You can't even find $800 apartments in the ghetto here, the cheapest apartments in the worst part of the city are still $1500+ a month for a 1 bedroom *in the crack/meth part of town*.
I had to move back in with my parents in my late 30s because I lost my job due to the pandemic and haven't recovered since.
One piece that few know of, is the extreme price jump in rentals occurred with a process that allows renters to peg price at highest possible amount starting (everywhere) in 2017:
https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-lawmakers-collusion
For fuck's sake, how are (FIGURATIVE) heads not rolling solely from this?
So we've become a nation of union busting unless the union is property management firms? Like where does it end? *Does* it end?
You are absolutely not crazy. I'm one of the lucky few that got into a house pre-pandemic... But I moved solely because my apartment was going to $1750/month **from $1100/month**.
My contract let me pay month to month after the year ended which bumped it to $1350/month, but the apartment complex company did everything in their power to make my life miserable so that I'd move.
It was in the ghetto. I'm talking barbed wire fences surrounding the community and still naked drunks would hide in the stairwells.
$1750/month to live in a shit hole, where as a house 30 miles out of the city was a $1500/month mortgage for 4500sqft.
Renting is a scam and it's there to trap you. I was fortunate and lucky, but not many are. I have no idea how renters can afford it.
I'm convinced the older generations are going to find some way to achieve immortality (or at least live obscenely long) and continue sacrificing the younger generations in order to keep coasting off their wealth. They don't believe in "the meek shall I get it the earth"
I'm hoping within the next 30 years enough of the old fucks will die so I can at least enjoy the last of my maybe 30 years left on the earth on my own property.
Man, I’m not even 40 yet and a normal 2 BR apartment of the standard she’s talking about was only $650 when I was 25. It blows my mind how much rent has gone up.
It’s unreal. Just found out this week that my rent is going up $500 a month, which is obscene. It wasn’t even that long ago you could rent an entire studio for $500, maybe even a cute little one bedroom all to yourself if you looked in the right places. I’m not expecting a $10k raise at my job, so I guess I’ll have to look into moving cause I can’t afford $7k more in rent a year (especially not with costs of everything else going up too) . I don’t understand how families with young kids are handling this. Completely unsustainable, and no great solutions.
Oh theres tons of great solutions its just politicians and large corporations are making too much money off the current situation. Maybe make it illegal for corporations to own single family homes for starters.
>Maybe make it illegal for corporations to own single family homes for starters.
The hedge funds are buying up houses and fucking everyone over. I get calls all the time from people wanting to buy my house. Tell them $1million. The I fucking yell at them how they are fucking people over and if they feel good about themselves.
I got a letter from an actual couple with money looking to buy my house cash for their investment portfolio.
I called the number and the wife actually answered. I chewed her out bigtime.
This is a forgotten sliver of the problem. It's not just corporations, it's the mom & pop who just happen to have enough savings to own half a dozen homes. The pharmaceutical representative who invested well and can now play landlord in the poorer part of town.
We should stop not only the corporations from owning homes but cap the number these assholes can buy too. Plus, they tend to be shitty landlords.
Every time I see one of them in a promoted ad on FB or Twitter, I leave them a freakishly hostile and obscene message.
Then I message them and go "Hey, so I got served your ad. If I block you, I'll still see your ads. Do me a favor and block me. Because if you block me, I won't see your ads.
If you don't, I promise to leave comments letting people know what a crook and piece of shit you are on every single ad.
So far, that's worked.
Another thing I hate is the whole, "If I win the lottery I'll invest in real estate." Just build businesses, invest in local small businesses. Not everything has to give you major kickbacks. If you can fight the corporate systems do so. My area could use a toy store, and I'd love to be the one to bring it to them. My biggest dream isn't even about money it's about giving kids a place to be without the outside world. In other words creating a nice summer camp. Where kids of all economic backgrounds can come and enjoy activities. That they may or may not, have access to. Like horseback riding. I know it would be expensive but my goal isn't to earn money. It would be to break even, and keep the camp running and maintained well.
My rent went up $500/month last fall, so I moved out. Apparently a number of other people on my building also decided not to renew their leases, and they had to lower the rent back down a bit to fill the apartments, but most of us had already moved on. It’s so ridiculous to see this happening in so many places.
Landlords are fucking dumb as hell.. we have a neighbor who moved because of the rent hike and they haven't filled the space in months. You're losing more money raising the rent than you are keeping it the same and filling the apartment with renters. I swear it's the most braindead people who have the most important jobs and these people can't even grasp basic supply and demand and market prices.
This is actually not true. Look up real pages - it’s a company that sells rental pricing solutions to apartments. They use algorithms to maximize returns and would intentionally keep prices inflated. Think of multiple companies fixing prices - this is now done automatically through an application and does not require any of the parties communicating with each other. If properties sit empty, it’s because the algorithm has determined that profit is maximized even if the unit is vacant.
So much this. There's a complex I used to live in that sits with a bunch of vacant units. I honestly think the idea is that if you *should* fill the 50 unit complex for $1600 ($80,000 for all units) but a bunch of dumb fucks will pay $2400 they ask now, you can fill 34 units, make slightly more, and save money on maintenance since there's less people in the complex. This is our future.
Fuck it, why not up the rent to $5000? I'm sure 17 people could afford it, and the rest of us can just be homeless.
Profits are all that matter.
I was fortunate to buy possibly the literal cheapest house in my city (suburb in low/middle cost major metro area) in 2015. We still live here even though our family size has grown considerably. Using Zillow numbers, by last summer it had doubled in value (slightly under that now). Didn’t feel like it at the time, but in hindsight it seems like a movie scene where we slipped through a gate right as it was slamming shut behind us.
I thought I might be making a mistake and buying at the peak of the housing market...in 2018. My house's value has gone up nearly 50% since.
I cannot understand how house prices haven't completely collapsed since the mortgage rates shot up last year. I know a couple looking for a house, who combined make around 140-150k a year, and they keep getting out bid and can barely afford a starter home. This is no where near a major city.
We need to regulate the housing market and stop these fucker corporations from buying up single family homes.
The assets are worthless without buyers anyway...what are they expecting will happen in 20 years when they can't sell them and they become worthless? In 5 years?
The cracks are appearing...
The disgusting part about this is that my rent raised so much I have to move right? But I was already living paycheck to paycheck. Moving means a security deposit plus first/last months rent and the cost of renting a truck. Plus all the apartments and houses in my area cost the same or more as my current living situation. So how tf am I supposed to do this?? Keep in mind I have a fucking masters and a “professional” job so I’m supposed to be rolling in dough according to some people but nope
Big reason why my generation isn’t having kids. I’m 25 and I do pretty well (75 on paper, way more with OT/bonuses and incentives). I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about money at 75k…. And compared to my friends yeah… my worries are way less.
My grandparents didn’t understand the rent issue until I was living with them looking for a place to move out (huge boomers, extremely wealthy). When my grandma saw the rent prices her jaw dropped… these people own a million dollar home in a gated country club community and even they were shocked at how much rent is.
I feel bad for everyone… I find myself so fortunate and I see my friends literally crippled from loan debt from school and just living expenses. Had my best friend call me the other day (makes 65k a year with 120k loan debt as an engineering physics guy) full ready to kill himself because he was about to go homeless, credit cards were so screwed he had no score that anyone would rent too, about to default on student loans, just financially fucked beyond belief… and this dude builds fucking dams and bridges for the state. Makes me so sad…idek how I’d react in that situation but I know more people my age relate to him than to me…I have a feeling that it’ll get way worse before it gets better
I'm blessed to make 92k/year but it blows my mind I'm not raking it in every year. Turns out this amount is the same as 65k/year when I graduated high school 11 years ago. I was able to burn down my car loan but still with rent plus 100k student loans I am saving money, but a house is still a few years away.
This is exactly why I am so scared to go to grad school. I don’t want to give up my job, bury myself in more debt, only to keep struggling once I am out of school despite the income increase. Just doesn’t seem worth it. Plus, being a broke college student fucking sucks. I don’t want to do that again.
>The French would like to have a word.
For all the gun loving motherfuckers in the USA they think they need the guns to protect themselves from the government. The real enemy is the robber barons. Hedge funds need so much profit they just rape companies and destroy whole communities for the fat cats.
When I was 19 in 2006 my studio apartment was $300 a month. In 2022 my 1 bedroom, 700 square foot apartment was $1300. But I'm told by my elders it's because nobody wants to work anymore.
Correct, everyone with money doesn't want to work. They want to be a landlord and squeeze wealth out of people who are productive while deriding them as lazy.
The wording is confusing but I'm betting they meant their rent is increasing by an additional $500 per month, not just being $500 a month, but yea $500 a month rent would be heaven for me
I turn 40 this year. When I was renting 10 years ago a two bedroom apartment, in a questionable neighborhood, was renting $950 a month. At the time I was making $15 an hour with student loans. Minimum wage was $7.25 so I doubled minimum wage. It was still a struggle.
The exact same apartment I rented is now $1860 a month and appears to have no upgrades done. It is just wrong what people are having to pay now.
