I did just see a price decrease on Zillow on a rental for the first time in years. From $2000 to $1900. Still higher than our top budget of $1800. Before covid I was renting a whole house for $900 a month. I wish I could wipe my brain and forget what things used to cost because I feel like I get pissed off every single day.
Where I live is a pretty average Midwest suburban area that represents the majority of the population and you won't find a soviet-style "doomer" 3 bd apartment in the "sticks" for anywhere near $1200. You won't find a 2 bd one either.
My girlfriend pays $2,750 for a one bedroom with cockroaches that we’re constantly having to use traps, and her rent will actually be increasing soon to subsidize the apartments they’re converting to low income.
Any decent apartment is $3,200/mo for a one-bedroom. Meaning they expect $115k annually to meet the 3x monthly salary.
My mom's uncle's friend pays $6,500 for a 1-bd where he has to hand pump his own water.
I'm not sure if that's a lot for a private island, though. I guess everyone values things differently and has their own breakpoints for opportunity cost.
I feel so bad for young people now. I rented a 2 bedroom apartment by myself, working as a waitress, for $400 a month in 2005. 20 years later and I’m still part time as a waitress because we like to go on vacation and remodeled our kitchen. But dang it why do I have to? I got a college degree so I wouldn’t have to get a second job and yet here I am. In high school, my boyfriend’s mom wanted a pool so she worked part time at a gas station for one year and put in a large in ground pool. I think my part time income for the year might buy me an above ground pool. I probably couldn’t afford the chemicals to keep it clean though!
My mom worked at a Denny's part-time to pay for college, dropped out, got a sales job and bought a condo when she was 10 years younger than I am now. I'm making more money than I've ever made, and I feel as broke as I was 10 years ago.
Don't worry, median real incomes are up! The economists have been spamming that punch line about 50x everyday for the last five years. So don't worry about your perception of what's going on, it's all completely fine!
I live in a part of the country were pools can be open year long. There is never a closing. People do swim year round.
That said, very few home pools are going to contribute to becoming and elite swimmer. I had someone at work suggest I put in a pool because my future children may become olympic stars.
A pool to me is something to lounge around in and do some "laps" when it's warm out or when it gets unbearably hot in the triple digits. Even if you DIY 99% of the stuff, it's still a financial drain at maybe $1,200 or so a year (just guessing based on what little I've researched on the matter) but it should be seen as a never-ending outgoing expense but it can bring tons of enjoyment in the right part of the country.
Yes, I live in a place where pools are open year round. There are tons of public and private pools available, almost no home pools are large enough for an actual workout, DIY is a huge time sink.
Quite a bit exists to make DIY easier but the buy in cost is huge. I stopped into a pool store this past week to pick up something for my folks. Their pool is massive but it was also cheaper to put in years and years ago. Part DIY, mostly maintained by a family business we've trusted for decades. I'm on roughly an acre parcel and I cannot imagine ever putting a pool in. I've had friends bring it up but the upfront cost is huge, I know they always get completed later than intended and at a higher cost. Let's be real, if I really want to swim, I'll head over to my folks or one of my siblings who have pools. I could put a lap pool in, but I don't want to. I see home pools as a fun experience, not another fitness piece. It isn't nearly as fun making dolphin noises in a lap pool than it is a fun pool.
I forget what the old saying is but it goes if you really want a pool, buy a house with one. Someone already spent the money to put one in.
When I was home shopping on and off, pools always caught my eye until I looked at the positioning and how much gap there was to the rest of the yard, number of trees, vague maintenance cost. It was always never worth it.
The summer I bought my house, we had 2 or 3 weeks where the daytime temps were 110 or higher, with nighttime being around 85-90F. Only then did I wish I had a pool I could dip into otherwise AC and cold beers inside. Aside from that period, I've never thought or wanted a pool.
Other terrible financial decisions: going to the movies, subscribing to Netflix, going to Disneyland, buying a video game, buying clothes from anywhere but a thrift shop, Starbucks, etc.
I mean only because I never see pool users do daily swims. Massive health benefits and increased attractiveness and energy levels could be worth it depending on what you do.
That said, pool owners don't swim.
People who pay for memberships with lap lanes or go in ponds do.
This is what Boomers said about millennials like me until it turned out that the hallmarks of Boomer success—cars, education, and housing—had all become VASTLY more expensive than everything else, meaning that the real wages we were making were not actually more.
Right, but to refer back to the actual content of my comment: inflation does not properly measure the increase in cost of the hallmarks of Boomers’ success: education, housing, and autos.
Home prices are also up a ridiculous amount. They might make more money for their age, but home prices have outstripped that. That's why they spend their money on video games and vacations. They still don't have enough to buy a house. Why wouldn't you rent and enjoy your money in the meantime? That's what we're doing as millennials. We are not going to be house poor so we're renting and enjoying ourselves. You know what else we're not doing? Having kids.
Meh, spare me the woe is me fakery. All of my friends max out their 401ks and spend thousands a month on sports betting and then complain about house prices. It’s all BS
Exactly, the funniest part is when they’re complaining about their finances, they basically describe exactly why they are broke due to their own decisions, only to blame outside forces immediately. They oddly remind me of people who clearly eat 4k calories, swear they ate 2k, and blame the mystery weight gain on genetics. Hell, people do this excuse crafting for their pets or other people(that they have an enabling relationship with) too
I remember as a kid I rolled my eyes when my dad said mcdonalds burger was less than a dollar when he was a kid. Sadly i dont think your ever gonna see that price again.
I'm sure it's location dependent but I'd venture to guess there are no McDonalds that pay minimum wage. There are only 82,000 jobs nationwide that pay $7.25 an hour.
Ah I was thinking of the combo price at $11 in my area. I haven't had their food in years, so only remember the prices on the billboard. Thanks for the correction
Yes it is local and locally here the rent is really expensive too for wages... I don't know why people always bring up NYC and San Diego and Los Angeles like it matters to 99% of the country.
Because 40 million people live in California, meaning about 12% of the entire U.S. population. About 20 million live in the NYC metro, making CA + NYC actually where about 1 in 5 Americans live...and this is only constrained by low willingness to build more housing. If the government allowed supply to increase, I suspect it would be closer to 1 in 3.
If you have good credentials as a tenant it might be worth sending out some offers at 1800. Obviously lowers the chance you will get it a decent amount, but when they are struggling to find tenants, your odds aren't 0%.
I just had to buy a new truck and was looking through the receipts of my old truck. Paid $27k in 2019 for a gently used full size pick up truck. My new truck was double the price, for more truck though so not exactly apples to apples, but still.
I like to recall how much bitching everyone was doing back then. Now look at it. Funny how little anyone thought it was good when it was. Still better than most. But it’s never been about what’s real with narratives. Just what others feel like should be. Good we are getting that perspective shift.
In 20 years people will talk about how good it was now. People like to complain even though by the important metrics, the economy has gotten better. The one thing that's really worse about now vs 20 years ago is social media.
We’re just in a bad economy if you work for your money, which a lot more renters do compared to homeowners. Landlords raised rent quickly following 2021/2022, but some have had to slow down raises suddenly or even walk them back as the earnings increases have not kept pace. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a “renter’s market,” though, just because renters are too poor to pay for rent increases.
I think this is more area dependent than anything. In my area of Florida yeah tons of rentals and rentals with even two months free offerings. Most listings have some sort of offering. But that’s not the situation for some of the northern states.
They also can't because of the terms of their loan. Free months rent doesn't affect the debt service coverage ratio, because the expected monthly rent for that unit stays the same. The loans taken out to purchase apartment units use this ratio to qualify in the first place.
That would raise red flags. Apartments probably have shitty people smoking and burning candles, incense, or otherwise fuming up the place with unhealthy shit.
That would raise red flags. Apartments probably have shitty people smoking and burning candles, incense, or otherwise fuming up the place with unhealthy shit.
Yes I was about to say.. just because rent went down a notch (after it’s been on the up since god knows when), if you’re still shelling out half your wages for rent, then it’s not a renter’s market.
What is your evidence that we are in a bad economy that goes beyond anything but vibes?
Edit: isn’t it fascinating that I’m being downvoted for saying “supply evidence for your claim.”
That’s how ingrained the vibecession is in America. Nobody wants rigor or actual numbers. They just want doomerism. The economy must be bad because everybody says the economy is bad. What a sad state of affairs.
We went through a low-hire, low-fire economy for like a year where it was very difficult to get a job, tech is vastly reduced from where it was a few years ago, and then we suddenly hiked the cost of gas a few months ago.
What's hilarious is I can use the exact same source to demonstrate that labor force participation has dropped to 61.5% from 62.5% when Trump took office. Less people are actively looking for work which pulls them out of your unemployment number, especially in the past year. That 4.2% also does not account for individuals who are underemployed.
I asked Chat what is the cause of the labor force decline since 2000. I expected most of it to be due to an aging population which turns out to be true. For people aged 25-54, it’s at about an all time high. I thought it was interesting stuff so I leave it here as you may find it interesting as well:
————-
In the United States, labor force participation (the share of people age 16+ who are working or actively looking for work) has fallen from about 67% around 2000 to around 62–63% today. There isn’t one single cause—it’s the result of several overlapping trends.
The biggest reason is population aging. As the Baby Boom generation has moved into retirement, a much larger share of Americans are over 65, and older people are much less likely to be in the labor force. This demographic shift accounts for a large portion—many economists estimate around half or more—of the long-run decline.
