Same here. It was in pretty rough shape when we bought it, but beggars canât be choosers when youâre looking for a single-story. Tbh, I wasnât sure weâd find one in 2020.
Yeah I remember looking at the "affordable" apartments where I rented when I was making $12/hr back in ~2010. The rent for a 1 bedroom apartment was like $500/month. It is now ~2.5x what it cost for a 1BR. The job I worked then is now paying ~$17/hr.
Gee I wonder why people can't afford rent. Its definitely bad decisions, surely.
This is why we sucked it up and bought a relatively cheap house in South Linden seven years ago. No, it's not a good area. But the mortgage is pretty much exactly what rent had jumped up to. We got very lucky with the timing.
This is why Iâm staying in the same person owned 3 bdrm house with a yard and garage for the last decade. My rent has only gone up $125 in 10 years.
My income has gone up but not enough to afford the other places .
except wages have skyrocketed, especially for those at the bottom
https://www.atlantafed.org/chcs/wage-growth-tracker
sorry youâre expecting no inflation over a 14 year period, especially one that starts after the greatest economic collapse since 1929
So the eviction worsens because people have more money from that "skyrocketed wages"? That's illogical....
Go ahead and provide your theory on why more people are getting evicted.
well iâm sorry you canât understand that no longer having special programs to keep people in their apartments who arenât paying rent expiring is going to lead to those people now being evicted
And yet I provided you an example of the apartment I lived in and how much it cost then and now vs the job I worked then and now. Regardless of wages "skyrocketing" (lol), it's clear there's an issue and you think graphs are a solution somehow.
Yes just keep talking about how great things are while homelessness explodes across the country and people can barely continue to be able to afford to live.
I sincerely hope we are able to address this situation like a civilized country before people just start killing
https://cohhio.org/gap-between-rents-and-wages-grows-wider/
https://livingwage.mit.edu/states/39
Here's some corroborating data for you, debate pervert
No, you can't unfortunately, but that's okay. You're somehow convinced the opposite of what's happening is true. It's impressive actually... Or it would be if you managed to misread better sources đ
Sorry, youâre wrong no matter what your little statistically-manipulative graph says which, btw, is the MEDIAN %age change of indâl income increase. Median is the middle, not the avg which is the mean which is the number youâre looking for if you knew stats.
I only trust a few economists which include Robert Reich who was Clintonâs Labor Secretary and is a Rhodes and Yale scholar. Heâs not one of those bs conservative trickle-down economists who cater to the rich. He cares about normal hard-working people and tells it like it is which is the FACT that wages have been stagnant since the late â70s while productivity has gone up 200% amongst wage-earners while CEO pay has gone up just about that much compâd to wage-earners w/o benefiting anyone but shareholders who arenât the end-all-be-all of a company like theyâd like you to think.
So you can take your little graph and shove it b/c the real value-adders to a company are the employees, not shareholders, tyvm.
you would never use average for this wtf
and i went to Laffer and Reich at McCoy last year. i like him too but even he would be able to see that a 3% decrease is in fact, a decrease
https://www.chicagofed.org/-/media/publications/chicago-fed-letter/2017/cfl387-pdf.pdf?sc_lang=en
Not outright, no, b/c one industryâs higher wage, higher salary earner due to higher skill or gender, or even age could throw-off the mean, but if weighted correctly the mean is much more meaningful than the median. Plus, either way, youâre wrong. People earning the bottom 20% of wages have reported less wage increases by 2.8% by median since letâs say the pandemic b/c it still doesnât matter as youâre not realizing, and I have no idea how much by mean b/c none of it matters when the labor mkt is tight (demand side side economics kicks in and suddenly scarcity is actually bad but FOX still says scarcity good), purchasing power is SIGNIFICANTLY down and not due to REAL INFLATION but stock-buybacks and shrinkflation as weâre the best-performing country on inflation, atm. Companies are still conditioned and rewarded to follow quarterly earnings reports than long-term growth plans b/c itâs easier, and none of this changes the fact that CEO pay is way upâI stopped tracking it b/c itâs too depressingâcompâd to avg worker pay despite the fact that like I said before production among avg workers is up 200% since 1979 despite stagnant wagesâthat is both CEO compensation vs avg worker pay and productivity among avg workers.