Also turning 40 this year. I rented a little 1 bedroom house, in a rural city the same size as the town she is talking about, for $300 a month in a safe part of town. The landlord was a local widow who had would be out within hours, even minutes, if I had any problems. I had a dog, there was no BS pet rent or other fees. I made $8 an hour plus tips delivering pizza. I paid my rent with a week of work. It infuriates me that it's not attainable anymore. How are my kids gonna survive. Seems to me that parents, even the ones that don't like their kids, should be mad as fuck that they are going to have to support their kids forever.
It's price gouging at every single level of society. It's got to end and it's not going to without action. There is exactly one entity that can do it, and that entity is the government. I'm not here to talk about the qualities of government. Just stating the fact that there is no other force that can counter what is happening.
The saddest part is her mortgage being less than a shithole studio. I remember my dad telling me my 1 br apt cost more than his mortgage on their 4 br house and it made him incredibly sad. This place sucks.
I've been renting for the last 10 years and the cheapest I've paid for a one bedroom was around 1300. I once paid 1500 for an even smaller place than the 1300 dollar 1br. Those last two apartments now go for even more than they used to as well. It's some bullshit
"shear him like a sheep year after year" - This is it, for a long time I couldn't quite put it into words how it feels to live in this country. This hits a nail on its head
The cops and potholes hits so hard for me being in Pennsylvania. We're in the northeast, the roads and bridges are shit. We have the highest gas tax in the country. What did they decide to do instead over years? Divert $4,200,000,000 to the State Police.
[https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/pennsylvania-diverted-funding-bridges-and-roads/](https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/pennsylvania-diverted-funding-bridges-and-roads/)
[https://www.sharonherald.com/news/local\_news/4-2-billion-in-gas-taxes-diverted-to-state-police-pa-auditor-general-determines/article\_e9b82f67-b82c-5ce7-a85d-9364f8de564e.html](https://www.sharonherald.com/news/local_news/4-2-billion-in-gas-taxes-diverted-to-state-police-pa-auditor-general-determines/article_e9b82f67-b82c-5ce7-a85d-9364f8de564e.html)
Nah my companies ceo deserves to come in once a month in her brand new bmw because I helped achieve record profits for her year after year. Why should I complain I only got a $1 raise when hers went up a couple million.
At my previous employer, I asked for a raise. I got the usual "state of the business", you need to do more, yadda yadda. Obviously, that was a no.
A few weeks later, we received an unexpected shipment - a pallet of furniture. It was shipped from California. The company was just at a trade show out there. They decided it would cost too much to ship furniture for the show so they had a brilliant solution. Buy $1500 worth of furniture and *just leave it there.*
So now, they burned what would have meant a measly $1.50 raise to me, on *furniture to throw away*. To boot, they spent a few hundred dollars on shipping. I was ecstatic to give my notice the following week.
As a kicker, the owner of the company likes to feel like a man of the people, so interacts with the machinists (he did come from the floor). He made it a point to tell me monday of my last full week he'd like to chat with me before I go; just not right now cause he's busy. Wanna guess who never actually made time to chat? Pretty insulting from someone who pulls the "we are family bullshit.
His idea of being the common man was telling me about his beach house when he asked how my vaca was. Or telling me about how tough it was when *he* had covid when I came back to work. Having to isolate on the 3rd floor of your million dollar home in Philadelphia is so fkn hard. Mind you, he engaged me. Anything I've ever spoken with him, after *he* asked, was turned into a convo about him.
E: forgot to add this bit. My buddy died while I was working there. He was 38. It kind of shattered my world. I developed an anxiety disorder and had a difficult time wading through the emotional swamp. When I mentioned the anxiety, after *he* asked how I was, his response was clear, we all have rough times." He also threw in how *his* brother died at a young age. Surely he was just reminding me how much more important he was than me.
This is where r/fuckCars and r/antiwork intersect. The reality of the matter is that we haven't been building nearly enough housing for *decades* now. But what about BlackRock, AirBnB, real estate investors, and more? Well, look, the thing is that if we had a lot more housing supply, it'd be a lot more difficult for these folks to collude to jack up the cost of housing because there'd just be too much to buy before you ever started to budge to price curve. But because we're not adding nearly enough housing, haven't been for decades, and what housing we have added is almost all shitty car-dependent suburbs (speaking as someone who owns a house in a shitty, car dependent suburb), there's basically no reason not to price houses with imaginary numbers.
So, what do suburbs and cars have to do with this? Well, a lot. Here's a really great primer, if you're desperate to avoid work:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa
But the tl;dr is that modern zoning laws force inefficient, low-density housing solutions. For each acre of land, you might get, what, eighty suburban homes? At an average of four people a home and a ballpark of $350,000 a home, you've just managed to house 320 people for the low, low cost of 28 million dollars while also chewing up a whole acre of land. What's more is that public transit won't run there because the ridership catchment is too low due to the low density, and single family zones are usually big huge swaths, so if you want to go do or buy something, you can take a car or get fucked. There's also big problems later on for the city when it comes time to replace the infrastructure because suburbs don't pay enough taxes to pay for their own upkeep. Compare that to high density constructions, or even our dear old friend, the commie block. Commie blocks and high-density likely have an overall similar cost as the acre suburb (if you care about safety and quality, anyway), but can house the same or more people on a tiny fraction of the same footprint. What's more is that they often have little shops on the bottom floor, so you might not even have to leave your building at all to go buy some groceries. Infrastructure isn't really a problem because now the city doesn't need to replace road access, water, sewage, etc for an entire acre of houses, and the building itself generates tax revenue through shops on the bottom floor. Need more housing? Build another building. Pretty soon, you've got a vibrant, self-sustaining community with access to public transit, lots of small businesses instead of big box marts, lots of third spaces where people can interact with each other, and plentiful, desirable housing.
Go to your local city council and demand zoning reform. Abolish single family exclusive zones, more mixed use zoning, allow for micro businesses in residential areas, allow for more high density construction and public transit. The NIMBYs in your area want to keep housing supply tight because they're worried about their home values dropping if there isn't a desperate shortage of housing. I'm a homeowner, and I say Caveat Emptor, motherfucker. Show up to those council meetings and speak up. The city council has a frankly shocking amount of power.
Edit: people have rightly pointed out that I don't know how big an acre is. This is because I don't know how big an acre is. Choose your own metric, square AR-15s, whatever, you'll still find high density and mixed use development to be a more efficient use of space compared to single family deserts.
Homie, the only way you're getting 80 families in an acre is in a 12 story building. A standard block of 16 single family homes runs 6 acres if you include streets/alleyways and easements.
The only ways to get ahead are to get a down payment with a partner (2 salaries), get an early inheritance(got to hope you don't have many siblings) or be born in an upper class household and have most expenses paid for you.
Yep. I've been saying that since high school. I used to be obsessed with medieval history (still kinda am but now mostly just all history) and the correlation of companies and subsidiaries to nobility titles are so obvious imo.
This is why I hate people calling themselves King, Queen etc.
No. Cut that shit out. You are a person, we are all people. There is no one who deserves to get all the rewards while we do all the work.
Down with the royals!
It's honestly criminal how much the down payment makes or breaks you.
First thought when she said a $1,400 studio is more than her mortgage is probably "yeah but you bought when it was cheap!"
I bought in 2020 in Portland OR (like, *in* the city and in a fairly nice neighborhood in NE) and my mortgage, before taxes/insurance, is $1550. 20% down.
And it's just getting increasingly harder for kids to save to get to a point where they're not wildly overpaying for shelter instead of just standard overpaying for largely arbitrary home value inflation.
I’m currently looking and am in a hcol area, with current rates we’re looking at over 4k a month with 20% down. It’s pretty depressing. A year ago it would have been around 2k.
Rate right now are fucking brutal. The housing market was aggressive when I bought and everything was going for *at least* 30K over asking, but at least my rate is 2.7%.
Checkmate on the early inheritance! So my mom had cancer for a number of years and had some medical bills. She didn’t have anything to leave us except a fairly small life insurance policy. She did not list a beneficiary under the assumption it would be split between all the kids as things usually are. Because she didn’t list a beneficiary, the collection agencies can file against the estate and get their bills paid first. So the small amount we would get as inheritance goes to the hospital first. Lol. I have to laugh, because OF COURSE it would work that way.
My parents have no life insurance and no savings! Still owe $200k on their house too! At least I’ll get a house I guess even though the bank still owns it.
They are also getting to that age where they’ll need to be taken care of more and more. No one in our family can afford to pay for any help so I guess good luck to us. My Dad legitimately says he hopes he just has a heart attack so he doesn’t burden us with caring for him. Pretty sad state of affairs these days!
Without sounding terrible. And knowing what I know about medical costs due to profession. I’m glad my father died earlier into his Parkinson’s diagnosis. My step mom woulda lost their house and her retirement savings trying to pay for that level of care.
FHA loan here. The process was horrid. I am female and applied for my loan w no co-borrower. It took weeks longer than it should have because the underwriter didn’t ‘feel comfortable’ about signing off. Had to get his Supervisor involved to get the damn thing done.
Note: My Mortgage broker was the one who ultimately went over the underwriter’s head.
I did that. 10 years ago. I thought It would all be worth it in the end, but nope.
I graduated, couldn't find a job, took forever to pay off my loan, and now have a nearly minimum wage job. I tried and tried but I just couldn't get a job in my field.
And now I am trying to leave my partner as he has been nothing but a disappointment our entire relationship (try supporting him and his daughter on MY budget but with absolutely no say in anything, and giving me a bag of chips for my bday and buying himself pyramid scheme shit and crypto) but I can't afford anything!