Other important factors include:
More young adults staying in school. People ages 16–24 are spending more years in education than they did in 2000, delaying entry into the workforce.
Declining participation among less-educated men. Prime-age men (25–54), especially those without a college degree, have become less likely to work or seek work. Causes include automation, globalization, the decline of manufacturing, disability claims, health problems, criminal records, and reduced availability of stable, well-paying jobs.
The opioid epidemic and poor health. Research has linked opioid use, chronic pain, and disability to lower labor force participation in some regions.
COVID-19 effects. The pandemic caused a sharp drop in participation in 2020. Most of that decline has since reversed, but some older workers retired earlier than they otherwise would have.
Interestingly, there’s an important countertrend:
Women’s labor force participation rose dramatically from the 1960s through the 1990s, but it largely plateaued around 2000. Because that source of growth stopped, it no longer offset the aging population.
Prime-age workers tell a different story
Economists often look at prime-age (25–54) labor force participation because it removes most retirement and schooling effects.
Prime-age participation fell after 2000 and during the Great Recession.
It recovered slowly during the 2010s.
As of the mid-2020s, it has reached or exceeded its highest levels in decades.
This suggests that the U.S. labor market for working-age adults is actually quite strong today. The overall participation rate remains lower primarily because the population is older than it was in 2000.
Rough breakdown of the decline since 2000
While estimates differ by study, a reasonable summary is:
Population aging: ~50–70% of the long-run decline.
Higher school enrollment among young adults: modest contribution.
Lower participation among less-educated prime-age men and health/disability factors: meaningful contribution.
Pandemic-related retirements: temporary additional factor, though much of the effect has faded.
So if you’re asking, “Are Americans of working age simply less willing to work than they were in 2000?” the answer is mostly no. The largest driver of the lower overall participation rate is that the country has many more retirees. Among prime-age adults, labor force participation has largely recovered to historically high levels.
I mean, I’m not sure I would call that hilarious. Even if we said that all 1% of those people wanted work, which is certainly not true, that would make unemployment 5.2%, which is hardly disastrous.
Underemployment is a real problem. Not far away on this thread I said I thought the economy was pretty good, not great. There’s real problems but there’s almost always real problems, ie you can’t find a lot of time periods where people just thought the economy was gangbusters with no major issues. I’m not on board with the idea that the American economy has been bad for most of the country’s existence, so absence of major issues is not a reasonable bar for a good economy.
It’s also worth noting that labor force participation has been declining since 2000–I’m not sure it’s reasonable to assign this recent drop to a particular presidency nor to any sign of a bad economy.
~1/3 of the country is giving 30-60% of their income to equity hoarders just to keep living by their job or their family, which gets counted in GDP even though landlords don't materially produce anything by scalping a home. Rent has doubled while real wages for workers have largely stayed frozen. A massive piece of the working class cannot afford healthcare.
We're a bit tired of the "you idiots don't understand how it's a great vibe, actually, that the working class is required to prop up a moneyed upperclass while never building equity" headlines. Even the article linked above disclaims that this "renter's market" doesn't really apply everywhere - and their definition of "renter's market" is that landlords are offering coupons for short breaks in the rent after dramatically increasing rental rates for years. If you passed business calculus you know that a one-time discount, over time, is vanishingly small.
What's your evidence to suggest that this bleak situation goes beyond anything but apologists trying to excuse people's distaste for grotesque wealth disparity as "just vibes?"
edit: blocked lol. such confidence in their opinion that they can't even be bothered to defend
This is the problem with the vibecession. Someone just makes up ridiculous things like rent had doubled and real wages are frozen both of which aren’t even close to true. Nor is 1/3 of the country paying 30%+ of their income in rent—another made up stat based on 2/3 of the country being homeowners—obviously not everybody who rents pays 30%+ of their income in rent. And your whole screed against landlords is just silly—what’s your alternative? Free homes for everybody? Developing housing and renting it out is useful economic activity despite your rant.
Edit: person below me blocked me. Median renter is in fact 31% of household income.
But whichever stat you use, what’s clear is that doesn’t mean ALL renters are paying 30%+. If the median is 31% almost half are paying less than 30%.
The ONLY proven way to reduce housing prices is to build more housing. Which I am all for. We need to allow developers to build dense housing. The rest of their post is more boogeyman nonsense.
Also "just give housing away" is a pretty silly alternative to suggest considering there are several vetted ways to do affordable rental housing without falling back on the private equity market...
...and let's not conflate developing housing with scalping it. You don't know those are two different things? Or are you deliberately conflating them for some reason?
> Edit: isn’t it fascinating that I’m being downvoted for saying “supply evidence for your claim.”
What's fascinating is that you're so convinced you're right that you don't see what you're being downvoted for: open contempt for people you disagree with, mixed with sloppy assumptions about your data set.
By the CPI link you posted downthread, real wages have been increasing -- from around $1281 to around $1589 in 2026 dollars, around a 25% increase -- but average rents have gone from ~$990 to about $1650 in 2026 dollars, an increase of a little over 50%.
Housing is included in CPI. It’s the largest single contributor actually. And you call me sloppy? This is why I’m contemptuous.
Apparently this is a sub for people who don’t really understand economics and just want confirmation bias.
The vibecession is worse than just bad vibes. It has the potential to lead to bad voting outcomes and bad public policy. Social media doomerism is a weight that is materially harming our country.
> Housing is included in CPI. It’s the largest single contributor actually.
I know, and also that's a red herring - especially when legal rent caps often have CPI as a baseline and not as an upper cap (e.g. CA limits rent increases to CPI + 5%, which would support my point here). The point stands that, by your source, real wages have increased about 1/2 as quickly as rents after adjusting for inflation.
> Apparently this is a sub for people who don’t really understand economics and just want confirmation bias.
The feeling is mutual (although you seem to see this as a general problem with a sub and I think this is just a you, some user, problem), but the stats would seem to be in my favor here unless/until you want to take a break from slinging insults to cite more sources and integrate them into the conversation.
I thought we were discussing whether the economy is bad.
Your evidence is that rents have increased faster than other prices. How is that evidence of a bad economy?
Income is increasing faster than costs, including housing cost. In fact the CAGR of median real income increases is over 1% a year for the last 12 years. So how is the economy bad? People have meaningfully more income relative to the cost of a basket of goods and services (including housing) than they used to.
A close friend with a family of 4, opted to rent in San Diego instead of buy in the same neighborhood. Mind you he already owns 2 huge houses. The monthly payment of a mortgage would be about 40% more per month for the same square footage, not to mention with a sizeable down payment. The market is really inverted in the buy versus rent calculus, at least in hcol areas.
Rents themselves may only be coming down a little bit, but the alternative of buying that same property just doesn’t make any sense.
I think it's likely based on the data that people are paying higher multiples for buying with the expectation that they'll be able to make a profit by selling later. Which relies on the Greater Fool theory--quite dangerous.
Yea I'm kinda upset at my wife. She wanted to upgrade houses and I said we should rent for 2 years till the market becomes normal again. Nope. Like 1-2K extra per month to buy right now. Plus all the maintainence.
But money is for living. So whatever. Just trying to build wealth here. Had to veto her plans for a euro disney cruise because of it.
The problem is that homeowners are unwilling to sell their homes for the lower real going rate, and houses are not all publicly listed on a central database (instead only a few selected top listings are shown on sites like Zillow), so both homeowners and prospective buyers lack information. The result is the owned property market is experiencing a market failiure, with most sellers pricing their homes far above the equilibrium and consumers not willing to pay those prices, and inventory is not being cleared.
Well thats the thing. The equilibrium is higher because the homeowner has a low rate thus bringing the price they want to sell to lose that rate higher.
Vs say new homes the builders only want a profit and are not married to their rates so that allows lots of fluctuations. I sold my parents home recently, the realtor wanted to list it for 720K which I said was too high. We listed it for 700K and lowered it to 680K. Ended up selling for 600K like 6 months later.
And I wouldnt even have sold if it wasnt in an HOA that only allowed renting for 2 years.
I mean speaking as a recent homeowner, I paid close to 1M @ 6% due to VHCOL. Never in my life will I sell it for lower than what I paid at the absolute minimum (even then I’ll be losing money with taxes and loan interest). Of course the 3% will never sell, I’d be busy laughing all the way to the bank. Only solution is to build.
What else would you call a period of time where almost no one can afford to buy a house? It's more of a serfdom of insufficient housing on the landlords' plantations than a "renter's market."
Here in Montreal Quebec, its no longer a shortage of appartments, but a shortage of cheap appartments. The ones that were below 1k before 2020. Even here in MTL, appartments are going down a bit, but only the 1800$-2000$/month bracket. These high end appartments can be dealed with the owner. You can try to bring the price down or get multiple free months. However, anything below 1k is completly gone even though i would say we really need a LOT of 800$-1200$ appartments. Thats what the low income bracket can afford, yet there is nothing left....
And its not an easy one to fix. Waiting for the market to stabilize will take years. Bailing these expensive condos/appartments to convert them for cheap appartments is EXTREMELY impopular (and for good reason). Profitable condos/appartments are in the 1400$-1500$ ballpark for new construction. There is no easy exit. I think the best solution i saw was for the government to subsidize new construction so that builders can be profitable renting at 800$-1200$. Then again, it will take years to materialize.
Eh, if I had a young 20-something child, the last thing I would tell them is that this is a renter's market. Life is more complex than the either-or lines the internet draws.
