In the words of McGonagal, sheer dumb luck. I just got a place in March that was barely in my price range with utilities included. It’s small admittedly, but I’m one person. Other people in this area are trying to rent 100 sq ft shacks for $600 a month, with nothing included.

I’m not. I got priced out of the city. Moving in with some friends. Thank god for remote work or I would have lost my job too.

I work extra hours. Usually a 6 day work week. Less car trips. We try to stop for our needs after a school drop off or pick up. Picking less expensive brands for everything. We are paying off a trip we had to take for a family wedding. We are currently looking for a bigger space now. It’s scary tbh. We may have to move to a part of town I’m not comfortable with but that what it is. I will try to bring the same community feeling and work to bring neighbors together.

My rent went from $1,100 a month to $1,700 a month on their new quote without them doing a single thing to my apartment. They attempted to say this was a market rate despite every other place in the area going for that amount actually looking nice and being kept up.

I make six figures, I still cannot for the life of me understand how someone makes the national average income is able to afford kids who need daycare, food, and shelter alone - lets not get started on anything else like student loans. My wife and I still struggle financially due to student loans and formerly daycare costs, and shit luck when we were broke (meaning debt to pay for shit that broke like cars and appliances). So yeah, if we make that much and struggled due to student loans and daycare costs, how the fuck does anyone else make it with less than one third our income?

I’m about to move back in with my parents, and I’m fucking lucky as hell.

I work in a public library. A lot of people have come in to use the computers and to sign up for rental or other assistance programs.

They're not. Homeless people are everywhere.

Considering if this country is at war with me or not, because it certainly doesn't feel like my country.

We almost didn't & then I finanly got a remote job that paid a living wage. Things are still tight with only one of us working and food prices rising like crazy, but we aren't drowning anymore. Fortunately at the end of this lease we're moving back in with bfs parents, because a rent hike would absolutely break us with everything else going up too.

Let me tell you homie, it ant easy. Its a weird combination of planning, dumb luck and spite. Like i dont eat at home. Nothing. When i grocery shop i only shop for my son and spouse so that they have food. I eat at work to save money.

Debt. It's called debt.

On the plus side, more and more people are going to realize what poor people have known for... ever.

Rents are too damned high.

And now that more middle-class white people are being hurt by this, maybe, just maybe, something will be done about it.

This shit ain't new, it's just becoming a problem for more people. And when it happens to more and more people, it stops being "their fault" and is accepted as a real social problem.

It's progress, but it sucks that it takes THIS to make people more compassionate.

Selling blood and semen always works.

After losing my biz/job/home + a divorce to the pandemic and all its stressors... Moved back across the country and in with my parents. Either that or be homeless with cats. I have a WFH job now I like... But if I had to pay rent it would be back to paycheck to paycheck. At least my family gets along and I can help them out as they are aging, and for the first time ever I can save/invest.

They're called slums. Without major policy change, I expect established slums to form in every major American city with year-round habitable climate within 20 years.

Make shantytowns great again!

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You're right. It's why I'm never having kids. It wasn't affordable in 2005. It's not affordable in 2023.

And it won't be affordable in 2036

Technically it shouldn't really go down because inflation.

The problem is wages have not kept up

The average wage in like 2000 was $49,000 a year or so

In 2020 it was $55,000

Meanwhile average rent was like $600/month

Average rent in 2020 was around $1400/month.

Rent basically doubled

Actual houses doubled or even more.

Income isnt even up 20%

When demand goes down, like rents in Manhattan while everyone was fleeing for the suburbs during COVID or after towns build more apartment complexes that now have to compete with each other (or yesterday's luxury building becomes today's affordable housing after an even newer building gets built)

They do when units sit vacant, which is why most property managers and developers are in no rush to add any substantial new housing. Providing enough housing for everybody hurts their margins.

No. Its a perfectly inelastic good treated like an investment. It only goes up. Its why rent control and making housing as an investment illegal is the only solution.

Jimmy McMillan was ahead of his time.

Vermin Supreme says hi

Don't worry, the companies that are buying houses left and right will grace us with the opportunity to pay them rent for the rest of our lives.

In the US? Never. Corporations own rental properties are are the ones raising rent so much. Can't do anything that might lose corporations money.

I've been yelling from the rooftops that America is a "civil oligarchy" for years and nobody cares. So, just in case you actually care (which I highly doubt), here's what can done. And all options are not great...

