The housing shortage in the US is getting worse.

[Dominus]

According to the HUD, the US is currently 4.5 million homes short. And normally, you read things like that and just forget about it. But in this case, I actually observe it.

Last year, I think I mentioned here that every time I posted an ad online for an apartment or house for rent, I would get swarmed with applications and have to shut down the online ad in 3-5 days. Too many applications.

I recently had a tenant moved out. She moved our on the 29th of July. I had the place deep cleaned on the 30th and listed it. I kid you not within 5 minutes of the ad going active I started getting calls for tours.

2 days later I had to take the ad offline after getting about 20 applications. Today is the 3rd and I just signed a lease. They really wanted to sign the lease now so they could secure the place. They told me they'd been searching for months.

One thing that I've also started seeing that I haven't seen before. People coming to a showing with security deposit and 1st month rent in cash. They show up and are ready to sign the lease right there and then.

This is a known problem. It's not a secret. And it is only getting worse. How come the authority hasn't done anything? It's not just the news telling us it's getting worse. I literally see this with what I do.

Edit.

Last month I rented out 2 apartments in a different city. Same thing. Had to take the ad down in 2-3 days.

 

[rareboy]

Good for you though.

 

[Dominus]

Good for you though.

Actually, no.

It is never a good idea for any transaction to be this lopsided. The ideal situation is when the potential tenants have options to shop around and the landlords having to adjust the rates and whatnot to adhere to the market.

Also, I want to rent to people who want to rent the particular place from me, not because they have no choice.

Think of it this way. No company wants to hire an employee that doesn't want to be there. Why? Because they will leave as soon as a better option is available.

Same with landlord tenant dynamic. Ideally, I want long term stable tenants. I don't want a tenant that is moving out in 3 months.

And with this many people swarming me with applications, I can't tell who actually wants to rent the place and who's just using it as a hotel room.

It's just bad business for both sides when there is such a shortage in anything.

 

[Rickrock]

I have heard of houses in our neighborhood that went up for sale and sold within a few days or a week or so. It does seem like there is a shortage of housing. Also house prices have really jumped. The county tax board re-evaluates property values every six years and they raised the value of our house by over $60,000 and that seems to be typical from the few comments I have heard.

 

[USEDCAR]

I noticed houses are selling very quickly and they are building housing developments/condos all over the place. I saw the ugliest run down houses in bad areas selling for over $200,000.

I live in New jersey as well its so overpriced here.

 

[TickTockMan]

My city has a few known homeless camps. Many of the people have full time jobs, they just can't afford anywhere so they live in tents or cars. It has been this way for years now.

The local government people think the best idea is to ship people to another towns. Problem is those towns do the same to us. We are finally getting a lot more apartments built, but when they start at $1,600 a month people still can't afford them unless they share with other families, which I know a few people that do that now.

 

[cityboy-stl]

These housing prices and rents are blown all out of proportion to actual value and are not sustainable. At some point, it is all going to collapse, just like 2008. I suspect that is planned for October, just before the election. It is all due to the same root cause for which no one was held accountable - corporate opportunistic greed-flation and predatory price gouging.

 

[cityboy-stl]

These housing prices and rents are blown all out of proportion to actual value and are not sustainable. At some point, it is all going to collapse, just like 2008. I suspect that is planned for October, just before the election. It is all due to the same root cause for which no one was held accountable - corporate opportunistic greed-flation and predatory price gouging.

Looking at the stock market right now, maybe it was planned for today?

 

[rareboy]

These housing prices and rents are blown all out of proportion to actual value and are not sustainable. At some point, it is all going to collapse, just like 2008. I suspect that is planned for October, just before the election. It is all due to the same root cause for which no one was held accountable - corporate opportunistic greed-flation and predatory price gouging.

The valuations are all connected to the mortgage markets.

It was the quants that created the crisis in 2008 with derivative markets and the push for homeowners to treat their house like a piggy bank to buy more and more toys.

The whole market is nothing like this in 2024, but corrections are inevitable and when mortgages slide underwater, then there will be a jolt.

I would note that in 2008, oversupply was also a factor.

 

[cityboy-stl]

Well, even if the specific circumstances are not the same today as in 2008, home and rent prices keep going higher and higher and keep becoming more unaffordable for more and more people. I look at houses occasionally. An 80-year-old 1100 sq ft house that needs updating on the market for $400,000 is just not a reasonable valuation. Rent that used to be $500 but now is $2500 is not reasonable. At some point, even if the causes are not the same, it is going to either blow off or collapse the top with similar results. It can't keep going on like this. Too many people are being priced out of the market. Am I wrong about that?

 

[NotHardUp1]

We have the country we wanted.

The nation gleefully rejoiced when our property values rose disproportionately to the value and investment.

We used illegal labor to build our McMansions so we could profit more, and complained about their use of medical care when they got injured, as construction people always do.

Increasingly, we priced entire neighborhoods out of reach of blacks and Mexicans and white trash. Don't need to see the people flipping burgers, eh?