This is a market where I'd live with family until I've saved up enough for a home. I'm more in favor of buying a home, but not one at an overinflated price where you will pay an additional 125% in interest. That doesn't mean "your $1500 rent can come out cheaper" is the sure bet.
Yea yea, here comes the rent defense force. Save it. I'd save that $50,000 you'd spend in two years to "have your own place" to put towards something that will really give you your own place.
After listening to the report, I’m not sure it’s a renters market at all. The first person they interviewed had to move 4 times in 5 years in order to get cheap rent and the next couple they interviewed had a low rent and were fearful to look elsewhere because their market is going up 5% a year in rent. Nothing about that report made renting sound attractive other than the headline.
It’s a privilege not everyone can access. I do think everyone should live with a partner or roommates if they can’t live with family. But a lot of older people have untreated mental illness or other issues going on, and their kids just have to leave.
Also, it’s less and less common for older people to live where there are career opportunities for their kids. Everyone in my social circle who stayed in smaller towns after we graduated college is frankly just way behind the rest of us who chanced living in a real city.
At my college graduation my mom asked when I'm moving back home and looked deflated when I responded "never". There's no jobs there I want that I couldn't have gotten without going to college and I'd gladly live in a higher cost of living area of it meant my earnings potential was also greatly increased. For many people there's just no reasonable employment to stay at home for.
If you grew up in a part of the country that doesn't have high economic opportunity then yeah, the absolute single best thing you can do is move immediately after college to a city that does. There is absolutely nothing that will do as much for your career advancement, moving to where the careers are is key. And no, remote work doesn't come close, significant research is starting to come out showing that Gen Z entrants to the workforce who work remotely are seeing slower career progression, higher unemployment, and slower skills development.
All of those "guy who never left his hometown" memes exist for a reason. Works for the power company, barely scraping by, thinks Chilis is a pretty nice place to go once a month, conspiracy theorist, etc.
I’ll use my familiar example as it serves a fairly general view:
For a family of 3 in a Nashville type market, $150k gross is workable but tight, especially with other debt or high childcare costs. $175k to $200k gross is a more realistic target for buying sustainably with 20% down while still living responsibly.
Estimating how much Raman costs is eating into the analysis, but the fact is that the US job market doesn’t seem to support that kind of wage for someone to take their $60,000 x 2 starter pay mentioned before and flip it into a house.
Living for the first few years out of college isn’t free either.
If you're in your early 20s, the way to make $1500 rent $1000 is get a roommate and rent a $2000 unit with two bedrooms. It's like this is some kind of arcane lost knowledge.
I had 1--3 housemates the entirety of my 20s and never felt overwhelmed by rent. I now live with my wife now at 35 and effectively still have a house/roommate. The idea that everyone needs to live in their own place is insane considering those same people often also loudly talk about increasing housing density and affordability. Well one way to get more density is for multiple people to live in units meant for multiple people vs 1 person in a 2br or 2 people in houses designed for 5 people. Also it was fantastic having two roommates through COVID because I had a built in social situation in my house. There was no loneliness etc because I lived alone.
A lot of us don’t have the luxury of living with family. I’m 24, my dad went bankrupt my senior year of college. I didn’t have a home to return to come graduation. Not to mention my only job offer (which I grabbed onto with both hands) was in a HCOL area. I have a roommate but yeah of course I would have preferred to live at home with minimal expenses.
edit: downvote me if you want lmao but it doesn't change the facts. living with family is not a choice everyone has.
>where you will pay an additional 125% in interest
Note that if you have a traditional 30 year loan, 125% interest isn't bad, historically speaking. That's an APR of ~6.5% a year, which is much lower than rates have been for the majority of the last 50 years. The reactions to the 2008 Financial Crisis pushed interest rates way down; barring a similar crisis, it's unlikely that they'll drop that low again.
Okay as a relatively young person, life is much more fluid than living in the house and being stuck with a 30 year mortgage at 25.
I’d want my kids to actually get out of the house and experience life rather than to be extremely frugal, that’s kind of your job as a parent to support in my mind but I don’t have kids. Personally I couldn’t even imagine being responsible for home ownership, it’s a milestone to hit that people must grow into
I’ll bite the hook: I can sell the mortgage with my house vs googling “how can I get out of my rental/lease agreement?”
The real answer is: “what job is the 20-35 year old able to hold that will satisfy the bank’s desire to give them a loan with a reasonable downpayment.” In the past they’ve dictated that to be 20% of the sales price of the home. So to hit that goal, the current median downpayment would be about (I’ll use the median number from Zillow as I like the color blue more than red, and it’s lower than Redfin’s so that makes the number easier to stomach) $370,000*0.2=$74,000.00.
So a family would need to make enough to have that saved up in addition to paying rent to live in a space.
I would argue that we aren’t in a renter’s market until rent payments are something like 50% or less than expected mortgage payments for a similarly sized space. I don’t see that happening near me. Maybe the amenities of paid communal laundry and not having much control over the structure/landscaping are worth it though.
Edit to answer my own question I now bolded above so I don’t forget again: For the family: something like $100,000 - $150,000 but maybe $170,000 - $200,000 if they are in a metro area. That might change regionally, and I’m not about to do any tough analysis for this, I’m just assuming no other major debt.
The note that I’ve beat around the bush of is that they would need to pay for rent while saving. (rounding Zillow’s number for median rent ~$2,000) A young family renting around $2,000/month would need to save another $2,000–$5,000/month for several years to reach a safe 20% down-payment target. That makes first time home buying unrealistic for many families unless they have very high income (>$200,000).
Right. "Quickly selling the house" gave me a sensible chuckle. Closing costs are also non-trivial, especially since it feels like you're setting that money on fire.
Let's figure your budget is $1,500/mo. That would be a one bedroom apartment in a lot of places, or a $250k house. Setting aside what sort of place you can find for 250k, let's just do the math.
I'll ignore a down payment here too, just for ease. You purchase house at 250k, have a 6% mortgage at $1,500/mo. In 5 years you have paid $90k of housing payments. Your outstanding balance is 232k. So you've built $18k of equity and given the bank 72k.
You go to sell, that's ~5.7%. If your sale price is 250k, then you're paying ~15k right away to agents. Let's add a cleaning fee, maybe some listing costs, maybe some repairs, that should easily encompass that remaining ~$3k of equity.
Congrats, you just broke even financially with renting. Any larger repairs and you're net negative. Now, appreciation in housing would give you a boost, but isn't a given, especially in shorter time periods like this.
For most scenarios, your absolute minimum time to even start breaking even on the buying v renting conversation is going to be ~5 years. And for most younger people, knowing where you will be in 5 years and what your wants/needs will be is a massive guess. It honestly rarely makes financial sense to buy here, most people that suggest it does are relying heavily on housing appreciation and hindsight to evidence that, as absent housing appreciation the math just doesn't math.
Personally, I prefer home ownership (which I do, free-and-clear), because I view it as less of a purely financial transaction. But that's a perspective that's generally a luxury these days. My comment was more in reference to the insinuation that selling a house is less onerous than just finding another place to rent.
I'm also no longer a college student and am comfortable with staying in this area long-term.
I've contemplated downsizing to free up some equity for investing, but between the ridiculous asking prices for homes that I wouldn't have given a second thought a few years ago and the closing costs, this may be my forever home whether I like it or not. All thing considered, that's definitely a first world problem.
There's a lot of reasons to prefer it, and a massive pile of long term financial benefits, but over most sub 5 year periods it's rarely a net financial benefit.
20-35 year olds aren't typically buying the median homes though. They're more likely on the bottom end of the market, buying a smaller starter home, or maybe something kinda old and in need of some work, etc. And a 20% down payment isn't necessary, sometimes you don't need one at all, especially in that demographic. I was 25 when I bought, after all the various first time homebuyer incentives I had no down payment or even closing costs.
You’re not wrong, but I’m not the expert on pulling data like this and sorting for age. The goal of my very simple analysis is to just show how renting compares with buying, and that saving for buying requires essentially doubling rent.
I needed something useful for my comment and so I used the general national median to help guide calculations for these first time buyers. I think anything under $500,000 might seem like a reasonable marketing point for a dual income family.
The reality is that unless a family is incredibly diligent, they are not likely to be able to save for a home in any time period if they are making less than $150,000. That doesn’t make it a renters (as the article suggests) or buyers v sellers market.
Our current economic situation makes it an owners holding market. No one wants to leave their 4% loan for a 7% loan.
Yeah I don't necessarily disagree with the conclusion, just didn't seem like a complete way of framing the reason. For what it's worth I was making less than $50k when I bought four years and change ago, but I would struggle to buy the same house now despite making more money, going from 4% to 7% makes it a tough pill to swallow, especially since prices themselves continued to creep up little by little in my area. I think that's the more interesting point of analysis here, it's not so much that there isn't an avenue for first time buyers (at least, not universally, of course there are some markets where it's just impossible) but we're in a weird holding pattern now. The low interest rate is part of what made it a reasonable choice for me, my monthly payment really wasn't that much more than I was already paying for rent. Though I will say, $74k still puts you over half the overall price of a starter home in my region, and our median home price isn't that much lower than Zillow's national average. If a young family could stomach the monthly payment they should be able to get a loan around here even if they don't really have much (or anything) to put down, so I just mean to say that it definitely varies a lot depending on where you're looking.
You need something like 1 to 3% down to buy a house not 20% down. Plus many areas have first time home buyer programs where they actually give you money towards closing.
That made more sense when interest rates were around half of what they were before. Now with the higher interest AND higher prices, that’s a crazy mortgage payment for someone who can only scrape together 3%. It makes zero sense.