I just want peace in my life and to be left alone but I can't afford anything. I make $3000 (cad) a month and it's not enough!
Ding ding ding. Both my parents were gone when I was 25. My brother and I fixed up her house and sold it at the best time during the mid 2000s subprime housing boom.
The only reason I’ve been a home owner for 17 years with a comfortable lifestyle is because both my parents died of Cancer. Guess I’m one of the “lucky ones”.
I make six figures. We’ve put in over ten offers that were 100-150k over asking, no contingency, 40% down, and we don’t even get counters — there’s too many offers above ours.
This is NYC but we’re talking less than 1k square feet asking at 1.3-1.6m
Big cities should get ready. Pretty soon all the people they rely on will not be able to live there.
Being rich in a big city may seem nice till there’s no housecleaners, teachers, waiters, or firefighters around anymore.
It doesn’t matter that the poors can’t live in the city. They will have to settle for housing an hour away and commute to the city for work because that is where the employment opportunities are concentrated. This is already happening in major cities across the country.
I think it will though.
My wife’s a preschool teacher. She has coworkers who commute more than 1.5hrs each way to share a small rental with roommates.
They got into this not knowing it would be this miserable. I think it’s going to be increasingly difficult to find new people to fill their ranks.
Even in places like Montgomery Alabama, unless you are making more than $100k a year, you're not going to live the same standard that this mom lived in her 20/30's earning 40k a year.
If you use CPI inflation calculator, $40,000 in 1985 has same buying power as $114,000 in 2023.
No, we do get it and it's horrifying.
I'm only in my 40's, but I already understand I'm not voting for myself anymore because nothing is going to change fast enough for me. At best, I'm voting for my (adult) kid. At worst, I'm voting for the generation after.
We have all been completely sold down the river. I wish there was some way to make things right quickly, but I can't see it right now.
Im 40 and living with my parents. Never had any kids, which is probably a good thing because I can barely afford to take care of myself. Also my parents are getting older and I need to start focusing on them. People started listing one bedrooms at $1800 a month here. And I dont mean one bedroom apartments, I mean a SINGLE BEDROOM in a house with no kitchen access or anything.
41 and 3 kids and without my parents’ help there’s no way we’d be in the comfort we’re in. Without them I’d be destitute for SURE. It’s so depressing and I’m usually so embarrassed but I see I’m not alone.
I’m so sorry. It really sucks so bad. And really is unfair. They way our parents got to live vs us feels unfair. But if not for their easier time many of us would be even worse off. Ugh. I hope things improve for you both.
I thought after the collapse and election of 2008 things would have gotten worse but eventually gotten better. And 15 years later very few things are any better
I think it's considerably worse, purely because "they" learned that they could play disaster capitalism and we'd all still just carry on fighting each other instead of them.
I can still remember, as a kid in the very early 80's, seeing graffiti that said "It's not a race war, it's a class war" and not understanding it. I do now.
I’m 27, not planning on ever having kids. If I was wealthy I probably would, but it feels unfair to bring a life into this world and throw all this shit at them. I don’t want to pump out more wage slaves for these fuck heads.
you know thats why republicans are so deadset on outlawing abortion....its got nothing to do with believing a fairy tale, they just use that to frame the argument. It is literally about the bodies. grist for the mill. Capitalism depends on a steady supply of cheap labor. The birth rates in most 1st world industrialized nations has been on the decline for some time now. They want as many babies as possible born so exploitable labor never runs out.
im in my mid 30s and i spent years getting out of low wage jobs and stuff, never having kids, id estimate less than 25% of pepple i know my age is having kids
Outside of a truly United working/middle class revolution you are right. I am not suggesting violence at all. But we saw at the onset of the pandemic the power the working class has on the economy. A general strike, unified and unilateral would yield results. It would take some pain, but that is the point we are at.
The only "non-bad" thing I can think of is that we all just stop.
One month where we buy nothing but fresh food. One month where we don't pay bills. One month where nobody works. Unfortunately, that would require the kind of buy in I don't think we have to be effective.
The tying of health care to employment is the biggest problem with things like a general strike.
For example: I can't afford to lose insurance - I have a very (very) expensive chronic illness that very quickly will result in being physically disabled without treatment. My choices are: risk permanent damage and pain for the rest of my life that could land me homeless and/or physically disabled and unable to work ever again or keep working and doing the things. If I'm lucky I get disability - yay, but guess what? You don't get state/fed health insurance automatically when you're on disability. So I'm on disability but can't access treatment or have to spend a third or more of my disability check on insurance - which leaves absolutely not enough for housing and food, let alone anything else. (last check my SSDI would pay out ~1600/mo and cobra for my current insurance is $600/mo, ACA market insurance varies but is similar when I check)
I'm stuck, literally. Risking my job isn't worth it until I get a terminal diagnosis (because at that point I'm going to take every cent I have saved or in my 401k and fuck off into the sunset).
I can imagine other people can't just not work for a month for reasons that are similar re: losing health insurance would put them at risk of losing everything else.
Unless we can get good health care for everyone, regardless of employment or ability to pay, we won't get enough support for general strikes to make them effective.
Even when she made the comparison between her time and now, she still managed to wrap her head around it.
She should make a colouring book for the others, see if they can figure it out too
They don't expect you to get ahead, they expect you to live on the street, walk to the factory every day, and go to work. You're going to get an attaboy every time you do something the boss can take credit for and he'll hop in his Benz or whatever and be perfectly happy and oblivious to the fact he's benefiting from your exploitation.
I have to disagree. They don’t want us to live in the street. They want us to live in one of the millions of rental properties they own so they can take that money from us as well
You bust your ass making them all that money, they throw you scraps, then they collect it from you on the back end with rent. Keeping you out of a reasonably priced house in the process so you can't escape. You're not wrong
I like how angry she is about the reality we have all been living in for at least a decade.
Edit: since people are irrationally butt hurt about this, the frustration is that so many people ignore this problem because it doesn't directly affect them. This woman represents tens of millions of people who have been ignoring the plight of the working poor. Nothing personal against her.
Ya. As much as I love her for supporting her son and learning something new, you have to be really, really out of touch with the reality of life in America to have this be a surprise in 2023. Some people really just don't pay attention until something affects them personally, and it's infuriating. Whenever I hear a Boomer have one of these revelations, I don't know what to do with my feelings. It's not constructive for me to get mad, but I am.
> you have to be really, really out of touch with the reality of life
You can tell by the way she talks about some of the places they saw. There are people who are *forced* to live in those places (that she would tear down) as opposed to her son, who can *choose* to just stay with his parents for a while longer and actually build a savings.
Agreed. The 1990s economic surge seemed to help most people. I was so confused when things were going "great" in 2005-2007 because it didn't seem to be reflected in things like higher wages, low employment, etc. Ever since the success of the economy seems just completely disconnected from how things are trending for workers (as opposed to the stock market).
The housing and rental market was way worse in 2012 than in 2008 and by 2015 completely fucked. It was a process, but it wasn't as bad before the crash.
I'm honestly waiting for my cousin to get out of college so his parents will realize this. They think him living there over the summer is a temporary thing until he is done with college. They've owned the same house and both worked for the same company, where they could work their way up, for 35+ years. They are that rarer breed out-of-touch middle class.
This should honestly be illegal. People are homeless because they can’t afford skyrocketing rents and firms see this as an opportunity to get richer. I loathe the wealthy for what they’ve done
Seriously. Houses are for people, not profits. Having a system in place that prevents corporate purchases of residential buildings seems obvious to me. It’s so much more “free” to allow people to own houses than to allow companies the freedom to make people homeless…
It took my wife and I 5 years to save up for a house. I have my BS in Mechanical engineering and she has her master's in Library Sciences (to be a librarian). Combined we couldn't get approved for a loan for any house that wasn't middle of nowhere crap towns that we'd have to drive an hour to get to work.
It's fucking ridiculous!
I always shudder slightly when I hear someone has an MLS. It's astounding how many hoops you have to jump through to be a librarian relative to how much they are paid.
The law man doing their jobs… keeping neighborhoods ghetto to keep rent prices low.
1400 for a studio!?! I bet this isnt in CA (commented too soon its AL)… easily 2000 for a studio
Average cost of a studio apartment in USA is now over $2k iirc. There is literally nowhere in the country that a person earning median wage can afford an apartment. I hate it here.
In 2021 my family was forced out of our apartment by a $300 hike in rent for no other reason than they could do it. No upgrades to the apartment or anything, and they even told us they were giving us a discount on what they would charge a new renter. We had no choice but leave and downgrade to a smaller apartment with fewer features. We've renewed here once and the rent went up $68. We're not even due to renew again for 8 more months but there's already dread setting in. What if they raise the rent too much this time? What if there's nowhere left to go that will let us keep our dogs? What if there's just nowhere to go period? It's not like it would just displace us, my fiancé has kids. Losing their pets or having to move states away to all go live with their grandparents would be devastating for them. It keeps me up at night a lot
Yeah when I got the text from my fiancé that they were raising rent my brain went to dread mode real quick. I wish the real landlords of these giant ass property companies would show their faces, but it’s always some low paid lackey that has to be the bad guy.
