devilgrrl (21,102 posts)
Way Too Many Americans Spend Most of Their Income on Rent
Gee! And here I was thinking people were blowing way too much cash at Starbucks!!!
Throughout America, the housing market has recovered so well from its collapse five years ago that we're already talking about the next collapse. This has been great news for current homeowners. But for poor people who would prefer not to be homeless, times are only getting harder.
The Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Research's annual report on the state of housing in America is out (as if we had to tell you!). The good news: the housing recovery is "well underway," with home prices up by nearly 12% in the past year; home sales were up 20% in 2012; and home improvement and construction spending are contributing positively to the economy once again.
The bad news: this is a terrible time to be poor and want to live indoors. Even worse than usual. The rental market is tightening. Homeownership rates have fallen for eight straight years. Household incomes are down over the past decade. Low-cost apartments are continually disappearing from the housing stock. And the housing picture for the poor in America is far from sunny. A few key stats:
-On average, real home values for Hispanic owners plummeted nearly $100,000 (35 percent) between 2007 and 2010, while the decline for black owners was nearly $69,000 (31 percent). By comparison, average values for white homeowners fell just 15 percent over this period.
-In 2011 42.3 million households, or 37 percent, faced housing cost burdens, paying more than 30 percent of pre-tax income on housing costs, including 20.6 million households (17.9 percent) with severe cost burdens, paying more than 50 percent of pre-tax income for housing.
more: http://gawker.com/way-too-many-americans-spend-most-of-their-income-on-re-597705415
Mortgage payments: they cut into the dope budget
KamaAina (45,851 posts)
1. In California, many people have tried to lower their housing costs by "driving 'til they qualify"
only to find that as their housing costs go down, their transportation costs go up. $4+ gas and limited transit options at the fringes of the metropolitan areas combine to deliver them a one-two punch.
Why...
...it's almost as if the price expands to meet the supply of money.
Who -- except anyone who isn't a communist stooge and economically literate -- could have foreseen such a thing?
Which, BTW, explains why welfare never works: government = cash supply = price inflation = poor still poor relative to consumer prices
Manifestor_of_Light (16,493 posts)
3. And I can tell you one good reason why the rent is high.
The landlord has to pay property taxes with that rent money.
And in Texas, which does not have a state income tax, the property taxes are horrible. Because the government gouges us with sales taxes, license fees, car tags, toll roads, and so forth.
Recursion (26,758 posts)
5. I prefer property taxes to income taxes.
Property taxes are by nature progressive.
1-Old-Man (1,725 posts)
7. Can you defend that statement?
I've been sitting here thinking about what you said and I simply can not see any way in which property taxes are progressive.
Would you mind explaining your thinking here? I'm apparently missing something and I'd like to understand if there is another way to view it.
Recursion (26,758 posts)
8. Rich people have property. Poor people don't (nt)
Matariki (15,158 posts)
16. That's a simplistic and untrue statement
There was a time in this country when home ownership was encouraged and made easier to achieve for the middle class because it was rightly understood that home ownership creates stable and maintained neighborhoods.
The housing market as a financial investment has pushed home ownership out of reach for a lot of people but still, plenty of middle class folks own our homes.
It's sad when middle class folks get pushed out of their homes due to exorbitant property taxes. This happens mostly to older people who bought their homes years ago or lower income people who own homes in urban areas that become gentrified. Nothing 'progressive' about those taxes.
You want well-funded indoctrination centers and abortion clinics, don't you?
Recursion (26,758 posts)
17. I can't *imagine* affording a house
Like, literally inconceivable to me
Matariki (15,158 posts)
20. I hate that home ownership became an investment commodity.
Instead of what it ought to be. It really pisses me off actually.
woo me with science (20,266 posts)
6. Corporate slavery.
Last edited Thu Jun 27, 2013, 02:14 PM USA/ET - Edit history (7)
The system seeks profit, so it demands constant work to afford barely the necessities of life....food, shelter, The corporate machine profits from every worker bee, so they craft the system to keep each bee busy and desperate....to require constant work merelyto survive. When governments go corporate...when human beings become merely human resources for the profit of the Pllutonomy, we lose our right to our own lives, our own interests, our own time. The system is increasingly structured to enforce constant service to the machine.
It really is slavery, just in another form.
You, of course, only charge the subsistence rate for whatever it is that you do, right?
geek tragedy (27,306 posts)
22. Yep. Some middle class folks have the option of buying and thus
locking in their housing payment.
If you can't afford that, you're at the mercy of the rental market.
And that market thinks it is better to reduce prices than pay for empty units.
Now, if only the government would stop punishing ownership then they wouldn't have to raise prices to past what the market would provide.
Lurker Deluxe (279 posts)
25. There is no locking in
Your taxes and insurance are going to go up, promise.
If, like most, those are rolled into an escrow your payment changes due to those factors.
Rent is the same, the pricing is determined by the same factors.
How else are we supposed to pay for all your freebies?
RebelOne (27,098 posts)
33. Never bought anything at Starbucks, but I do pay $385 in rent.
I live in a mobile home which I own. All I pay is the lot rent, but even so, I am on Social Security and the rent is a large chunk out of my monthly SS check.
ObamaCare will soon take care of you and you won't have to worry about prices ever again.
Orrex (36,908 posts)
35. Another sickening factor to consider:
Rent for low-income and public housing is often calculated based on average local rent for private apartments, with modifications for income level, number of kids, etc. If those rental rates skyrocket, the people in public housing are going to get screwed again. So in addition to the brutal stigma of living in the projects, they'll get to fork over an even bigger chunk of their meager income.
****ing markets. How do they work?
Corruption Inc (101 posts)
38. Today mortgage rates hit a 2 year high as well
The criminal banks will continue with their corrupt behaviors. It could easily be stopped by prosecuting some criminal CEOs but that's not the country we live in now.
A 2-year high?!?!?!
Most of you idiots would spend 30 year's rent for a 2-year high.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023111868