Well a lot of times you still have cash left over after you put that 3% down sitting in your checking account which is a good thing because it's amazing how many new things you have to buy when you move from an apartment to a house. I mean a lot of apartment dwellers don't own a shovel for example.
It's one of the reasons that first time home buyers is so important for the economy so it's always good to have an extra 10 or 20 grand in cash in the checking account to buy those little extras when you move into your new home.
I think part of the problem we’re discussing here is that not that many young people have all that leftover money in the checking account anymore. “Just have a lot of money” is not a solution to an economic problem. There’s a reason the median first-time home buyer now is 40.
Oft repeated advice on this sub is that people should just continue to rent while investing their would-be mortgage payment into the market every month. They see no issue with this advice. Economists are never beating the ivory tower charges.
Being able to live at home as an adult is a class indicator. If someone has well off parents they can indeed be well off, and should take advantage. The reality is that most people will struggle and scrape and will continue to do so.
I mean serious talk there's more to home ownership than just a down payment I would certainly have my child rent for a year and pay all their own utilities bills and deal with neighbors on their own before they buy a house.
There's just too many soft skills you don't learn living with Mom and Dad.
Everyone I know with a home is spamming social media for renters and nobody is biting. The housing bubble is coming to an end and major price declines will likely be triggered by the AI bubble pop.
I live in a small New England city filled with triple-decker apartment houses. Parking spaces used to be difficult to find. Suddenly in the past month or so all the cars are gone. Parking spaces are plentiful. It's crazy!
The current shift toward a renters' market in the United States is primarily driven by a massive multi-family construction boom that has flooded areas with an oversupply of new apartments.
National vacancy rates are climbing past 7% and units sitting on the market longer, landlords and institutional property managers are facing intense pressure to attract and retain tenants.
Show your landlord the lower prices, remember that turnover is expensive for property managers and they may be willing to either lower or freeze your rent. Don't expect the same for landlords of houses. It's more difficult to negotiate with these. Apartments are much more doable.
And always be prepared to move if it means saving considerable amount of $$$.
We moved... went from almost $2,900 house to $1,900 apartment. Landlord refused to lower our rent, but once we moved we found out that he had no choice but to lower it to $2,200, plus paint the whole house and replace old carpet in order to attract a tenant.
We were willing to continue paying $2,700 but they refused because they wanted $2,900 (even though their property taxes went down considerably) and rentals in the area had lower prices. They were convinced that they could get $3K, they didn't.
They got greedy and paid the price.
These headlines are so unbelievably stupid. As if the present Menager price drops do anything in the face of a decade of massive price increases, year over year.
I believe it, at least in our market. I was renting out my home just below the original rental estimate, but Zillow now says ~$175 less than even that is the market rate. Our tenant is getting divorced and so moving out, but we will offer her a reduced rate and see if that would get her to stay. Between insurance, mortgage, and the property manager we can't go much lower though without flat out losing money.
The same NPR that says that rents are declining can’t extrapolate that if rents fall, inflation will also because shelter cost is an important component of CPI.
If Democrats were in power, they would make that extrapolation.
LOL @ all of the people complaining about their rent. I pay about $7,000/month in rent currently. You guys have no idea how cheal your cost of living is compared to other peoples' CoL.
To be fair to commenters in this thread, they are complaining about the price of things. $7,000 for rent isn't really a complaint, but more of a flex. Do you discuss what field you're in online?
I partially agree that some people might complain without realizing how good they have it, though.
Stabbysavi | a day ago
I did just see a price decrease on Zillow on a rental for the first time in years. From $2000 to $1900. Still higher than our top budget of $1800. Before covid I was renting a whole house for $900 a month. I wish I could wipe my brain and forget what things used to cost because I feel like I get pissed off every single day.
odaklanan_insan | a day ago
About 95% of listings I'm seeing on Zillow are like this. That 3% price drop doesn't mean anything after a 60% bump though:
https://reddit.com/link/ow3pu03/video/10cgn7pfutbh1/player
This is a regular 3 bedroom, one of the cheapest I could find...
Stabbysavi | a day ago
Very true.
Kasceon | 2 hours ago
Besides the point, why is this a video that’s basically just a picture LOL
morbie5 | a day ago
Where I live you can find an apartment for under $1200 easily and I don't live in the sticks
odaklanan_insan | a day ago
Where I live is a pretty average Midwest suburban area that represents the majority of the population and you won't find a soviet-style "doomer" 3 bd apartment in the "sticks" for anywhere near $1200. You won't find a 2 bd one either.
morbie5 | 22 hours ago
I also live in a pretty average Midwest suburban area and you can find two bedroom units for under 1200. Three bedroom units will be hard to find tho
EMERGx | a day ago
My girlfriend pays $2,750 for a one bedroom with cockroaches that we’re constantly having to use traps, and her rent will actually be increasing soon to subsidize the apartments they’re converting to low income.
Any decent apartment is $3,200/mo for a one-bedroom. Meaning they expect $115k annually to meet the 3x monthly salary.
3RADICATE_THEM | 10 hours ago
It's funny that some people think someone making 115k can actually afford 3.2k rent.
throwaway00119 | a day ago
My mom's uncle's friend pays $6,500 for a 1-bd where he has to hand pump his own water.
I'm not sure if that's a lot for a private island, though. I guess everyone values things differently and has their own breakpoints for opportunity cost.
EMERGx | 2 hours ago
I was gonna say, how many acres is that farm they’re paying $6,500 for lol
I’m sure some friends and I can scavenge together that to share a private island 😂
throwaway00119 | 2 hours ago
This is purely a joke about how meaningless anecdotal evidence is in conversations like this.
You should see what my friend’s dog pays for rent.
EMERGx | 2 hours ago
Face licks and back scratches?
Except it isn’t so much anecdotal when you can easily look up rental averages for one bedroom apartments across the country/world
Gamer_Grease | a day ago
I assume Boston, SF, DC, or NYC?
AlaskaExplorationGeo | 19 hours ago
Even Boston and DC aren't that expensive
Kraka01 | 20 hours ago
Or SD/LA
EMERGx | 2 hours ago
SF Bay Area, but not even in SF
AlaskaExplorationGeo | 19 hours ago
Do you live in Manhattan or San Francisco or what
EMERGx | 2 hours ago
San Jose area
-worryaboutyourself- | a day ago
I feel so bad for young people now. I rented a 2 bedroom apartment by myself, working as a waitress, for $400 a month in 2005. 20 years later and I’m still part time as a waitress because we like to go on vacation and remodeled our kitchen. But dang it why do I have to? I got a college degree so I wouldn’t have to get a second job and yet here I am. In high school, my boyfriend’s mom wanted a pool so she worked part time at a gas station for one year and put in a large in ground pool. I think my part time income for the year might buy me an above ground pool. I probably couldn’t afford the chemicals to keep it clean though!
Stabbysavi | a day ago
My mom worked at a Denny's part-time to pay for college, dropped out, got a sales job and bought a condo when she was 10 years younger than I am now. I'm making more money than I've ever made, and I feel as broke as I was 10 years ago.
3RADICATE_THEM | 10 hours ago
Don't worry, median real incomes are up! The economists have been spamming that punch line about 50x everyday for the last five years. So don't worry about your perception of what's going on, it's all completely fine!
/s
portmanteaudition | a day ago
Buying a pool - regardless of in or above ground, is one of the worst financial decisions you can make, rivaled only by a boat.
Rivster79 | 19 hours ago
That’s because it’s not a financial investment, it’s a luxury.
OhFuckNoNoNoMyCaat | a day ago
I live in a part of the country were pools can be open year long. There is never a closing. People do swim year round.
That said, very few home pools are going to contribute to becoming and elite swimmer. I had someone at work suggest I put in a pool because my future children may become olympic stars.
A pool to me is something to lounge around in and do some "laps" when it's warm out or when it gets unbearably hot in the triple digits. Even if you DIY 99% of the stuff, it's still a financial drain at maybe $1,200 or so a year (just guessing based on what little I've researched on the matter) but it should be seen as a never-ending outgoing expense but it can bring tons of enjoyment in the right part of the country.
portmanteaudition | 21 hours ago
Yes, I live in a place where pools are open year round. There are tons of public and private pools available, almost no home pools are large enough for an actual workout, DIY is a huge time sink.
OhFuckNoNoNoMyCaat | 21 hours ago
Quite a bit exists to make DIY easier but the buy in cost is huge. I stopped into a pool store this past week to pick up something for my folks. Their pool is massive but it was also cheaper to put in years and years ago. Part DIY, mostly maintained by a family business we've trusted for decades. I'm on roughly an acre parcel and I cannot imagine ever putting a pool in. I've had friends bring it up but the upfront cost is huge, I know they always get completed later than intended and at a higher cost. Let's be real, if I really want to swim, I'll head over to my folks or one of my siblings who have pools. I could put a lap pool in, but I don't want to. I see home pools as a fun experience, not another fitness piece. It isn't nearly as fun making dolphin noises in a lap pool than it is a fun pool.
I forget what the old saying is but it goes if you really want a pool, buy a house with one. Someone already spent the money to put one in.
When I was home shopping on and off, pools always caught my eye until I looked at the positioning and how much gap there was to the rest of the yard, number of trees, vague maintenance cost. It was always never worth it.
The summer I bought my house, we had 2 or 3 weeks where the daytime temps were 110 or higher, with nighttime being around 85-90F. Only then did I wish I had a pool I could dip into otherwise AC and cold beers inside. Aside from that period, I've never thought or wanted a pool.