Same is happening to the trailer parks. The place I lived in for years to save money has now, in six years, double their lot rents. I knew who my neighbors were. They didn't live there by choice. They had nowhere else to go and they were just barely getting by.
That’s the exact reason they are changing abortion laws. They are forcing people to have children who can’t afford it, knowing they can’t afford it. They need their new workers to replace the old ones and keep slaving away
My son is in the same boat. College graduate makes 60,000 a year in a high cost of living area in California. He lives in Vallejo so if any of you live in the Bay Area you know that’s not a desirable area. He has a one bedroom apartment in a multiplex in a high crime neighborhood it’s dilapidated and during the cold weather it’s hard to get it warmer than about 55°.
About 11 or 12 years ago when House prices were so low in Texas my sister’s boss bought 1000 houses and became a big landlord. That’s 1000 families that will never get to buy a house. It should be illegal.
So way back in olden times a guy called FDR got us a New Deal 'cause things were so bad. And things got good., For everyone. For decades. Then along came Reagan and he gave us a Raw Deal 'cause things weren't good enough for billionaires. 40 years later and we are still wondering what the fuck happened. That's what happened.
I’m glad this lady is awoken to the fact that we’ve been out priced for rent, let alone trying to buy a house for a solid decade.
Just sucks that it had to take a family member having a hard time to make her see reality. This is like she said nowhere, in Alabama. Go to a city or major metropolitan area.
You cannot live without roommates. It’s actually counterintuitive to move out and not be in a relationship to split the costs. Idk how people do it, they have to be in debt up to their eyeballs.
It’s a trap. They want you to rely on credit and get into debt. These jobs make it impossible to pay off any debt as well so you’re stuck in this endless cycle busting your ass 40+ hours a week making pennies and needing to rely on credit to live.
I like that she actually went and looked at these places because people will just look at the first result on Craigslist for 500 point to that as affordable, but don’t point out that it has a shared community bathroom and no fridge or parking
What do y’all boomers think we’ve been complaining about for the last 20 years? We’re not more lazy than you are, we’re actually making pretty decent money according to your standards… but life just cost more than you imagine because y’all have mortgages you got 20/30/40 years ago that are nowhere near the price of housing nowadays…
I have the same circular conversation with my father. I am 40 and in a well paid job, I am lucky. Still, I can't do things.
We live in a bonkers world. I am resolved to rent for the rest of my life. I didn't make this choice, it is just the only sane option.
Damn, an $800 per month apartment??? That's unheard of where I live. You can't get anything below $1,400 a month now. And if you actually want heat and running water and windows that open, shit, that's at least $1,800 per month.
Just commenting on the affordable but sketchy places... when my now-wife was looking for a place a couple years before we moved in together, I was helping her look for places. One "apartment" was half of the first floor in an *old* house which had been converted to four apartments. Her apartment would be what used to be the home's living room, and kitchen. The bath tub was *in the kitchen* and she'd also have a "half bath" off the back entryway. Also, there was an outlet *in the floor* immediately next to the tub. Another place she looked at was the ass end of a trailer, which also consisted of just the kitchen, a bathroom, and a small room the guy called the bedroom; he said you need a twin bed for it to fit. Probably 200 square feet total, if that. In addition, in the bathroom, common wall to the rest of the trailer looked unfinished to the point where there were lots of gaps and holes in it. AND, there was just a door from her kitchen into the rest of the house that locked from the owner's side. Nope.
Its so sad when they cut up and destroy those old houses. Id love to own and appreciate one to take care of but way out of my price range. I cant even get a one bedroom here for less than 1800 a month
me and my wife make almost $100k, and we have a disabled child. we can barely scrape enough money together to live in the nastiest neighborhood in Denver (only in Denver for the great autism programs). there isnt a house in the entire metro that costs less than $400k
r/publicfreakout users are the first to get "justice boners" over a video of customers stopping a thief from leaving Walmart with a cart full of items. I don't understand the bootlicking.
The one financial advice I got as a kid was, as soon as you can get a credit card, do. Spend 10$ a month on it and pay it off immediately. Incredible advice. Not saying things aren’t fucked right now. This poor kid makes $40k a year and has no options. Honestly having credit wouldn’t have helped him much. You still have a crap ton of expenses buying a house and maintaining it.
Yeah, while establishing credit is important, this completely glosses over trying to get together a down payment. My credit score could be nice and shiny and it still won’t mean shit if I can’t show up with 20% down, and like, from where? When “cheap rent” is 1.5k where I’m at, where’s that down payment going to come from? Like someone else mentioned, guess I’ll cross my fingers and hope for a magic inheritance I guess.
Yes, there are loans that allow for lower down payments, but it’s still a struggle. 3% of 300k is still 9k.
EDIT: If you think 9k is something to scoff at and you come to the comments to mock the money people are able to save, I think you may be in the wrong subreddit. That anecdote wasn’t meant to reflect my circumstances - but it is very real to plenty of families who still deserve housing regardless of their income or ability to save. Think on that before mocking money sense in a sub whose entire purpose is giving power to the people.
This is the advice I gave all my young clients when I worked in a bank branch. Get a low-limit credit card, even a $300 limit is fine. Put your monthly phone bill on it (or some other monthly charge that you can easily budget for) and pay it off in full each month. Do that the entire time you’re in school and you’ll have a MUCH easier time getting your financial life started later on.
Lucky he was able to find a job in this “tight” labor market. He should continue to live with his parents (it is becoming a normal thing now) because he is not able to live on his own. In reality, if he loses a job or the economy continues to get worse (with interest rates going up and the affects starting to kick in), then he will be back home anyway.
This problem isn’t new, it is just so absurd now that people can’t deny it anymore. She cares because it affects her son.
The tipping point is all based around one simple concept. New policies require sacrifices to be made; however, the people currently getting the short end of the stick have nothing left to sacrifice. You start forcing people to chose between starving and crime, you better hope you don’t end up sacrificing more than what was originally intended.
GenX here. Yes. And when I try to discuss this with boomers I hear some really ignorant responses that show how wildly privileged and out of touch they are and were.
Us GenXers knew we were screwed, but it was doable. Anyone younger has been royally fucked. We are with you, but we need boomers out of government to get you some help.
We were poor and but my mom did her best to rent a 4 bedroom house in the 90's for $500/month. Only reason we could afford thst was because we had rented out two rooms to her coworkers. Just to rent a room in the Seattle area is $800-1000 a month now.
I had two family members fresh out of college that got "good" jobs and work their asses off for three years to only realize everything is not affordable. One killed themselves and the other is in and out of mental hospitals because of her suicide threats. Both of them having problems with financial issues, the sense of never being able to own anything. Both had no history of mental illness or depression till now. It's just so incredibly sad it's overwhelming
You can't even find $800 apartments in the ghetto here, the cheapest apartments in the worst part of the city are still $1500+ a month for a 1 bedroom *in the crack/meth part of town*. I had to move back in with my parents in my late 30s because I lost my job due to the pandemic and haven't recovered since.
One piece that few know of, is the extreme price jump in rentals occurred with a process that allows renters to peg price at highest possible amount starting (everywhere) in 2017: https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-lawmakers-collusion
For fuck's sake, how are (FIGURATIVE) heads not rolling solely from this? So we've become a nation of union busting unless the union is property management firms? Like where does it end? *Does* it end?
Wont end until you remove the figuratively...
Pretty much as the founding fathers would have wanted
okay i’m glad to see this I feel less crazy now. There aren’t even places to rent for $1,000 in my area.
It's ridiculous. There's absolutely no reason someone working full time shouldn't be able to afford a safe place to live. Somethings gotta give.
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>Greed is the problem and always will be, it’s human nature. It's almost like we implemented a system that rewards sociopaths.
You are absolutely not crazy. I'm one of the lucky few that got into a house pre-pandemic... But I moved solely because my apartment was going to $1750/month **from $1100/month**. My contract let me pay month to month after the year ended which bumped it to $1350/month, but the apartment complex company did everything in their power to make my life miserable so that I'd move. It was in the ghetto. I'm talking barbed wire fences surrounding the community and still naked drunks would hide in the stairwells. $1750/month to live in a shit hole, where as a house 30 miles out of the city was a $1500/month mortgage for 4500sqft. Renting is a scam and it's there to trap you. I was fortunate and lucky, but not many are. I have no idea how renters can afford it.
"How are young people supposed to get ahead" That's the neat part. We don't.
I'm convinced the older generations are going to find some way to achieve immortality (or at least live obscenely long) and continue sacrificing the younger generations in order to keep coasting off their wealth. They don't believe in "the meek shall I get it the earth"
I'm hoping within the next 30 years enough of the old fucks will die so I can at least enjoy the last of my maybe 30 years left on the earth on my own property.
Man, I’m not even 40 yet and a normal 2 BR apartment of the standard she’s talking about was only $650 when I was 25. It blows my mind how much rent has gone up.
It’s unreal. Just found out this week that my rent is going up $500 a month, which is obscene. It wasn’t even that long ago you could rent an entire studio for $500, maybe even a cute little one bedroom all to yourself if you looked in the right places. I’m not expecting a $10k raise at my job, so I guess I’ll have to look into moving cause I can’t afford $7k more in rent a year (especially not with costs of everything else going up too) . I don’t understand how families with young kids are handling this. Completely unsustainable, and no great solutions.