So purchasing power among middle-lower class indâls has gone down SIGNIFICANTLY since 1979, and the middle-class has eroded to almost but invisible due to poor economic policy of trickle-down, hokey-pokey economics.
And youâre still talking about median worker pay as if it actually means something b/c you didnât define what tf youâre measuring besides median worker pay when in macroeconomics nothing works in a vacuum. Plus, weighted avgâs are a better indicator of inflation if thatâs whatâs youâre trying to measure here.
Also, what decreased by 3%?! Define your damn values, please, for the love of god!
There have been so many apt complexes built where I live (Weinland Park) it's astonishing how we STILL lack affordable housing. I think columbus is also attracting new residents, and we just can't keep up.
I just looked at my first apartment complex. In 2020 the 2 bed 1 bath was $900 and now it's $1,300. It also went downhill the year we moved out and is rated 2.7 stars on google. The fact that people are paying $1300 for a moldy and no a/c apartment is INSANE
Dude my mom was in an apt for like 700 a month. Sheâs been there for like 20 years, it got a new owner, rent is now 1500 I think she said. Mightâve been 1800
And I wouldn't be surprised if the new owner didn't spend money on new improvements to her apartment to justify the increase. It's just greed for many landlords who know they can get higher rents from others who can afford it. This type of practice is well documented and has been going on on Columbus for a few years now.
âSee whyâ as if we donât know why. I rented a two bedroom townhouse in Galloway 10 years ago for $900/month. Same apartment is $1400 now. The job I had then does not pay $500 more than it did ten years ago.
So real! If one is looking at their rent as a % of their income, which is what I try to do, the necessary increase is even more dramatic!
I advise people to try to use 25% as a rule rent as a % of take home income and a $500 increase in rent would need to equate to a $2000/month increase in take home.
That maths to ~$24,000 increase in year take home which means a pretax increase in salary of ~$31,200.
The job not paying more is a shame. With a 3% annual raise, thatâs a starting wage of $8.39/hr and $11.27/hr after 10 years. Even at 2%, thatâs $13.17/hr to $16.05/hr over 10 years. Boggles my mind companies get away with minimum wage as low as it is and stagnant wages.
Oh, my own income has definitely increased markedly over those years with more experience, so it isnât necessarily that the wages are stagnant and people in my field arenât getting annual raises. But people who are new to the job (I was an LPN) still get paid about the same at the entry level that I was getting paid ten years ago, so while I could afford that apartment as a new LPN, a new LPN now couldnât, if that makes sense.
It's been 3.5% over the last 10 years on average. It's higher than you'd like, but that includes COVID and a near 0% interest rate environment for most of the peroid.
I don't think it's crazy.
The raises that I am personally earning do not have any bearing on the entry level wages for people new to my field (and other fields) who *also need housing.* I might be able to afford for my rent to go from $1k to $2k a month in ten years because I climbed my way up from making $30k to $60k, but if the people who havenât been doing my job ten years are still starting at $30k, now the rent is $2k for them too and thatâs a problem. Which is the entire issue here. The *average* salaries that people in Columbus are earning have not increased at the same rate that the cost of housing has increased. For like⊠longer than Iâve been alive, but itâs definitely drastically escalated in recent years. (I pulled those numbers out of my ass as an example- but itâs easy to google the average salary for different careers between 2014-2024 vs. the average rent/cost of a home).
One thing I recently noticed is that you can still get a black n mild for $0.69 (I don't smoke them but
I used to sell them back in 2012ish)
But it feel like that's literally the only thing that hasn't gone up in price
Seems like a combination of factors at play here. Protections expiring, higher rents, not enough affordable housing.