Kershiser22 | 23 hours ago
Other terrible financial decisions: going to the movies, subscribing to Netflix, going to Disneyland, buying a video game, buying clothes from anywhere but a thrift shop, Starbucks, etc.
portmanteaudition | 22 hours ago
Poors are so funny
ProfessorPetrus | a day ago
I mean only because I never see pool users do daily swims. Massive health benefits and increased attractiveness and energy levels could be worth it depending on what you do.
That said, pool owners don't swim.
People who pay for memberships with lap lanes or go in ponds do.
portmanteaudition | a day ago
Yes, home pools are almost never conducive to actual physical training.
Polite_Bark | a day ago
A gym membership is a lot cheaper and doesn't come with extra liability.
Lemp_Triscuit11 | 21 hours ago
This entirely depends on how often you plan on skinny dipping in my experience
Polite_Bark | 21 hours ago
😂
Misfiring | 11 hours ago
I think being a part time waiter for 20 years is the problem, regardless of what country you're in.
coke_and_coffee | a day ago
Don’t feel too bad. GenZ makes more, after adjusting for inflation, than any previous generation. They just spend it all on video games and vacations.
Gamer_Grease | a day ago
This is what Boomers said about millennials like me until it turned out that the hallmarks of Boomer success—cars, education, and housing—had all become VASTLY more expensive than everything else, meaning that the real wages we were making were not actually more.
coke_and_coffee | a day ago
Except real wages for millenials ARE higher than they were for boomers just as real wages for GenZ ARE higher than for millenials.
Gamer_Grease | a day ago
Right, but to refer back to the actual content of my comment: inflation does not properly measure the increase in cost of the hallmarks of Boomers’ success: education, housing, and autos.
coke_and_coffee | 23 hours ago
Yes it does, lol
Housing and education are like 50% of the CPI basket
Stabbysavi | a day ago
Home prices are also up a ridiculous amount. They might make more money for their age, but home prices have outstripped that. That's why they spend their money on video games and vacations. They still don't have enough to buy a house. Why wouldn't you rent and enjoy your money in the meantime? That's what we're doing as millennials. We are not going to be house poor so we're renting and enjoying ourselves. You know what else we're not doing? Having kids.
coke_and_coffee | a day ago
Meh, spare me the woe is me fakery. All of my friends max out their 401ks and spend thousands a month on sports betting and then complain about house prices. It’s all BS
dust4ngel | 20 hours ago
> All of my friends max out their 401ks and spend thousands a month on sports betting and then complain about house prices
you should know that one's friend group is almost never representative of an entire demographic.
coke_and_coffee | 19 hours ago
Sure, but my friends aren’t particularly exceptional. So if people are doing worse than them, there’s some serious competency concerns.
5pointpalm_exploding | 6 hours ago
Shew this is cringe as hell.
coke_and_coffee | 4 hours ago
What?
5pointpalm_exploding | 3 hours ago
Well you edited your comment, but it is still cringe you think your anecdote somehow applies to everyone in the country.
Stabbysavi | a day ago
Wow, sounds like your friend group sucks ass. It's probably a reflection of you as a person.
coke_and_coffee | a day ago
Yeah probably not
THICC_DICC_PRICC | 17 hours ago
Exactly, the funniest part is when they’re complaining about their finances, they basically describe exactly why they are broke due to their own decisions, only to blame outside forces immediately. They oddly remind me of people who clearly eat 4k calories, swear they ate 2k, and blame the mystery weight gain on genetics. Hell, people do this excuse crafting for their pets or other people(that they have an enabling relationship with) too
shinyxena | a day ago
I remember as a kid I rolled my eyes when my dad said mcdonalds burger was less than a dollar when he was a kid. Sadly i dont think your ever gonna see that price again.
Polite_Bark | a day ago
When a McDonald's burger was less than a dollar I was making $4.15 an hour.
sgtbackpain03 | a day ago
Such a wild metric. 1/4 of an hour of work for food, vs 1 and 1/4 hour of work now, for the same (or lesser) food.
Kershiser22 | 23 hours ago
What? A McDonald's hamburger is about $2.89 now (depending on location). So about 24 minutes of work based on national minimum wage of $7.25/hr.
Polite_Bark | 21 hours ago
I haven't seen a minimum wage job in years. Even McDonalds starts at $14.
Kershiser22 | 20 hours ago
> Even McDonalds starts at $14.
Surely that's location dependent?
Rumpus-Time-Is-Over | 14 hours ago
I'm sure it's location dependent but I'd venture to guess there are no McDonalds that pay minimum wage. There are only 82,000 jobs nationwide that pay $7.25 an hour.
Polite_Bark | 15 hours ago
I live in the LCOL midwest and that's the going rate in my city. Nearby cities start about $0.50 -$1.00 more.
sgtbackpain03 | 23 hours ago
Ah I was thinking of the combo price at $11 in my area. I haven't had their food in years, so only remember the prices on the billboard. Thanks for the correction
Mental-At-ThirtyFive | a day ago
Like everything it is local.
Manhattan 1 bedroom easily at 4K/month
Stabbysavi | a day ago
Yes it is local and locally here the rent is really expensive too for wages... I don't know why people always bring up NYC and San Diego and Los Angeles like it matters to 99% of the country.
portmanteaudition | a day ago
Because 40 million people live in California, meaning about 12% of the entire U.S. population. About 20 million live in the NYC metro, making CA + NYC actually where about 1 in 5 Americans live...and this is only constrained by low willingness to build more housing. If the government allowed supply to increase, I suspect it would be closer to 1 in 3.
walkingthecowww | a day ago
Because they have the largest population?
Dangerous-Sport-2347 | 14 hours ago
If you have good credentials as a tenant it might be worth sending out some offers at 1800. Obviously lowers the chance you will get it a decent amount, but when they are struggling to find tenants, your odds aren't 0%.
Stabbysavi | 5 hours ago
I thought about it. Our lease doesn't end till October though
riickdiickulous | a day ago
I just had to buy a new truck and was looking through the receipts of my old truck. Paid $27k in 2019 for a gently used full size pick up truck. My new truck was double the price, for more truck though so not exactly apples to apples, but still.
3RADICATE_THEM | 10 hours ago
But don't worry, inflation is only at 3%. Don't mind us as we deflate shelter inflation by hiding it under OER!
r4ndoM_doGmagenshin | a day ago
I like to recall how much bitching everyone was doing back then. Now look at it. Funny how little anyone thought it was good when it was. Still better than most. But it’s never been about what’s real with narratives. Just what others feel like should be. Good we are getting that perspective shift.
Rumpus-Time-Is-Over | 14 hours ago
In 20 years people will talk about how good it was now. People like to complain even though by the important metrics, the economy has gotten better. The one thing that's really worse about now vs 20 years ago is social media.
Gamer_Grease | a day ago
We’re just in a bad economy if you work for your money, which a lot more renters do compared to homeowners. Landlords raised rent quickly following 2021/2022, but some have had to slow down raises suddenly or even walk them back as the earnings increases have not kept pace. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a “renter’s market,” though, just because renters are too poor to pay for rent increases.
RompoTotito | a day ago
I think this is more area dependent than anything. In my area of Florida yeah tons of rentals and rentals with even two months free offerings. Most listings have some sort of offering. But that’s not the situation for some of the northern states.
Few-Improvement9978 | a day ago
DFW Is like that as well.
So many units offering 2 months free rent for a year lease.
ActnADonkey | a day ago
It’s because they don’t want to set a precedent by lowering artificially high pricing to more accurately reflect market values
holymacaronibatman | a day ago
They also can't because of the terms of their loan. Free months rent doesn't affect the debt service coverage ratio, because the expected monthly rent for that unit stays the same. The loans taken out to purchase apartment units use this ratio to qualify in the first place.
HartyInBroward | a day ago
It is 100% this. To add, rental markets in CO and AZ are offering even more in incentives at leasing and renewal as well.
awesome-alpaca-ace | 15 hours ago
That would raise red flags. Apartments probably have shitty people smoking and burning candles, incense, or otherwise fuming up the place with unhealthy shit.
awesome-alpaca-ace | 15 hours ago
That would raise red flags. Apartments probably have shitty people smoking and burning candles, incense, or otherwise fuming up the place with unhealthy shit.
quinipet | 12 hours ago
Yes I was about to say.. just because rent went down a notch (after it’s been on the up since god knows when), if you’re still shelling out half your wages for rent, then it’s not a renter’s market.
Rumpus-Time-Is-Over | 22 hours ago
What is your evidence that we are in a bad economy that goes beyond anything but vibes?
Edit: isn’t it fascinating that I’m being downvoted for saying “supply evidence for your claim.”
That’s how ingrained the vibecession is in America. Nobody wants rigor or actual numbers. They just want doomerism. The economy must be bad because everybody says the economy is bad. What a sad state of affairs.
Gamer_Grease | 22 hours ago
We went through a low-hire, low-fire economy for like a year where it was very difficult to get a job, tech is vastly reduced from where it was a few years ago, and then we suddenly hiked the cost of gas a few months ago.
Rumpus-Time-Is-Over | 20 hours ago
The unemployment rate is 4.2% which is full employment.
Gas is included in inflation and wages have increased faster than inflation.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
icouldntdecide | 18 hours ago
What's hilarious is I can use the exact same source to demonstrate that labor force participation has dropped to 61.5% from 62.5% when Trump took office. Less people are actively looking for work which pulls them out of your unemployment number, especially in the past year. That 4.2% also does not account for individuals who are underemployed.