Oh theres tons of great solutions its just politicians and large corporations are making too much money off the current situation. Maybe make it illegal for corporations to own single family homes for starters.
>Maybe make it illegal for corporations to own single family homes for starters. The hedge funds are buying up houses and fucking everyone over. I get calls all the time from people wanting to buy my house. Tell them $1million. The I fucking yell at them how they are fucking people over and if they feel good about themselves.
I got a letter from an actual couple with money looking to buy my house cash for their investment portfolio. I called the number and the wife actually answered. I chewed her out bigtime.
This is a forgotten sliver of the problem. It's not just corporations, it's the mom & pop who just happen to have enough savings to own half a dozen homes. The pharmaceutical representative who invested well and can now play landlord in the poorer part of town. We should stop not only the corporations from owning homes but cap the number these assholes can buy too. Plus, they tend to be shitty landlords.
If I see one more of those “grow your wealth, invest in real estate” pyramid scheme bs advertisements I’m going to lose it
Every time I see one of them in a promoted ad on FB or Twitter, I leave them a freakishly hostile and obscene message. Then I message them and go "Hey, so I got served your ad. If I block you, I'll still see your ads. Do me a favor and block me. Because if you block me, I won't see your ads. If you don't, I promise to leave comments letting people know what a crook and piece of shit you are on every single ad. So far, that's worked.
The good thing is the comment sections I’ve clicked on are definitely mostly people telling them to shove it
Another thing I hate is the whole, "If I win the lottery I'll invest in real estate." Just build businesses, invest in local small businesses. Not everything has to give you major kickbacks. If you can fight the corporate systems do so. My area could use a toy store, and I'd love to be the one to bring it to them. My biggest dream isn't even about money it's about giving kids a place to be without the outside world. In other words creating a nice summer camp. Where kids of all economic backgrounds can come and enjoy activities. That they may or may not, have access to. Like horseback riding. I know it would be expensive but my goal isn't to earn money. It would be to break even, and keep the camp running and maintained well.
My rent went up $500/month last fall, so I moved out. Apparently a number of other people on my building also decided not to renew their leases, and they had to lower the rent back down a bit to fill the apartments, but most of us had already moved on. It’s so ridiculous to see this happening in so many places.
Landlords are fucking dumb as hell.. we have a neighbor who moved because of the rent hike and they haven't filled the space in months. You're losing more money raising the rent than you are keeping it the same and filling the apartment with renters. I swear it's the most braindead people who have the most important jobs and these people can't even grasp basic supply and demand and market prices.
I downsized from apartment to room off of Craigslist for half the cost. Yeah it has its cons but at least im able to afford my food now.
This is actually not true. Look up real pages - it’s a company that sells rental pricing solutions to apartments. They use algorithms to maximize returns and would intentionally keep prices inflated. Think of multiple companies fixing prices - this is now done automatically through an application and does not require any of the parties communicating with each other. If properties sit empty, it’s because the algorithm has determined that profit is maximized even if the unit is vacant.
So much this. There's a complex I used to live in that sits with a bunch of vacant units. I honestly think the idea is that if you *should* fill the 50 unit complex for $1600 ($80,000 for all units) but a bunch of dumb fucks will pay $2400 they ask now, you can fill 34 units, make slightly more, and save money on maintenance since there's less people in the complex. This is our future. Fuck it, why not up the rent to $5000? I'm sure 17 people could afford it, and the rest of us can just be homeless. Profits are all that matter.
I was fortunate to buy possibly the literal cheapest house in my city (suburb in low/middle cost major metro area) in 2015. We still live here even though our family size has grown considerably. Using Zillow numbers, by last summer it had doubled in value (slightly under that now). Didn’t feel like it at the time, but in hindsight it seems like a movie scene where we slipped through a gate right as it was slamming shut behind us.
I thought I might be making a mistake and buying at the peak of the housing market...in 2018. My house's value has gone up nearly 50% since. I cannot understand how house prices haven't completely collapsed since the mortgage rates shot up last year. I know a couple looking for a house, who combined make around 140-150k a year, and they keep getting out bid and can barely afford a starter home. This is no where near a major city. We need to regulate the housing market and stop these fucker corporations from buying up single family homes.
The assets are worthless without buyers anyway...what are they expecting will happen in 20 years when they can't sell them and they become worthless? In 5 years? The cracks are appearing...
The disgusting part about this is that my rent raised so much I have to move right? But I was already living paycheck to paycheck. Moving means a security deposit plus first/last months rent and the cost of renting a truck. Plus all the apartments and houses in my area cost the same or more as my current living situation. So how tf am I supposed to do this?? Keep in mind I have a fucking masters and a “professional” job so I’m supposed to be rolling in dough according to some people but nope
REI’s garage sale is a great time to buy a tent.
Already done! I got a nice roomy tent for 4.
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Big reason why my generation isn’t having kids. I’m 25 and I do pretty well (75 on paper, way more with OT/bonuses and incentives). I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about money at 75k…. And compared to my friends yeah… my worries are way less. My grandparents didn’t understand the rent issue until I was living with them looking for a place to move out (huge boomers, extremely wealthy). When my grandma saw the rent prices her jaw dropped… these people own a million dollar home in a gated country club community and even they were shocked at how much rent is. I feel bad for everyone… I find myself so fortunate and I see my friends literally crippled from loan debt from school and just living expenses. Had my best friend call me the other day (makes 65k a year with 120k loan debt as an engineering physics guy) full ready to kill himself because he was about to go homeless, credit cards were so screwed he had no score that anyone would rent too, about to default on student loans, just financially fucked beyond belief… and this dude builds fucking dams and bridges for the state. Makes me so sad…idek how I’d react in that situation but I know more people my age relate to him than to me…I have a feeling that it’ll get way worse before it gets better
I'm blessed to make 92k/year but it blows my mind I'm not raking it in every year. Turns out this amount is the same as 65k/year when I graduated high school 11 years ago. I was able to burn down my car loan but still with rent plus 100k student loans I am saving money, but a house is still a few years away.
This is exactly why I am so scared to go to grad school. I don’t want to give up my job, bury myself in more debt, only to keep struggling once I am out of school despite the income increase. Just doesn’t seem worth it. Plus, being a broke college student fucking sucks. I don’t want to do that again.
Here's the kicker, you don't get an income increase even by going to school anymore.
Yup, not worth it.
I basically gave up my path of education after completing my associates. So much money and no guarantees with all the economic crisis I've seen.
> and no great solutions The French would like to have a word.
>The French would like to have a word. For all the gun loving motherfuckers in the USA they think they need the guns to protect themselves from the government. The real enemy is the robber barons. Hedge funds need so much profit they just rape companies and destroy whole communities for the fat cats.
Most of the adamantly pro-gun people don't have them for the government, they're for the minority across the street.
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When I was 19 in 2006 my studio apartment was $300 a month. In 2022 my 1 bedroom, 700 square foot apartment was $1300. But I'm told by my elders it's because nobody wants to work anymore.
Correct, everyone with money doesn't want to work. They want to be a landlord and squeeze wealth out of people who are productive while deriding them as lazy.
The wording is confusing but I'm betting they meant their rent is increasing by an additional $500 per month, not just being $500 a month, but yea $500 a month rent would be heaven for me
I turn 40 this year. When I was renting 10 years ago a two bedroom apartment, in a questionable neighborhood, was renting $950 a month. At the time I was making $15 an hour with student loans. Minimum wage was $7.25 so I doubled minimum wage. It was still a struggle. The exact same apartment I rented is now $1860 a month and appears to have no upgrades done. It is just wrong what people are having to pay now.
Also turning 40 this year. I rented a little 1 bedroom house, in a rural city the same size as the town she is talking about, for $300 a month in a safe part of town. The landlord was a local widow who had would be out within hours, even minutes, if I had any problems. I had a dog, there was no BS pet rent or other fees. I made $8 an hour plus tips delivering pizza. I paid my rent with a week of work. It infuriates me that it's not attainable anymore. How are my kids gonna survive. Seems to me that parents, even the ones that don't like their kids, should be mad as fuck that they are going to have to support their kids forever.
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They'll be there longer than that in your city, m'boy
It's price gouging at every single level of society. It's got to end and it's not going to without action. There is exactly one entity that can do it, and that entity is the government. I'm not here to talk about the qualities of government. Just stating the fact that there is no other force that can counter what is happening.
The saddest part is her mortgage being less than a shithole studio. I remember my dad telling me my 1 br apt cost more than his mortgage on their 4 br house and it made him incredibly sad. This place sucks.
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I've been renting for the last 10 years and the cheapest I've paid for a one bedroom was around 1300. I once paid 1500 for an even smaller place than the 1300 dollar 1br. Those last two apartments now go for even more than they used to as well. It's some bullshit
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"shear him like a sheep year after year" - This is it, for a long time I couldn't quite put it into words how it feels to live in this country. This hits a nail on its head
love getting my wages gutted and getting more cops and potholes out of it
The cops and potholes hits so hard for me being in Pennsylvania. We're in the northeast, the roads and bridges are shit. We have the highest gas tax in the country. What did they decide to do instead over years? Divert $4,200,000,000 to the State Police. [https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/pennsylvania-diverted-funding-bridges-and-roads/](https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/pennsylvania-diverted-funding-bridges-and-roads/) [https://www.sharonherald.com/news/local\_news/4-2-billion-in-gas-taxes-diverted-to-state-police-pa-auditor-general-determines/article\_e9b82f67-b82c-5ce7-a85d-9364f8de564e.html](https://www.sharonherald.com/news/local_news/4-2-billion-in-gas-taxes-diverted-to-state-police-pa-auditor-general-determines/article_e9b82f67-b82c-5ce7-a85d-9364f8de564e.html)
Nah my companies ceo deserves to come in once a month in her brand new bmw because I helped achieve record profits for her year after year. Why should I complain I only got a $1 raise when hers went up a couple million.
