The U.S. Simply Doesn't Have Enough Available Rental Housing, Whether You're Rich or Poor

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/02/us-simply-doesnt-have-enough-available-rental-housing-whether-youre-rich-or-poor/4791/



The Census Bureau says there are about 41 million renter households in the United States, a group making up about 35 percent of the country. And the renter ranks are expected to swell this decade as the housing demand of Baby Boomers and their children starts to converge. Twentysomethings who’ve been living at home during the recession will finally move out to form their own households. Many Baby Boomers, meanwhile, are expected to downsize into smaller rentals units where they won’t have to mow their own lawns.

Housing wonks have projected that we may need to build at least 3 million new rental apartment units in the next 10 years to satisfy all these people. And if you’re a renter just about anywhere in the country, you may already be feeling the crunch: As Cities reported last summer, it’s lately become cheaper to buy a home than to rent one in the vast majority of America’s 100 largest metros.

This is a problem for young professionals and even decently paid ones trying to live close to jobs in expensive cities like New York and San Francisco. But America's shortage of affordable rental housing trickles down with particularly depressing effects to the extremely low-income.

The Bipartisan Policy Center released a massive report today on how we might restructure housing policy to better serve the country and brace against the kind of housing crash from which we’re still recovering. Among the starkest pictures in the report is this snapshot of what your housing prospects look like in America when your family lives on something more like $10,000 a year:

[madville]

1. The rental market is strong here

In my area of Florida. I rented my house out easily just through word of mouth and if I had actually advertised it probably would have taken a few days.

I'm considering buying something in the area I am working in now since prices and interest are so low, great time to buy, bad time to sell.

Here rent is about 1.5 times what an equivalent house payment would be.

[oldhippie]

2. So how should we encourage the increased supply of rental ....

... units?

[sorefeet]

3. There are thousands of empty houses

in Montana that the owners won't rent or sell. All of these old homesteads have livable homes that the owners would rather let the mice and weather erode them to the ground before they would let someone move in. I live in one that my landlord refuses to sell me. Been here for 14 years now the roof leaks it's a coal stoker furnace and the wiring needs updated. He is in prison now so I ask his wife for the umpteenth time and she said he would not sell. When I move out it won't be rented again, it will be just like the rest of these dream homes. Most of them are in beautiful mature settings and with a cool imagination you can see back 100 years.
But of course the Republican compassion in this state means I got mine. Even though great grandpa homesteaded for free ground and it's been handed down generation after generation.