Rumpus-Time-Is-Over | 18 hours ago
I asked Chat what is the cause of the labor force decline since 2000. I expected most of it to be due to an aging population which turns out to be true. For people aged 25-54, it’s at about an all time high. I thought it was interesting stuff so I leave it here as you may find it interesting as well:
————-
In the United States, labor force participation (the share of people age 16+ who are working or actively looking for work) has fallen from about 67% around 2000 to around 62–63% today. There isn’t one single cause—it’s the result of several overlapping trends.
The biggest reason is population aging. As the Baby Boom generation has moved into retirement, a much larger share of Americans are over 65, and older people are much less likely to be in the labor force. This demographic shift accounts for a large portion—many economists estimate around half or more—of the long-run decline.
Other important factors include:
Interestingly, there’s an important countertrend:
Prime-age workers tell a different story
Economists often look at prime-age (25–54) labor force participation because it removes most retirement and schooling effects.
This suggests that the U.S. labor market for working-age adults is actually quite strong today. The overall participation rate remains lower primarily because the population is older than it was in 2000.
Rough breakdown of the decline since 2000
While estimates differ by study, a reasonable summary is:
So if you’re asking, “Are Americans of working age simply less willing to work than they were in 2000?” the answer is mostly no. The largest driver of the lower overall participation rate is that the country has many more retirees. Among prime-age adults, labor force participation has largely recovered to historically high levels.
Rumpus-Time-Is-Over | 18 hours ago
I mean, I’m not sure I would call that hilarious. Even if we said that all 1% of those people wanted work, which is certainly not true, that would make unemployment 5.2%, which is hardly disastrous.
Underemployment is a real problem. Not far away on this thread I said I thought the economy was pretty good, not great. There’s real problems but there’s almost always real problems, ie you can’t find a lot of time periods where people just thought the economy was gangbusters with no major issues. I’m not on board with the idea that the American economy has been bad for most of the country’s existence, so absence of major issues is not a reasonable bar for a good economy.
It’s also worth noting that labor force participation has been declining since 2000–I’m not sure it’s reasonable to assign this recent drop to a particular presidency nor to any sign of a bad economy.
more_housing_co-ops | 22 hours ago
~1/3 of the country is giving 30-60% of their income to equity hoarders just to keep living by their job or their family, which gets counted in GDP even though landlords don't materially produce anything by scalping a home. Rent has doubled while real wages for workers have largely stayed frozen. A massive piece of the working class cannot afford healthcare.
We're a bit tired of the "you idiots don't understand how it's a great vibe, actually, that the working class is required to prop up a moneyed upperclass while never building equity" headlines. Even the article linked above disclaims that this "renter's market" doesn't really apply everywhere - and their definition of "renter's market" is that landlords are offering coupons for short breaks in the rent after dramatically increasing rental rates for years. If you passed business calculus you know that a one-time discount, over time, is vanishingly small.
What's your evidence to suggest that this bleak situation goes beyond anything but apologists trying to excuse people's distaste for grotesque wealth disparity as "just vibes?"
edit: blocked lol. such confidence in their opinion that they can't even be bothered to defend
Rumpus-Time-Is-Over | 20 hours ago
Your stats are all fake.
This is the problem with the vibecession. Someone just makes up ridiculous things like rent had doubled and real wages are frozen both of which aren’t even close to true. Nor is 1/3 of the country paying 30%+ of their income in rent—another made up stat based on 2/3 of the country being homeowners—obviously not everybody who rents pays 30%+ of their income in rent. And your whole screed against landlords is just silly—what’s your alternative? Free homes for everybody? Developing housing and renting it out is useful economic activity despite your rant.
Edit: person below me blocked me. Median renter is in fact 31% of household income.
rent as a % of median household income
But whichever stat you use, what’s clear is that doesn’t mean ALL renters are paying 30%+. If the median is 31% almost half are paying less than 30%.
The ONLY proven way to reduce housing prices is to build more housing. Which I am all for. We need to allow developers to build dense housing. The rest of their post is more boogeyman nonsense.
DJ_Velveteen | 20 hours ago
You're right, renters aren't paying 30% of their rent on average. According to Forbes, it was closer to 42% in 2024.
Also "just give housing away" is a pretty silly alternative to suggest considering there are several vetted ways to do affordable rental housing without falling back on the private equity market...
...and let's not conflate developing housing with scalping it. You don't know those are two different things? Or are you deliberately conflating them for some reason?
DJ_Velveteen | 20 hours ago
> Edit: isn’t it fascinating that I’m being downvoted for saying “supply evidence for your claim.”
What's fascinating is that you're so convinced you're right that you don't see what you're being downvoted for: open contempt for people you disagree with, mixed with sloppy assumptions about your data set.
By the CPI link you posted downthread, real wages have been increasing -- from around $1281 to around $1589 in 2026 dollars, around a 25% increase -- but average rents have gone from ~$990 to about $1650 in 2026 dollars, an increase of a little over 50%.
Rumpus-Time-Is-Over | 19 hours ago
Housing is included in CPI. It’s the largest single contributor actually. And you call me sloppy? This is why I’m contemptuous.
Apparently this is a sub for people who don’t really understand economics and just want confirmation bias.
The vibecession is worse than just bad vibes. It has the potential to lead to bad voting outcomes and bad public policy. Social media doomerism is a weight that is materially harming our country.
DJ_Velveteen | 19 hours ago
> Housing is included in CPI. It’s the largest single contributor actually.
I know, and also that's a red herring - especially when legal rent caps often have CPI as a baseline and not as an upper cap (e.g. CA limits rent increases to CPI + 5%, which would support my point here). The point stands that, by your source, real wages have increased about 1/2 as quickly as rents after adjusting for inflation.
> Apparently this is a sub for people who don’t really understand economics and just want confirmation bias.
The feeling is mutual (although you seem to see this as a general problem with a sub and I think this is just a you, some user, problem), but the stats would seem to be in my favor here unless/until you want to take a break from slinging insults to cite more sources and integrate them into the conversation.
Rumpus-Time-Is-Over | 19 hours ago
I thought we were discussing whether the economy is bad.
Your evidence is that rents have increased faster than other prices. How is that evidence of a bad economy?
Income is increasing faster than costs, including housing cost. In fact the CAGR of median real income increases is over 1% a year for the last 12 years. So how is the economy bad? People have meaningfully more income relative to the cost of a basket of goods and services (including housing) than they used to.
Oryzae | 20 hours ago
How do you know we are in a good economy? The stock market is not the economy.
Rumpus-Time-Is-Over | 20 hours ago
I never claimed it was a good economy. What I would say is that it’s pretty good though. I wouldn’t go as far as great.
For one thing, unemployment is at 4.2%. That’s full employment. Second, real wages have been increasing.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
The people who thing we are in a bad economy are going to look back at this as halcyon days when the next real recession hits.
Blood_Casino | 15 hours ago
> What is your evidence that we are in a bad economy that goes beyond anything but vibes?
(etc)
Rumpus-Time-Is-Over | 14 hours ago
This is just your list of why you think America sucks. It's not a list of America's economy doing badly in the present moment.
Though I must admit "Sub six figure earner share of new car sales" make me lol.
brcleeroy | a day ago
A close friend with a family of 4, opted to rent in San Diego instead of buy in the same neighborhood. Mind you he already owns 2 huge houses. The monthly payment of a mortgage would be about 40% more per month for the same square footage, not to mention with a sizeable down payment. The market is really inverted in the buy versus rent calculus, at least in hcol areas.
Rents themselves may only be coming down a little bit, but the alternative of buying that same property just doesn’t make any sense.
Rumpus-Time-Is-Over | 14 hours ago
I think it's likely based on the data that people are paying higher multiples for buying with the expectation that they'll be able to make a profit by selling later. Which relies on the Greater Fool theory--quite dangerous.
HumorAccomplished611 | a day ago
Yea I'm kinda upset at my wife. She wanted to upgrade houses and I said we should rent for 2 years till the market becomes normal again. Nope. Like 1-2K extra per month to buy right now. Plus all the maintainence.
But money is for living. So whatever. Just trying to build wealth here. Had to veto her plans for a euro disney cruise because of it.
Oryzae | 20 hours ago
> But money is for living.
Ask me in my 20s I’d be like hell yeah
In my 30s I was like “money is for hoarding”
Now I’m pushing 40 and I’m still like “80% hoarding, but maybe 20% spending”?
Who knows what it’ll be like 10 years from now. Maybe I’ll have enough to spend, I bought in 2024 and now I’m scared shitless.
HumorAccomplished611 | 2 hours ago
Yea I definitely had a preference for keeping the money.
bloodrider1914 | a day ago
The problem is that homeowners are unwilling to sell their homes for the lower real going rate, and houses are not all publicly listed on a central database (instead only a few selected top listings are shown on sites like Zillow), so both homeowners and prospective buyers lack information. The result is the owned property market is experiencing a market failiure, with most sellers pricing their homes far above the equilibrium and consumers not willing to pay those prices, and inventory is not being cleared.
HumorAccomplished611 | a day ago
Well thats the thing. The equilibrium is higher because the homeowner has a low rate thus bringing the price they want to sell to lose that rate higher.
Vs say new homes the builders only want a profit and are not married to their rates so that allows lots of fluctuations. I sold my parents home recently, the realtor wanted to list it for 720K which I said was too high. We listed it for 700K and lowered it to 680K. Ended up selling for 600K like 6 months later.