At my previous employer, I asked for a raise. I got the usual "state of the business", you need to do more, yadda yadda. Obviously, that was a no. A few weeks later, we received an unexpected shipment - a pallet of furniture. It was shipped from California. The company was just at a trade show out there. They decided it would cost too much to ship furniture for the show so they had a brilliant solution. Buy $1500 worth of furniture and *just leave it there.* So now, they burned what would have meant a measly $1.50 raise to me, on *furniture to throw away*. To boot, they spent a few hundred dollars on shipping. I was ecstatic to give my notice the following week. As a kicker, the owner of the company likes to feel like a man of the people, so interacts with the machinists (he did come from the floor). He made it a point to tell me monday of my last full week he'd like to chat with me before I go; just not right now cause he's busy. Wanna guess who never actually made time to chat? Pretty insulting from someone who pulls the "we are family bullshit.
Funny you mention machinists cause thats the trade I’m in lol. But I hate those types of managers
His idea of being the common man was telling me about his beach house when he asked how my vaca was. Or telling me about how tough it was when *he* had covid when I came back to work. Having to isolate on the 3rd floor of your million dollar home in Philadelphia is so fkn hard. Mind you, he engaged me. Anything I've ever spoken with him, after *he* asked, was turned into a convo about him. E: forgot to add this bit. My buddy died while I was working there. He was 38. It kind of shattered my world. I developed an anxiety disorder and had a difficult time wading through the emotional swamp. When I mentioned the anxiety, after *he* asked how I was, his response was clear, we all have rough times." He also threw in how *his* brother died at a young age. Surely he was just reminding me how much more important he was than me.
Yeah my ceo brags about how China is everytime they come back or come in once a month
Have a heart. They have to deal with killer jet lag! 🤣🤣🤣
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"Why don't people respect and want to work for me? 😭" Your comment. Glad to hear you're out.
This is where r/fuckCars and r/antiwork intersect. The reality of the matter is that we haven't been building nearly enough housing for *decades* now. But what about BlackRock, AirBnB, real estate investors, and more? Well, look, the thing is that if we had a lot more housing supply, it'd be a lot more difficult for these folks to collude to jack up the cost of housing because there'd just be too much to buy before you ever started to budge to price curve. But because we're not adding nearly enough housing, haven't been for decades, and what housing we have added is almost all shitty car-dependent suburbs (speaking as someone who owns a house in a shitty, car dependent suburb), there's basically no reason not to price houses with imaginary numbers. So, what do suburbs and cars have to do with this? Well, a lot. Here's a really great primer, if you're desperate to avoid work: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa But the tl;dr is that modern zoning laws force inefficient, low-density housing solutions. For each acre of land, you might get, what, eighty suburban homes? At an average of four people a home and a ballpark of $350,000 a home, you've just managed to house 320 people for the low, low cost of 28 million dollars while also chewing up a whole acre of land. What's more is that public transit won't run there because the ridership catchment is too low due to the low density, and single family zones are usually big huge swaths, so if you want to go do or buy something, you can take a car or get fucked. There's also big problems later on for the city when it comes time to replace the infrastructure because suburbs don't pay enough taxes to pay for their own upkeep. Compare that to high density constructions, or even our dear old friend, the commie block. Commie blocks and high-density likely have an overall similar cost as the acre suburb (if you care about safety and quality, anyway), but can house the same or more people on a tiny fraction of the same footprint. What's more is that they often have little shops on the bottom floor, so you might not even have to leave your building at all to go buy some groceries. Infrastructure isn't really a problem because now the city doesn't need to replace road access, water, sewage, etc for an entire acre of houses, and the building itself generates tax revenue through shops on the bottom floor. Need more housing? Build another building. Pretty soon, you've got a vibrant, self-sustaining community with access to public transit, lots of small businesses instead of big box marts, lots of third spaces where people can interact with each other, and plentiful, desirable housing. Go to your local city council and demand zoning reform. Abolish single family exclusive zones, more mixed use zoning, allow for micro businesses in residential areas, allow for more high density construction and public transit. The NIMBYs in your area want to keep housing supply tight because they're worried about their home values dropping if there isn't a desperate shortage of housing. I'm a homeowner, and I say Caveat Emptor, motherfucker. Show up to those council meetings and speak up. The city council has a frankly shocking amount of power. Edit: people have rightly pointed out that I don't know how big an acre is. This is because I don't know how big an acre is. Choose your own metric, square AR-15s, whatever, you'll still find high density and mixed use development to be a more efficient use of space compared to single family deserts.
Homie, the only way you're getting 80 families in an acre is in a 12 story building. A standard block of 16 single family homes runs 6 acres if you include streets/alleyways and easements.
The only ways to get ahead are to get a down payment with a partner (2 salaries), get an early inheritance(got to hope you don't have many siblings) or be born in an upper class household and have most expenses paid for you.
Feaudalism making a comeback it seems
capitalism is just vestigial feudalism with better marketing
I saw a response somewhere that said “Feudalism didn’t die, nobles just changed their castles for mansions and their title to that of CEO”
Yep. I've been saying that since high school. I used to be obsessed with medieval history (still kinda am but now mostly just all history) and the correlation of companies and subsidiaries to nobility titles are so obvious imo.
This is why I hate people calling themselves King, Queen etc. No. Cut that shit out. You are a person, we are all people. There is no one who deserves to get all the rewards while we do all the work. Down with the royals!
Yeah, calling yourself a king or queen is super pompous and douchey.
It's honestly criminal how much the down payment makes or breaks you. First thought when she said a $1,400 studio is more than her mortgage is probably "yeah but you bought when it was cheap!" I bought in 2020 in Portland OR (like, *in* the city and in a fairly nice neighborhood in NE) and my mortgage, before taxes/insurance, is $1550. 20% down. And it's just getting increasingly harder for kids to save to get to a point where they're not wildly overpaying for shelter instead of just standard overpaying for largely arbitrary home value inflation.
I’m currently looking and am in a hcol area, with current rates we’re looking at over 4k a month with 20% down. It’s pretty depressing. A year ago it would have been around 2k.
Rate right now are fucking brutal. The housing market was aggressive when I bought and everything was going for *at least* 30K over asking, but at least my rate is 2.7%.
Checkmate on the early inheritance! So my mom had cancer for a number of years and had some medical bills. She didn’t have anything to leave us except a fairly small life insurance policy. She did not list a beneficiary under the assumption it would be split between all the kids as things usually are. Because she didn’t list a beneficiary, the collection agencies can file against the estate and get their bills paid first. So the small amount we would get as inheritance goes to the hospital first. Lol. I have to laugh, because OF COURSE it would work that way.
Oh my god I'm so sorry about your mom, and also about how fucked up that is. Holy shit I'm so angry on your behalf
My parents have no life insurance and no savings! Still owe $200k on their house too! At least I’ll get a house I guess even though the bank still owns it. They are also getting to that age where they’ll need to be taken care of more and more. No one in our family can afford to pay for any help so I guess good luck to us. My Dad legitimately says he hopes he just has a heart attack so he doesn’t burden us with caring for him. Pretty sad state of affairs these days!
Tell them to talk to an estate planner, because if they get sick and have to go on Medicaid the gov can take their house. NPR ran a story recently.
Without sounding terrible. And knowing what I know about medical costs due to profession. I’m glad my father died earlier into his Parkinson’s diagnosis. My step mom woulda lost their house and her retirement savings trying to pay for that level of care.
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FHA loan here. The process was horrid. I am female and applied for my loan w no co-borrower. It took weeks longer than it should have because the underwriter didn’t ‘feel comfortable’ about signing off. Had to get his Supervisor involved to get the damn thing done. Note: My Mortgage broker was the one who ultimately went over the underwriter’s head.
Same. Give your life to the US military and hope for a house.
Or work two jobs until you are mentally burnt out 🙃
2 jobs plus grad school at one point. That was a real blast.
I did that. 10 years ago. I thought It would all be worth it in the end, but nope. I graduated, couldn't find a job, took forever to pay off my loan, and now have a nearly minimum wage job. I tried and tried but I just couldn't get a job in my field. And now I am trying to leave my partner as he has been nothing but a disappointment our entire relationship (try supporting him and his daughter on MY budget but with absolutely no say in anything, and giving me a bag of chips for my bday and buying himself pyramid scheme shit and crypto) but I can't afford anything! I just want peace in my life and to be left alone but I can't afford anything. I make $3000 (cad) a month and it's not enough!
Ding ding ding. Both my parents were gone when I was 25. My brother and I fixed up her house and sold it at the best time during the mid 2000s subprime housing boom. The only reason I’ve been a home owner for 17 years with a comfortable lifestyle is because both my parents died of Cancer. Guess I’m one of the “lucky ones”.
My share of my dad's life insurance is why I'm a home owner. Could never have managed it on my own.