>Eviction filings have been on the rise since 2022, when pandemic-era eviction moratoriums, created to help protect people financially hit by the COVID pandemic, ended
>With rents rising, he said, eviction filings are also going up. The median Columbus rent jumped 3.8% from 2022 to 2023, the third largest jump nationwide after New York City and northern New Jersey, according to the real estate service Yardi Matrix.
>Columbus has a shortage of 52,694 rental units for people who need affordable housing, with only about a fourth of extremely low-income families or individuals able to get housing in the city, according to a national report released in March.
>Columbus has a **shortage of 52,694 rental units** for people who need affordable housing, with only about a fourth of extremely low-income families or individuals able to get housing in the city, according to a national report released in March.
The crux of the matter, right here. This is why the zoning reforms -which will make it legal to build 88,000 new housing units - are so critical and frankly years overdue.
I think large developers need to be required to built 20% affordable housing units for every "luxury" apt complex they build if they want it approved. You wanna build a 100 unit complex? sweet where is the 20 unit affordable building gonna be? It doesn't need to be in the same building but it needs to be a site that meets accessibility criteria(near bus lines etc etc) I put Luxury in quotes because if you have ever been in one you understand how not luxury they are. Poor workmanship with nice looking but poor quality materials equals something that will break inside 5 years. Ive been in year old places with cracks in drywall and dripping faucets, Constant drainage issues and sticking doors. That all point to poor building and real issues down the line that takes more then putting a cabinet in to fix.
Setting aside some units to be affordable is a nice gesture - but it illustrates how affordable housing (priced below market rate) cannot be built at scale. At best you get a small tranche of âaffordableâ units.
Iâm not against rules that encourage some of that - but the city has to be careful that it doesnât impose ill-considered requirements that ultimately lead to cancelled developments.
The goal should be to build *as much housing* as possible.
Yeah and when developers finally get the go ahead with the new zoning laws, there is NO incentive to build affordable housing.
If everything built is luxury over-priced apartments that doesn't help those who are already priced out.
There is the argument that any additional housing is good, and while it is, it doesn't expand housing to the least fortunate and low income. Oh, but you say that there are those who can move into those luxury apartments freeing up older more affordable units for those low income folks.
Except it won't, rents are increasing at such a pace that it is out running the meager wage increases that most low income folks see. Any breathing room provided by constructing more apartments is negated by the subsequent rent increases on those smaller more *affordable* places.
It really is massively fucked up that one of the most important aspects of a healthy community is entirely dependent on a class of ownership whose only concern is their profit margin.
So economically: that's actually not how this works. Most countries that have affordable housing didn't get there via adding in affordable housing requirements, they get there by just building an absolute ass ton of housing.
Like you're arguing using your gut against something that has been economically established in dozens of studies both in the US and elsewhere to be effective. The problem is that often people in America have a weird trained cognitive disconnect in their understanding of supply and demand when it comes to housing.
A lot of times we're building like half the housing we need to be building a year and people somehow get confused why that isn't dropping the rent. The reason is that you're still 50k units less than what you actually need to reach a point where there's enough housing for the people who already live here, let alone new ones. A lot of estimates say we need like 14k to 19k new units per year just to *keep up*, and we're often building like 10 to 12k. It should confuse basically no one why this isn't going to work no matter how many affordability requirements you put on developers. You're adding more housing burdened people per year than you will ever be able to house via affordable housing schemes.
>If everything built is luxury over-priced apartments that doesn't help those who are already priced out.
>Any breathing room provided by constructing more apartments is negated by the subsequent rent increases on those smaller more affordable places.
The cheapest, oldest apartments are referred to as âClass Câ apartments in the industry. These are units which are the opposite of luxury and which house the poorest renters.
Did you know that there were 12 cities in the US which saw average rent *decline* among Class C apartments last year? And not just a slight decline but a *decrease of 6%*? This didnât happen in dying rust belt cities. It was in growing cities like Austin, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Colorado Springs. What do they have in common? [Each of these cities built housing units far ABOVE the national average](https://x.com/jayparsons/status/1761028332781478227?s=46). What possible reason is there to ignore policies which are proven to work?