And I wouldnt even have sold if it wasnt in an HOA that only allowed renting for 2 years.
Oryzae | 20 hours ago
I mean speaking as a recent homeowner, I paid close to 1M @ 6% due to VHCOL. Never in my life will I sell it for lower than what I paid at the absolute minimum (even then I’ll be losing money with taxes and loan interest). Of course the 3% will never sell, I’d be busy laughing all the way to the bank. Only solution is to build.
snark42 | a day ago
What market are you in that Zillow doesn't have full MLS listings?
Background-Wolf-9380 | 23 hours ago
What else would you call a period of time where almost no one can afford to buy a house? It's more of a serfdom of insufficient housing on the landlords' plantations than a "renter's market."
Rumpus-Time-Is-Over | 14 hours ago
And yet home ownership rates have been level for decades.
The_Spicy_brown | a day ago
*For high end appartments.
Here in Montreal Quebec, its no longer a shortage of appartments, but a shortage of cheap appartments. The ones that were below 1k before 2020. Even here in MTL, appartments are going down a bit, but only the 1800$-2000$/month bracket. These high end appartments can be dealed with the owner. You can try to bring the price down or get multiple free months. However, anything below 1k is completly gone even though i would say we really need a LOT of 800$-1200$ appartments. Thats what the low income bracket can afford, yet there is nothing left....
And its not an easy one to fix. Waiting for the market to stabilize will take years. Bailing these expensive condos/appartments to convert them for cheap appartments is EXTREMELY impopular (and for good reason). Profitable condos/appartments are in the 1400$-1500$ ballpark for new construction. There is no easy exit. I think the best solution i saw was for the government to subsidize new construction so that builders can be profitable renting at 800$-1200$. Then again, it will take years to materialize.
Super_Mario_Luigi | a day ago
Eh, if I had a young 20-something child, the last thing I would tell them is that this is a renter's market. Life is more complex than the either-or lines the internet draws.
This is a market where I'd live with family until I've saved up enough for a home. I'm more in favor of buying a home, but not one at an overinflated price where you will pay an additional 125% in interest. That doesn't mean "your $1500 rent can come out cheaper" is the sure bet.
Yea yea, here comes the rent defense force. Save it. I'd save that $50,000 you'd spend in two years to "have your own place" to put towards something that will really give you your own place.
HeyUKidsGetOffMyLine | a day ago
After listening to the report, I’m not sure it’s a renters market at all. The first person they interviewed had to move 4 times in 5 years in order to get cheap rent and the next couple they interviewed had a low rent and were fearful to look elsewhere because their market is going up 5% a year in rent. Nothing about that report made renting sound attractive other than the headline.
anti-torque | a day ago
And it was also dependent on location. So it's only true for a handful of places nobody wants to live, and the numbers are still sketchy.
Gamer_Grease | a day ago
It’s a privilege not everyone can access. I do think everyone should live with a partner or roommates if they can’t live with family. But a lot of older people have untreated mental illness or other issues going on, and their kids just have to leave.
Also, it’s less and less common for older people to live where there are career opportunities for their kids. Everyone in my social circle who stayed in smaller towns after we graduated college is frankly just way behind the rest of us who chanced living in a real city.
beams13 | a day ago
At my college graduation my mom asked when I'm moving back home and looked deflated when I responded "never". There's no jobs there I want that I couldn't have gotten without going to college and I'd gladly live in a higher cost of living area of it meant my earnings potential was also greatly increased. For many people there's just no reasonable employment to stay at home for.
RIP_Soulja_Slim | a day ago
If you grew up in a part of the country that doesn't have high economic opportunity then yeah, the absolute single best thing you can do is move immediately after college to a city that does. There is absolutely nothing that will do as much for your career advancement, moving to where the careers are is key. And no, remote work doesn't come close, significant research is starting to come out showing that Gen Z entrants to the workforce who work remotely are seeing slower career progression, higher unemployment, and slower skills development.
All of those "guy who never left his hometown" memes exist for a reason. Works for the power company, barely scraping by, thinks Chilis is a pretty nice place to go once a month, conspiracy theorist, etc.
crowcawer | a day ago
I’ll use my familiar example as it serves a fairly general view:
For a family of 3 in a Nashville type market, $150k gross is workable but tight, especially with other debt or high childcare costs. $175k to $200k gross is a more realistic target for buying sustainably with 20% down while still living responsibly.
Estimating how much Raman costs is eating into the analysis, but the fact is that the US job market doesn’t seem to support that kind of wage for someone to take their $60,000 x 2 starter pay mentioned before and flip it into a house.
Living for the first few years out of college isn’t free either.
juliankennedy23 | a day ago
And let's be honest what mentally healthy 23-year-old would want to move back in with their parents?
MeanCryptographer585 | a day ago
A lot of people do not have the luxury of living at home to save money.
You mean living with no housing expense saves more money than renting? What a novel insight!
obsidianop | a day ago
If you're in your early 20s, the way to make $1500 rent $1000 is get a roommate and rent a $2000 unit with two bedrooms. It's like this is some kind of arcane lost knowledge.
beams13 | a day ago
I had 1--3 housemates the entirety of my 20s and never felt overwhelmed by rent. I now live with my wife now at 35 and effectively still have a house/roommate. The idea that everyone needs to live in their own place is insane considering those same people often also loudly talk about increasing housing density and affordability. Well one way to get more density is for multiple people to live in units meant for multiple people vs 1 person in a 2br or 2 people in houses designed for 5 people. Also it was fantastic having two roommates through COVID because I had a built in social situation in my house. There was no loneliness etc because I lived alone.
poopbutt23111 | a day ago
Yep. I never had my own place (still don’t, live with wife and kids). I usually rented 3 bedroom homes with 2 friends.
leaping_kneazle | a day ago
A lot of us don’t have the luxury of living with family. I’m 24, my dad went bankrupt my senior year of college. I didn’t have a home to return to come graduation. Not to mention my only job offer (which I grabbed onto with both hands) was in a HCOL area. I have a roommate but yeah of course I would have preferred to live at home with minimal expenses.
edit: downvote me if you want lmao but it doesn't change the facts. living with family is not a choice everyone has.
SardScroll | a day ago
>where you will pay an additional 125% in interest
Note that if you have a traditional 30 year loan, 125% interest isn't bad, historically speaking. That's an APR of ~6.5% a year, which is much lower than rates have been for the majority of the last 50 years. The reactions to the 2008 Financial Crisis pushed interest rates way down; barring a similar crisis, it's unlikely that they'll drop that low again.
bruiserbear22 | a day ago
I keep saying this but most people are to zoomed into the last 15 years of interest rates.
Gamer_Grease | a day ago
They’re also zoomed into the last 15 years of property prices. That’s the bigger issue. You have to borrow way more than you used to.
Unoriginal- | a day ago
Okay as a relatively young person, life is much more fluid than living in the house and being stuck with a 30 year mortgage at 25.
I’d want my kids to actually get out of the house and experience life rather than to be extremely frugal, that’s kind of your job as a parent to support in my mind but I don’t have kids. Personally I couldn’t even imagine being responsible for home ownership, it’s a milestone to hit that people must grow into
crowcawer | a day ago
I’ll bite the hook: I can sell the mortgage with my house vs googling “how can I get out of my rental/lease agreement?”
The real answer is: “what job is the 20-35 year old able to hold that will satisfy the bank’s desire to give them a loan with a reasonable downpayment.” In the past they’ve dictated that to be 20% of the sales price of the home. So to hit that goal, the current median downpayment would be about (I’ll use the median number from Zillow as I like the color blue more than red, and it’s lower than Redfin’s so that makes the number easier to stomach) $370,000*0.2=$74,000.00.
So a family would need to make enough to have that saved up in addition to paying rent to live in a space.
I would argue that we aren’t in a renter’s market until rent payments are something like 50% or less than expected mortgage payments for a similarly sized space. I don’t see that happening near me. Maybe the amenities of paid communal laundry and not having much control over the structure/landscaping are worth it though.
Edit to answer my own question I now bolded above so I don’t forget again: For the family: something like $100,000 - $150,000 but maybe $170,000 - $200,000 if they are in a metro area. That might change regionally, and I’m not about to do any tough analysis for this, I’m just assuming no other major debt.
The note that I’ve beat around the bush of is that they would need to pay for rent while saving. (rounding Zillow’s number for median rent ~$2,000) A young family renting around $2,000/month would need to save another $2,000–$5,000/month for several years to reach a safe 20% down-payment target. That makes first time home buying unrealistic for many families unless they have very high income (>$200,000).
hewkii2 | a day ago
It absolutely doesn’t have to be 20% and if you have that mindset you haven’t bought property in a long while.
Also lol at “I can just sell my house” as though that’s a quick process anymore.
SituationTurbulent90 | a day ago
Right. "Quickly selling the house" gave me a sensible chuckle. Closing costs are also non-trivial, especially since it feels like you're setting that money on fire.
RIP_Soulja_Slim | a day ago
Just some real quick math here.
Let's figure your budget is $1,500/mo. That would be a one bedroom apartment in a lot of places, or a $250k house. Setting aside what sort of place you can find for 250k, let's just do the math.
I'll ignore a down payment here too, just for ease. You purchase house at 250k, have a 6% mortgage at $1,500/mo. In 5 years you have paid $90k of housing payments. Your outstanding balance is 232k. So you've built $18k of equity and given the bank 72k.