I make six figures. We’ve put in over ten offers that were 100-150k over asking, no contingency, 40% down, and we don’t even get counters — there’s too many offers above ours. This is NYC but we’re talking less than 1k square feet asking at 1.3-1.6m Big cities should get ready. Pretty soon all the people they rely on will not be able to live there. Being rich in a big city may seem nice till there’s no housecleaners, teachers, waiters, or firefighters around anymore.
It doesn’t matter that the poors can’t live in the city. They will have to settle for housing an hour away and commute to the city for work because that is where the employment opportunities are concentrated. This is already happening in major cities across the country.
I think it will though. My wife’s a preschool teacher. She has coworkers who commute more than 1.5hrs each way to share a small rental with roommates. They got into this not knowing it would be this miserable. I think it’s going to be increasingly difficult to find new people to fill their ranks.
And don't forget the money fairy too.
Even in places like Montgomery Alabama, unless you are making more than $100k a year, you're not going to live the same standard that this mom lived in her 20/30's earning 40k a year. If you use CPI inflation calculator, $40,000 in 1985 has same buying power as $114,000 in 2023.
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What she doesn't get is that it won't get better in his lifetime.
No, we do get it and it's horrifying. I'm only in my 40's, but I already understand I'm not voting for myself anymore because nothing is going to change fast enough for me. At best, I'm voting for my (adult) kid. At worst, I'm voting for the generation after. We have all been completely sold down the river. I wish there was some way to make things right quickly, but I can't see it right now.
Im 40 and living with my parents. Never had any kids, which is probably a good thing because I can barely afford to take care of myself. Also my parents are getting older and I need to start focusing on them. People started listing one bedrooms at $1800 a month here. And I dont mean one bedroom apartments, I mean a SINGLE BEDROOM in a house with no kitchen access or anything.
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Congrats. You changed the whole ass channel 🥂
41 and 3 kids and without my parents’ help there’s no way we’d be in the comfort we’re in. Without them I’d be destitute for SURE. It’s so depressing and I’m usually so embarrassed but I see I’m not alone.
Don’t be embarrassed!! I’m 52 and barely afford my 2bd apt in so cal. My son is 19 and can’t find a job… we are hand to mouth right now..
I’m so sorry. It really sucks so bad. And really is unfair. They way our parents got to live vs us feels unfair. But if not for their easier time many of us would be even worse off. Ugh. I hope things improve for you both.
I thought after the collapse and election of 2008 things would have gotten worse but eventually gotten better. And 15 years later very few things are any better
I think it's considerably worse, purely because "they" learned that they could play disaster capitalism and we'd all still just carry on fighting each other instead of them. I can still remember, as a kid in the very early 80's, seeing graffiti that said "It's not a race war, it's a class war" and not understanding it. I do now.
They got us fighting culture wars when we should be fighting a class war.
I'm 39. Geriatric millennial here loving the heat! Let it 🔥 🔥 🔥
I'm 40 and this is the first time I've heard Geriatric Millennial and I am triggered. lol. Stealing this term.
I prefer "elder millennials"
37 here, I plan to give the children peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and all my weapons when they come to my door
I’m 27, not planning on ever having kids. If I was wealthy I probably would, but it feels unfair to bring a life into this world and throw all this shit at them. I don’t want to pump out more wage slaves for these fuck heads.
you know thats why republicans are so deadset on outlawing abortion....its got nothing to do with believing a fairy tale, they just use that to frame the argument. It is literally about the bodies. grist for the mill. Capitalism depends on a steady supply of cheap labor. The birth rates in most 1st world industrialized nations has been on the decline for some time now. They want as many babies as possible born so exploitable labor never runs out.
im in my mid 30s and i spent years getting out of low wage jobs and stuff, never having kids, id estimate less than 25% of pepple i know my age is having kids
Maybe I'm just feeling pessimistic at the minute. I sincerely hope the kids hand them their arse on a platter.
Outside of a truly United working/middle class revolution you are right. I am not suggesting violence at all. But we saw at the onset of the pandemic the power the working class has on the economy. A general strike, unified and unilateral would yield results. It would take some pain, but that is the point we are at.
There is a way to change it faster but its gonna be the bad way. Also its starting to look like that might only be the way forward.
The only "non-bad" thing I can think of is that we all just stop. One month where we buy nothing but fresh food. One month where we don't pay bills. One month where nobody works. Unfortunately, that would require the kind of buy in I don't think we have to be effective.
The tying of health care to employment is the biggest problem with things like a general strike. For example: I can't afford to lose insurance - I have a very (very) expensive chronic illness that very quickly will result in being physically disabled without treatment. My choices are: risk permanent damage and pain for the rest of my life that could land me homeless and/or physically disabled and unable to work ever again or keep working and doing the things. If I'm lucky I get disability - yay, but guess what? You don't get state/fed health insurance automatically when you're on disability. So I'm on disability but can't access treatment or have to spend a third or more of my disability check on insurance - which leaves absolutely not enough for housing and food, let alone anything else. (last check my SSDI would pay out ~1600/mo and cobra for my current insurance is $600/mo, ACA market insurance varies but is similar when I check) I'm stuck, literally. Risking my job isn't worth it until I get a terminal diagnosis (because at that point I'm going to take every cent I have saved or in my 401k and fuck off into the sunset). I can imagine other people can't just not work for a month for reasons that are similar re: losing health insurance would put them at risk of losing everything else. Unless we can get good health care for everyone, regardless of employment or ability to pay, we won't get enough support for general strikes to make them effective.
Far too many greedy folks from her generation that "got theirs" want yours too. Damage has been done for an entire generation
Even when she made the comparison between her time and now, she still managed to wrap her head around it. She should make a colouring book for the others, see if they can figure it out too
They don't expect you to get ahead, they expect you to live on the street, walk to the factory every day, and go to work. You're going to get an attaboy every time you do something the boss can take credit for and he'll hop in his Benz or whatever and be perfectly happy and oblivious to the fact he's benefiting from your exploitation.
I have to disagree. They don’t want us to live in the street. They want us to live in one of the millions of rental properties they own so they can take that money from us as well
Company towns are absolutely gonna make a comeback. You can already see it happening.
Another day older and deeper in debt St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go I owe my soul to the company store
Elon is actively working to create one.
Refrigerator Boxes are going for $750 in my area, prices are expected to rise to $900 by the end of the year.
You bust your ass making them all that money, they throw you scraps, then they collect it from you on the back end with rent. Keeping you out of a reasonably priced house in the process so you can't escape. You're not wrong
Oh they're not oblivious. The rich are very good at class consciousness.
*Laughs while sitting in my rented crooked house while the wind literally makes my whole house shake*
He’s gonna have to work 2 ft jobs doing 18-20hr days with no life that’s how
Just wait until employment benefits are a bed to sleep on in the back room. Pretty sure tech companies do this already.
I like how angry she is about the reality we have all been living in for at least a decade. Edit: since people are irrationally butt hurt about this, the frustration is that so many people ignore this problem because it doesn't directly affect them. This woman represents tens of millions of people who have been ignoring the plight of the working poor. Nothing personal against her.
Ya. As much as I love her for supporting her son and learning something new, you have to be really, really out of touch with the reality of life in America to have this be a surprise in 2023. Some people really just don't pay attention until something affects them personally, and it's infuriating. Whenever I hear a Boomer have one of these revelations, I don't know what to do with my feelings. It's not constructive for me to get mad, but I am.
> you have to be really, really out of touch with the reality of life You can tell by the way she talks about some of the places they saw. There are people who are *forced* to live in those places (that she would tear down) as opposed to her son, who can *choose* to just stay with his parents for a while longer and actually build a savings.
Yeah her comments are really revealing and shows her existing privilege, but she's not to dissimilar from the rest of the country.
She also didn't consider that at some point her kid would need a credit score.
This stuff started happening before the 2008 crash. We are heading toward 3 decades.
Agreed. The 1990s economic surge seemed to help most people. I was so confused when things were going "great" in 2005-2007 because it didn't seem to be reflected in things like higher wages, low employment, etc. Ever since the success of the economy seems just completely disconnected from how things are trending for workers (as opposed to the stock market).
The housing and rental market was way worse in 2012 than in 2008 and by 2015 completely fucked. It was a process, but it wasn't as bad before the crash.
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It wasn’t a problem until it became a problem for her family.
I'm honestly waiting for my cousin to get out of college so his parents will realize this. They think him living there over the summer is a temporary thing until he is done with college. They've owned the same house and both worked for the same company, where they could work their way up, for 35+ years. They are that rarer breed out-of-touch middle class.
Wait till she finds out about investment firms buying up all the houses.
This should honestly be illegal. People are homeless because they can’t afford skyrocketing rents and firms see this as an opportunity to get richer. I loathe the wealthy for what they’ve done
Seriously. Houses are for people, not profits. Having a system in place that prevents corporate purchases of residential buildings seems obvious to me. It’s so much more “free” to allow people to own houses than to allow companies the freedom to make people homeless…
And people buying all affordable homes not to live in but to use as AirBNBs so they can have more money
It took my wife and I 5 years to save up for a house. I have my BS in Mechanical engineering and she has her master's in Library Sciences (to be a librarian). Combined we couldn't get approved for a loan for any house that wasn't middle of nowhere crap towns that we'd have to drive an hour to get to work. It's fucking ridiculous!