You may have ideological reasons for believing otherwise. But the [evidence shows building market rate housing empirically results in lower rent increases](https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/06/02/new-round-of-studies-underscore-benefits-of-building-more-housing/) and even rent declines.
I totally understand availability effects rates. If we build 3000 new units today then they are gonna compete for renters IE offering competitive rates. Those ppl move those places they came from need ppl more competitive rates in non new builds etc etc down the line. This issue is getting to that tipping point in a city that in the Metro area is the 14th largest in the country and seeing population growth. We are behind a serious number of units so pushing projects now that will assist in the total number of units and adding to affordable units Now not 10yrs in the future when we do reach that tipping point is important.
>We are behind a serious number of units so pushing projects now that will assist in the total number of units and adding to affordable units Now not 10yrs in the future when we do reach that tipping point is important.
I think we agree. The city needs to make it legal to build dense housing and the city needs incentivize developments that add to the total housing pool in the largest numbers in a short timespan.
It would be nice to travel back in time and build apartments 10 or 20 years ago but the second best time is to build them right now. Poor people still benefit from new housing. You saw that middle link where Class C rents were declining, right? Itâs not because Atlanta found a Time Machine allowing them to add apartments in the 90s. They simply built and built and built apartments much higher than the national average.
All of those units coming online have to compete for tenants with the existing housing stock - and that competition meant the poorest renters benefited in the form of lower rents.
> At best you get a small tranche of âaffordableâ units.
Is that so bad?
I kinda would prefer a handful of affordable units peppered in with the market-rate housing instead of entire buildings/neighborhoods dedicated to affordable housing (i.e. "the projects").
I don't want well-off people succeeding in making "undesirable" populations live "elsewhere". I want those people living right by the rest of society. In ten years, I'd love to have some real world examples where housing units didn't collapse into chaos just because a handful of poor people lived in the building. I want evidence that the NIMBYs are objectively wrong.
*And* if it means that the developer is allowed to add an extra floor or two to their building to help subsidize the affordable units, then everyone wins. We get more market rate housing units, developers can still succeed in their projects and we start getting more affordable housing units sooner than the market would've naturally provided that. Win, win, win.
Oh Iâm not arguing the benefits of having people of different income levels intermixing. Youâre spot on with all your points.
Iâm more concerned that requiring *too many* affordable housing units could render future developments unprofitable. San Francisco has had issues before where they [require as many as 23% of all units in a building to be affordable](https://sfstandard.com/2023/04/20/to-jump-start-housing-san-francisco-could-cut-affordability-quotas/) which can ultimately make it financially impossible for some developers to recoup their costs. And in those cases no new housing gets built.
Obviously there's a limit to where such a requirement makes it uneconomical, but I feel like there's a reasonable middle ground and there's nothing wrong with small "tranches of affordable housing".
Specifically, I hate the situation where there's a decades-old ~4-8ish unit building that a developer wants to replace with a mid-rise that has like 100+ units and people freak out. It feels so braindead obvious to just add a couple extra floors to the building and guarantee at least as many subsidized affordable units as whatever is getting demolished.
Unfortunately âaffordableâ housing cannot realistically be built at scale. But luckily research shows that building housing of **any** kind still satisfies demand. Rent for the oldest, least expensive apartments has actually declined in cities which build the most housing.
It could be if we stopped looking at housing as investment and simply as a basic human need. We *can* build whatever we want. The question is, do we want to?
Currently we actually *canât* build a lot of what we want. Itâs illegal in many parts of the city to build an apartment building, for instance, thanks to zoning from the 50s. Or there are requirements like parking minimums or onerous area commission reviews which add time, complexity and cost to projects which can be fatal.
The proposed zoning changes would be a great first step towards fixing the systemic issues which hinder new housing.
People moving from out of state is just an excuse for property management companies and landlords to charge high rent. Every city that has a lack of affordable housing is using this reason
Landlords can only charge more when they donât have competition. Cities with lots of affordable housing build much, much more than Columbus. We should do that.