Speculators came to us, demanding our sons to rape their futures, and unlike Lot, we didn't just offer our daughters, but handed over the sons too. The Jews got the story right.

Fuck the poor, amirite?

 

[xyxyxy]

And the cost of rent is out of control

 

[Alistair]

We have the country we wanted.

The nation gleefully rejoiced when our property values rose disproportionately to the value and investment.

We used illegal labor to build our McMansions so we could profit more, and complained about their use of medical care when they got injured, as construction people always do.

Increasingly, we priced entire neighborhoods out of reach of blacks and Mexicans and white trash. Don't need to see the people flipping burgers, eh?

Speculators came to us, demanding our sons to rape their futures, and unlike Lot, we didn't just offer our daughters, but handed over the sons too. The Jews got the story right.

Fuck the poor, amirite?

It’s ok when it’s happening to other people, it’s a problem when it’s happening to you. That’s the Real American Way

 

[Kulindahr]

According to the HUD, the US is currently 4.5 million homes short. And normally, you read things like that and just forget about it. But in this case, I actually observe it.

The weird thing is that just last month I saw an article saying that there are enough dwellings sitting empty to be able to house everyone who is presently homeless. This pair of numbers -- lots of empty housing but not enough housing -- seemed odd until the end of the article: the average price of a new house is in the high six figures, there is subsidized housing for the poor, but the supply of houses and apartments in between is ridiculously low.

 

[Kulindahr]

It is never a good idea for any transaction to be this lopsided. The ideal situation is when the potential tenants have options to shop around and the landlords having to adjust the rates and whatnot to adhere to the market.

Especially when the shortage means that owners are charging rent appropriate for a new high-end place for freakily-arranged apartments built right after World War II that were more thrown together than designed. The apartments in the building my dad owned are priced only a few dollars less than ones in the newest apartment building that's just outside the city limits; those were built and added to, the first portion going up in about 1935, then additions around 1945, then what were garages tacked onto the back were turned into box apartments in the early 60s -- and except for two apartments that were completely remodeled last year (one due to fire, one due to a hot water heater that exploded), the floors are neither level nor firm (you can feel the boards shift when you walk across a room or even along the hall), the walls aren't vertical, and the room corners tend to an angle a bit greater than 90°.

 

[Kulindahr]

These housing prices and rents are blown all out of proportion to actual value and are not sustainable.

Twenty years ago here rents ran about 10% less than what a monthly purchase payment would be; now they're pushing 15% above.

A partnership between the city, the Catholic Church, and a NfP that helps fund low-rent housing added forty low-rent units last year. They were taking applications ahead of time because they knew there would be a lot. For forty units there were over four hundred applications -- qualifying applications, that is, i.e. people with incomes below the poverty line; no one else needed to apply.

 

[coltonhaynes]

You Americans have a shit housing policy. Every home takes up like an acre of land (at least), because they're not allowed to be any smaller. Most renters would do fine with a small apartment, though. But since every home needs to be so big, the demand can't be met.

 

[Kulindahr]

Well, even if the specific circumstances are not the same today as in 2008, home and rent prices keep going higher and higher and keep becoming more unaffordable for more and more people. I look at houses occasionally. An 80-year-old 1100 sq ft house that needs updating on the market for $400,000 is just not a reasonable valuation. Rent that used to be $500 but now is $2500 is not reasonable. At some point, even if the causes are not the same, it is going to either blow off or collapse the top with similar results. It can't keep going on like this. Too many people are being priced out of the market. Am I wrong about that?

There are some 120-year-old apartment buildings here that only manage to not get condemned due to there not being enough housing.

You'd think that in rural areas people would build more houses out in the countryside, but Oregon has some bizarre laws that restrict the number of houses that can be built on parcels of land. I forget the details, but in many areas the smallest parcel of land you can build a new house on is forty acres, in some areas it's eighty acres, and in the remote areas it's a hundred and sixty.

So if a retired couple wants to build a house on the hill above a farm belonging to one of their kids they have to tear down an existing house even if it is still quite livable! Of course existing buildings got grandfathered in, which has led to the interesting phenomenon of landowners that have small houses built back before WW I for seasonal workers carefully propping up those houses (if they fall over, they can't be rebuilt).

Another phenomenon is due to a bit of a loophole in the law: farmers are turning the upper parts of barns into apartments. Initially anyone living in one of those has to be a worker on the land, but when a tenant leaves anyone can rent it. Of course the city isn't covered by any of those, so there are a number of one-floor garages around that are having a second and even third floor added above them!

 

[Kulindahr]

We have the country we wanted.

No, we have the country that the upper middle class wanted -- those not wealthy enough to own homes in the first place really had no input, and that's a majority of the country.

 

[Kulindahr]

And the cost of rent is out of control

A town up the coast passed an ordinance that limited rent to 5% less than the monthly cost of a 25-year loan to buy the place. Of course it;s being challenged in court!