial, medical, education, extraction, mining, harvest, farming, manufacturing and on and on. Government is powerful medicine, and like all powerful medicine becomes a deadly poison when too much is used.
Each of the sectors mentioned endures government intervention. The public benefits from some small but significant interventions. Basic building codes make things safer. Requiring full sprinkler fire protection in a 1200 foot rambler is NOT beneficial, but IS costly. Harvest limits ensure the species can live on, prohibition of use benefits no one, even the species in question. Equal access to education benefits everyone, forcing educators to admit students without the mental faculties to succeed in the course of study doubly injures the public, a seat is removed from a qualified student and the person favored with the seat when unable is injured by wasting his time. This paragraph could go on for a long while in this vein. You get the point.
We are being poisoned with TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT. Of course the only solution offered is… more government intervention.
Rent in my area pre-“covid” was $1,500 a month for a one bedroom. Average rent is now $4,000 plus. That’s nearly $50,000 a year just for rent. Add food, car insurance, gas, utilities, medical co-pays, taxes ect it costs $75k a year just to exist and you still can’t save shit. A house is now $425k nationwide except shit crime ridden areas. And the mortgage rate is going up to 8.4%. How is anyone not rich going to survive?