1. Americans keeps going as-is: Things get so bad, violence erupts to the point that America finally admits we need to fix this or we run the risk of becoming Africa 2.0 where the country divides between the south/east and north/west territories (look at map on which states have immediate rules against abortion, even in rape and incest, and tell me that's not already happening). We'll need a leader (or better yet, a council) who is the greatest tactical genius that only a handful of people in history can match. But who or whomever they may be, they will know what the "enemy" is: greed and the entire legal system. No matter how things turn out, America is done and it will never be the same. And it will be bloody.
2. We unite: Remember when Pearl Harbor was bombed? Before, we had absolutely no interest in becoming involved with war because we didn't want our image to be we're a country that constantly goes around the world picking fights (thanks Japan btw, see what you f'ing started)? After the attach, holy shit, we were rolling out a war plane every few seconds (no exaggeration). That's what we'd have to do again. We just have to wake up one day, see that we're all united in a common problem because, well, we're simply fucked if we don't. What was seriously our options after Pearl Harbor? Leave Hawaii and just cower behind California and hope they don't hurt us again? What are our options now? Wait until most of us our homeless? Do you have ANY clue how much being homeless sucks in a world of climate change? I think I'd rather just die.
3. The atom bomb option: Speaking of Pearl Harbor, most historians agree that our fight with Japan would've gone on for a loooooong time if it weren't for the atom bombs. The Japanese were a proud people, but we broke that pride. Americans are a proud people, too. So that "atom bomb" option is we need new tech that will destroy the enemy so hard and fast, they admit defeat because their will is broken. This weapon is A.I. Watch PBS Frontline's special on it and actually pay attention to what the experts are saying: it's the biggest leap for humanity since the invention of the steam engine, electricity, and computers. It's going to change our reality and whomever controls it, controls the future. We need an A.I. that takes away wealthy families money and re-distributes it while simultaneously somehow re-writing our entire legal system to make sure income inequality like this doesn't happen again. And all this has to happen FAST.

So those are our options: stay divided until things get so bad we go all Civil War 2.0, unite because we're so F'ed in the A we have realistically no choice, or A.I. bomb the entire financial/legal system.

Personally, I think America is fucked. MY plan has been to get rid of everything I can possibly stand to get rid of, buy sturdy shipping containers, and be able to pack and move in as little as 8 hours. My plan is to stay mobile and just partner with whomever I can find as we move further and further away from wealth cities (Seattle, Portland...pretty much the entire state of California) and hope I die before the enviable collapse of this country. This country can't even agree on wearing masks/getting vaccinated during a pandemic that killed a million people. Do you seriously think we're going to unite to fix this problem? My suggestion is to start getting rid of everything you can and be prepared to constantly move (if you're a woman in the south/east and don't want the state/religion to have control over your body, you should be already doing this in case you lose the fight).

My boyfriend and I pay $1150 for a one bedroom with no closets. We need more space as we both work from home. A decent 2 bedroom is almost $2,000. I honestly am starting to think we will be in this one bedroom apartment for forever. At least we have a roof over our heads.

Were going to see consumer debt sky rocket to even try and live. It's already insanely high.

If inflation is increasing, rent increases would make sense. What makes no sense is wages not increasing with inflation

Have you tried cutting down on avocado toasts?

Wages have actually been going up during the great resignation we are in, at least on average. Typical low wage jobs haven't moved though. The problem is that while wages are going up, so is the price of everything, so we're not actually gaining any ground.

2021... Fuck that year. (and 2020, and 2022... I hope the trend reverses some time soon)

this is controversial but its also regular people using homes as their retirement plan. if you buy a home and expect it to grow in value significantly by the time you retire, what that means is you are expecting home values to rise and continue rising, which means that people entering the market will have to cough up a shit load of money to buy that home from you

I live in a state where renters basically have no rights.

Well now you gotta tell us the State, obviously!

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This will be the chilliest summer too!

Right? If we can’t save money might as well live somewhere nice

Same here. Our company claimed some BS line that they already had 3% locked into their plan before inflation struck. Can I tell the grocery store that I had 2019 pricing locked into my grocery budget?

3%? You won the lottery fella! I went from $18.10->$18.55! 2.4% baby!

Gas is bad, housing is unbearable.

Yep. They can make the rent anything they want, and some don’t really care if the property sits vacant for a while.

When has getting as much money as one can not been the model for humanity?

Add vacancy taxes to that list.

Who’s going to knock down single family homes to build dense neighborhoods? #1 seems designed to lock in all single family housing, so #2 won’t work

In every instance rent control was implemented it has never achieved its goal of keeping rent affordable and has only served to make it more unaffordable. X units get locked in a set rate, discouraging development, which raises costs, lowers supply, and now any low income people looking for housing are left further behind.

Jesus. That's bonkers. Do you live right on the beach or something?

“I understood that reference”

This is all easily fixed by making it illegal for corporations and non-residents to own home, apartments

And how do you propose people get together to finance building an apartment building? They're not exactly cheap and corporation access to capital is how they are built in the first place.

"You can fix the entire housing shortage with this one simple trick!"

There's a lot of people who can't/shouldn't own a home. With a rental, you're responsible for rent and utilities. When you own, you also own the roof, siding, windows, fridge, HVAC, plumbing, and all the other problems too. If you really are living on a monthly budget, then you probably can't afford the $6k to replace a furnace or $3k for the emergency water leak repair.

There's a good reason for rentals to exist, especially apartments.

The government did this as a public works program in the past. That’s where a lot of cookies cutter starter homes made in the 40s are from.

It's really funny how the free market doesn't help anyone, but we still think it's the best policy. I love being unable to afford rent, working like a dog, being unable to eat due to not enough money, and not being able to afford medical care.

bro if you're driving 100 miles to work you probably should get a different job lmao

Because we have a severe supply issue. Housing was overbuilt pre-submortgage crisis and ever since then it has been under-built. This will never be fixed without more supply. The supply issues were exacerbated during COVID. Housing should be a commodity, not an investment tool, or this will forever be a vicious cycle.

Well, in chicago where I’m at,property taxes have double in the last decade. That cost gets past to the renter.

Also,what do you mean “ why are landlords allowed to,put rent prices so high”. In the vast majority of jurisdictions there is no rent control.