You go to sell, that's ~5.7%. If your sale price is 250k, then you're paying ~15k right away to agents. Let's add a cleaning fee, maybe some listing costs, maybe some repairs, that should easily encompass that remaining ~$3k of equity.
Congrats, you just broke even financially with renting. Any larger repairs and you're net negative. Now, appreciation in housing would give you a boost, but isn't a given, especially in shorter time periods like this.
For most scenarios, your absolute minimum time to even start breaking even on the buying v renting conversation is going to be ~5 years. And for most younger people, knowing where you will be in 5 years and what your wants/needs will be is a massive guess. It honestly rarely makes financial sense to buy here, most people that suggest it does are relying heavily on housing appreciation and hindsight to evidence that, as absent housing appreciation the math just doesn't math.
SituationTurbulent90 | a day ago
Personally, I prefer home ownership (which I do, free-and-clear), because I view it as less of a purely financial transaction. But that's a perspective that's generally a luxury these days. My comment was more in reference to the insinuation that selling a house is less onerous than just finding another place to rent.
I'm also no longer a college student and am comfortable with staying in this area long-term.
I've contemplated downsizing to free up some equity for investing, but between the ridiculous asking prices for homes that I wouldn't have given a second thought a few years ago and the closing costs, this may be my forever home whether I like it or not. All thing considered, that's definitely a first world problem.
RIP_Soulja_Slim | a day ago
There's a lot of reasons to prefer it, and a massive pile of long term financial benefits, but over most sub 5 year periods it's rarely a net financial benefit.
crowcawer | a day ago
I’m all for getting rid of the rent for a $300/month fee added to the mortgage but that’s the incentive metric.
HumorAccomplished611 | a day ago
3.5-5% down. so like 15K. Which the median starting income of a college grad is like 60K? Live like a college student for 2 years and you got it.
Think I paid off 25K in student loans in my first year doing that and only made lik3 60K
bub166 | a day ago
20-35 year olds aren't typically buying the median homes though. They're more likely on the bottom end of the market, buying a smaller starter home, or maybe something kinda old and in need of some work, etc. And a 20% down payment isn't necessary, sometimes you don't need one at all, especially in that demographic. I was 25 when I bought, after all the various first time homebuyer incentives I had no down payment or even closing costs.
crowcawer | a day ago
You’re not wrong, but I’m not the expert on pulling data like this and sorting for age. The goal of my very simple analysis is to just show how renting compares with buying, and that saving for buying requires essentially doubling rent.
I needed something useful for my comment and so I used the general national median to help guide calculations for these first time buyers. I think anything under $500,000 might seem like a reasonable marketing point for a dual income family.
The reality is that unless a family is incredibly diligent, they are not likely to be able to save for a home in any time period if they are making less than $150,000. That doesn’t make it a renters (as the article suggests) or buyers v sellers market.
Our current economic situation makes it an owners holding market. No one wants to leave their 4% loan for a 7% loan.
bub166 | 23 hours ago
Yeah I don't necessarily disagree with the conclusion, just didn't seem like a complete way of framing the reason. For what it's worth I was making less than $50k when I bought four years and change ago, but I would struggle to buy the same house now despite making more money, going from 4% to 7% makes it a tough pill to swallow, especially since prices themselves continued to creep up little by little in my area. I think that's the more interesting point of analysis here, it's not so much that there isn't an avenue for first time buyers (at least, not universally, of course there are some markets where it's just impossible) but we're in a weird holding pattern now. The low interest rate is part of what made it a reasonable choice for me, my monthly payment really wasn't that much more than I was already paying for rent. Though I will say, $74k still puts you over half the overall price of a starter home in my region, and our median home price isn't that much lower than Zillow's national average. If a young family could stomach the monthly payment they should be able to get a loan around here even if they don't really have much (or anything) to put down, so I just mean to say that it definitely varies a lot depending on where you're looking.
juliankennedy23 | a day ago
You need something like 1 to 3% down to buy a house not 20% down. Plus many areas have first time home buyer programs where they actually give you money towards closing.
Gamer_Grease | a day ago
That made more sense when interest rates were around half of what they were before. Now with the higher interest AND higher prices, that’s a crazy mortgage payment for someone who can only scrape together 3%. It makes zero sense.
juliankennedy23 | a day ago
Well a lot of times you still have cash left over after you put that 3% down sitting in your checking account which is a good thing because it's amazing how many new things you have to buy when you move from an apartment to a house. I mean a lot of apartment dwellers don't own a shovel for example.
It's one of the reasons that first time home buyers is so important for the economy so it's always good to have an extra 10 or 20 grand in cash in the checking account to buy those little extras when you move into your new home.
Gamer_Grease | a day ago
I think part of the problem we’re discussing here is that not that many young people have all that leftover money in the checking account anymore. “Just have a lot of money” is not a solution to an economic problem. There’s a reason the median first-time home buyer now is 40.
Phuffu | a day ago
I hear your opinion but disagree that owning a home is the end all be all. Different strokes for different folks.
Blood_Casino | 21 hours ago
> Yea yea, here comes the rent defense force.
Oft repeated advice on this sub is that people should just continue to rent while investing their would-be mortgage payment into the market every month. They see no issue with this advice. Economists are never beating the ivory tower charges.
assasstits | 19 hours ago
Ivory tower like not being able to afford a mortgage but still investing.
Right....
dust4ngel | 20 hours ago
> Yea yea, here comes the rent defense force. Save it.
as you're probably aware, this is a non-argument.
> I'd save that $50,000 you'd spend in two years to "have your own place" to put towards something that will really give you your own place.
what does this mean? don't rent while you save to buy a house? are you talking about hashtag van life?
th3groveman | a day ago
Being able to live at home as an adult is a class indicator. If someone has well off parents they can indeed be well off, and should take advantage. The reality is that most people will struggle and scrape and will continue to do so.
juliankennedy23 | a day ago
I mean serious talk there's more to home ownership than just a down payment I would certainly have my child rent for a year and pay all their own utilities bills and deal with neighbors on their own before they buy a house.
There's just too many soft skills you don't learn living with Mom and Dad.
Powderkeg314 | 13 hours ago
Everyone I know with a home is spamming social media for renters and nobody is biting. The housing bubble is coming to an end and major price declines will likely be triggered by the AI bubble pop.
LowBarometer | a day ago
I live in a small New England city filled with triple-decker apartment houses. Parking spaces used to be difficult to find. Suddenly in the past month or so all the cars are gone. Parking spaces are plentiful. It's crazy!
ladyorion2021 | 21 hours ago
The current shift toward a renters' market in the United States is primarily driven by a massive multi-family construction boom that has flooded areas with an oversupply of new apartments.
National vacancy rates are climbing past 7% and units sitting on the market longer, landlords and institutional property managers are facing intense pressure to attract and retain tenants.
Show your landlord the lower prices, remember that turnover is expensive for property managers and they may be willing to either lower or freeze your rent. Don't expect the same for landlords of houses. It's more difficult to negotiate with these. Apartments are much more doable. And always be prepared to move if it means saving considerable amount of $$$.
We moved... went from almost $2,900 house to $1,900 apartment. Landlord refused to lower our rent, but once we moved we found out that he had no choice but to lower it to $2,200, plus paint the whole house and replace old carpet in order to attract a tenant.
We were willing to continue paying $2,700 but they refused because they wanted $2,900 (even though their property taxes went down considerably) and rentals in the area had lower prices. They were convinced that they could get $3K, they didn't. They got greedy and paid the price.
Fickle_Goose_4451 | a day ago
"Its a renters market!" Right next to something titled "corporate landlords arent the real villain."
I think that tells me exactly how much glue the authors and NPR have been huffing.
throwaway00119 | a day ago
Yes, NPR, the last bastion of conservative news.
Healthy_Razzmatazz38 | 21 hours ago
if you really want to piss everyone off, just mention that housing is cheap compared to pretty much every other asset in historical terms.
if you're buying houses with earned income its not fun atm. if you're buying it with stock gains, or gold houses are insanely cheap.
CaptainObvious110 | 21 hours ago
oh wow
Witty_Badger1300 | 5 hours ago
I'll choose "not" then. Thanks anyway.
These headlines are so unbelievably stupid. As if the present Menager price drops do anything in the face of a decade of massive price increases, year over year.
Cdub7791 | a day ago
I believe it, at least in our market. I was renting out my home just below the original rental estimate, but Zillow now says ~$175 less than even that is the market rate. Our tenant is getting divorced and so moving out, but we will offer her a reduced rate and see if that would get her to stay. Between insurance, mortgage, and the property manager we can't go much lower though without flat out losing money.
BathroomMaximum1721 | a day ago
The same NPR that says that rents are declining can’t extrapolate that if rents fall, inflation will also because shelter cost is an important component of CPI.
If Democrats were in power, they would make that extrapolation.
portmanteaudition | a day ago
LOL @ all of the people complaining about their rent. I pay about $7,000/month in rent currently. You guys have no idea how cheal your cost of living is compared to other peoples' CoL.
ControversialQuerier | a day ago
To be fair to commenters in this thread, they are complaining about the price of things. $7,000 for rent isn't really a complaint, but more of a flex. Do you discuss what field you're in online?
I partially agree that some people might complain without realizing how good they have it, though.
EDIT: "commenter's" to "commenters".
portmanteaudition | 21 hours ago
Not really, there are rentals going for $25k/mo where I live 🤣 These people have no clue.
ControversialQuerier | 20 hours ago
That's also a flex, which to be clear, is an awesome spot to be in.