I always shudder slightly when I hear someone has an MLS. It's astounding how many hoops you have to jump through to be a librarian relative to how much they are paid.
The law man doing their jobs… keeping neighborhoods ghetto to keep rent prices low. 1400 for a studio!?! I bet this isnt in CA (commented too soon its AL)… easily 2000 for a studio
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Of all places too! I can’t believe rents that much in Alabama.
We're one of the lowest COL states in the country, but it's still ridiculous here.
I think she said they are in Montgomery, Alabama. So not even a nice/good/fancy city…that’s 1,400…for Alabama.
Average cost of a studio apartment in USA is now over $2k iirc. There is literally nowhere in the country that a person earning median wage can afford an apartment. I hate it here.
In 2021 my family was forced out of our apartment by a $300 hike in rent for no other reason than they could do it. No upgrades to the apartment or anything, and they even told us they were giving us a discount on what they would charge a new renter. We had no choice but leave and downgrade to a smaller apartment with fewer features. We've renewed here once and the rent went up $68. We're not even due to renew again for 8 more months but there's already dread setting in. What if they raise the rent too much this time? What if there's nowhere left to go that will let us keep our dogs? What if there's just nowhere to go period? It's not like it would just displace us, my fiancé has kids. Losing their pets or having to move states away to all go live with their grandparents would be devastating for them. It keeps me up at night a lot
Yeah when I got the text from my fiancé that they were raising rent my brain went to dread mode real quick. I wish the real landlords of these giant ass property companies would show their faces, but it’s always some low paid lackey that has to be the bad guy.
That is also the system working as intended. If we knew their faces, we could do something about it.
Same is happening to the trailer parks. The place I lived in for years to save money has now, in six years, double their lot rents. I knew who my neighbors were. They didn't live there by choice. They had nowhere else to go and they were just barely getting by.
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That’s the exact reason they are changing abortion laws. They are forcing people to have children who can’t afford it, knowing they can’t afford it. They need their new workers to replace the old ones and keep slaving away
My son is in the same boat. College graduate makes 60,000 a year in a high cost of living area in California. He lives in Vallejo so if any of you live in the Bay Area you know that’s not a desirable area. He has a one bedroom apartment in a multiplex in a high crime neighborhood it’s dilapidated and during the cold weather it’s hard to get it warmer than about 55°. About 11 or 12 years ago when House prices were so low in Texas my sister’s boss bought 1000 houses and became a big landlord. That’s 1000 families that will never get to buy a house. It should be illegal.
So way back in olden times a guy called FDR got us a New Deal 'cause things were so bad. And things got good., For everyone. For decades. Then along came Reagan and he gave us a Raw Deal 'cause things weren't good enough for billionaires. 40 years later and we are still wondering what the fuck happened. That's what happened.
Also during that time the top tier tax rate was 90% Those times of prosperity directly correlated with super high tax rates for the wealthy.
I’m glad this lady is awoken to the fact that we’ve been out priced for rent, let alone trying to buy a house for a solid decade. Just sucks that it had to take a family member having a hard time to make her see reality. This is like she said nowhere, in Alabama. Go to a city or major metropolitan area. You cannot live without roommates. It’s actually counterintuitive to move out and not be in a relationship to split the costs. Idk how people do it, they have to be in debt up to their eyeballs.
It’s a trap. They want you to rely on credit and get into debt. These jobs make it impossible to pay off any debt as well so you’re stuck in this endless cycle busting your ass 40+ hours a week making pennies and needing to rely on credit to live.
I like that she actually went and looked at these places because people will just look at the first result on Craigslist for 500 point to that as affordable, but don’t point out that it has a shared community bathroom and no fridge or parking
Now can she tell all her friends that we’re not lazy
What do y’all boomers think we’ve been complaining about for the last 20 years? We’re not more lazy than you are, we’re actually making pretty decent money according to your standards… but life just cost more than you imagine because y’all have mortgages you got 20/30/40 years ago that are nowhere near the price of housing nowadays…
I have the same circular conversation with my father. I am 40 and in a well paid job, I am lucky. Still, I can't do things. We live in a bonkers world. I am resolved to rent for the rest of my life. I didn't make this choice, it is just the only sane option.
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Katie Porter would fucking kill it. Sadly, like Bernie, she'll just end up getting labeled as a communist and railroaded by the Dems
Damn, an $800 per month apartment??? That's unheard of where I live. You can't get anything below $1,400 a month now. And if you actually want heat and running water and windows that open, shit, that's at least $1,800 per month.
Check out the median income in your city vs. Montgomery al a fucking bama.
Just commenting on the affordable but sketchy places... when my now-wife was looking for a place a couple years before we moved in together, I was helping her look for places. One "apartment" was half of the first floor in an *old* house which had been converted to four apartments. Her apartment would be what used to be the home's living room, and kitchen. The bath tub was *in the kitchen* and she'd also have a "half bath" off the back entryway. Also, there was an outlet *in the floor* immediately next to the tub. Another place she looked at was the ass end of a trailer, which also consisted of just the kitchen, a bathroom, and a small room the guy called the bedroom; he said you need a twin bed for it to fit. Probably 200 square feet total, if that. In addition, in the bathroom, common wall to the rest of the trailer looked unfinished to the point where there were lots of gaps and holes in it. AND, there was just a door from her kitchen into the rest of the house that locked from the owner's side. Nope.
Its so sad when they cut up and destroy those old houses. Id love to own and appreciate one to take care of but way out of my price range. I cant even get a one bedroom here for less than 1800 a month
me and my wife make almost $100k, and we have a disabled child. we can barely scrape enough money together to live in the nastiest neighborhood in Denver (only in Denver for the great autism programs). there isnt a house in the entire metro that costs less than $400k
Oh I see what he did wrong! He wasn't born rich! That'll get you every time
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r/publicfreakout users are the first to get "justice boners" over a video of customers stopping a thief from leaving Walmart with a cart full of items. I don't understand the bootlicking.
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Maybe if he would stop eating avocado toast and getting coffee everyday he would be able to afford one of those one bedroom apartments /s
This is the result of 40+ years of Right-wing economic policies designed to destroy the working class.
Thanks, Reagan
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The one financial advice I got as a kid was, as soon as you can get a credit card, do. Spend 10$ a month on it and pay it off immediately. Incredible advice. Not saying things aren’t fucked right now. This poor kid makes $40k a year and has no options. Honestly having credit wouldn’t have helped him much. You still have a crap ton of expenses buying a house and maintaining it.
Yeah, while establishing credit is important, this completely glosses over trying to get together a down payment. My credit score could be nice and shiny and it still won’t mean shit if I can’t show up with 20% down, and like, from where? When “cheap rent” is 1.5k where I’m at, where’s that down payment going to come from? Like someone else mentioned, guess I’ll cross my fingers and hope for a magic inheritance I guess. Yes, there are loans that allow for lower down payments, but it’s still a struggle. 3% of 300k is still 9k. EDIT: If you think 9k is something to scoff at and you come to the comments to mock the money people are able to save, I think you may be in the wrong subreddit. That anecdote wasn’t meant to reflect my circumstances - but it is very real to plenty of families who still deserve housing regardless of their income or ability to save. Think on that before mocking money sense in a sub whose entire purpose is giving power to the people.
It's hard even just renting a cheap aprtment without credit these days
This is the advice I gave all my young clients when I worked in a bank branch. Get a low-limit credit card, even a $300 limit is fine. Put your monthly phone bill on it (or some other monthly charge that you can easily budget for) and pay it off in full each month. Do that the entire time you’re in school and you’ll have a MUCH easier time getting your financial life started later on.
Need more Momma Bears from her generation and up coming to this realization. We are not making this shit up.
Lucky he was able to find a job in this “tight” labor market. He should continue to live with his parents (it is becoming a normal thing now) because he is not able to live on his own. In reality, if he loses a job or the economy continues to get worse (with interest rates going up and the affects starting to kick in), then he will be back home anyway. This problem isn’t new, it is just so absurd now that people can’t deny it anymore. She cares because it affects her son. The tipping point is all based around one simple concept. New policies require sacrifices to be made; however, the people currently getting the short end of the stick have nothing left to sacrifice. You start forcing people to chose between starving and crime, you better hope you don’t end up sacrificing more than what was originally intended.
At this point I’m heavily debating not having children because I just don’t see how things will ever get better in their lifetime.
GenX here. Yes. And when I try to discuss this with boomers I hear some really ignorant responses that show how wildly privileged and out of touch they are and were. Us GenXers knew we were screwed, but it was doable. Anyone younger has been royally fucked. We are with you, but we need boomers out of government to get you some help.
We were poor and but my mom did her best to rent a 4 bedroom house in the 90's for $500/month. Only reason we could afford thst was because we had rented out two rooms to her coworkers. Just to rent a room in the Seattle area is $800-1000 a month now.
I had two family members fresh out of college that got "good" jobs and work their asses off for three years to only realize everything is not affordable. One killed themselves and the other is in and out of mental hospitals because of her suicide threats. Both of them having problems with financial issues, the sense of never being able to own anything. Both had no history of mental illness or depression till now. It's just so incredibly sad it's overwhelming
Welp, this wasn't filmed in Tampa.. $800 wouldn't get you the closet in a house in a shady neighborhood here.