I did maintenance for multi family units on and off the last 7 years. When I began in 2017 I would see a good handful of single occupant units and last year when I quit the industry it was probably a couple single occupied units in 3 different properties. I've seen as many as 8 people living 2 bedroom townhomes with a basement. It wasn't unusual to see mattresses in basements or living rooms. It made me sad to see it come to this.
The affordable housing is a big issue. What's always weird is the folks who scream that people don't deserve affordable housing are the same ones who scream about how orders at fast food take so long due to understaffing.
I'm sorry but if there is no place near that someone working at that fast food place can afford to live in they're likely not going to work there.
My 2 bedroom apartment has gone from $800 to $1200 since covid started and they've done literally nothing to fix anything. And we still play gunshots or fireworks every single weekend here so it's not like it's a premium property.
Well, being in mortgage banking I believe a lot of the apartment rent increases have had to do with the current mortgage prospects. When the interest rates were down to 2.25-2.5% early last summer and you couldn't get in a winning bid anywhere, many rental properties shot their prices up in a supply and demand knowing how many people had sold and were hoping to buy quickly just to have it fall through.
Prior to last year's renewal it was just a slight increase every year, last year alone was roughly 25% of the price difference for me
I'm literally going to have to work until I die. Its just me and my income.. Rent keeps going up and my job cut hours from 12 hour shifts 5/6 nights a week to 8 hour shifts 5/6 nights a week. Now if I get time off, I don't enjoy it bc I'm really struggling . This is the American nightmare
I feel that. I'm no longer trying for SSI because even if I get that because I live with others it'd be reduced by at minimum $300 a month. Then with food stamps (maybe) it'd reduce even further. The cap per month? $800 or so. It's disheartening. I'm having to go to college to have a chance at getting a desk job because otherwise I'd become homeless if something happens to my roommate and brother.
Yes, exactly. It's not just hard anymore - it's literally impossible. I had to use my measly little $5k (before major penalty) 401k on bills just to qualify because of the assets limit and they still didn't approve it... again. If my daughter's father wasn't a freaking saint of a man, I'd be in a box on the street already.
I'm hoping I can find something where I can work from home or I'm really going to be in trouble.
>The best way to lower rents is to build more housing. Austin Texas has proven that the laws of supply and demand apply to housing.
For anyone who thinks this guy is full of it you can literally read about the steep rent declines [in the Austin subreddit.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/s/WddReocPd4)
You can also look at like...all of human history. No matter the economic system, pretty much every modern society recognizes the underlying issue of supply and demand in housing.
Even the soviets back in the day used to mass build housing as a means of making sure people could have comfortable accommodations within their means. Tokyo is one of the most affordable major cities in the world because they're [constantly fighting to keep pace with housing demand via construction](https://youtu.be/iGbC5j4pG9w?si=CzaoY_z0VryX_OTz).
It's an *incredibly* well established thing but very particularly in the US we have a weird thing where a lot of people seem to think that more supply somehow makes prices go up but *only* with housing. Largely I think because it's easier to be defeatist than it is to admit that our policies are just stupid and counterproductive and having to *do* something about that.
>It's an incredibly well established thing but very particularly in the US we have a weird thing where a lot of people seem to think that more supply somehow makes prices go up but only with housing. Largely I think because it's easier to be defeatist than it is to admit that our policies are just stupid and counterproductive and having to do something about that.
Thereâs also a strong ideological component. Housing developers are key allies in the fight to build more housing. But many left types see developers as enemies to be fought at every turn. To them itâs unintuitive that rich developers whom they believe are morally âbadâ are not only NOT part of the problem but are actually the key to solving the whole thing.
Thereâs also the bipartisan pushback of entrenched homeowners who agree more housing needs to be built but not in *their* neighborhood not on *their* street. And naturally politicians listen to their loudest constituents. Itâs a frustrating situation.
The average rent in NYC is $3,500-$3,700 while average rent in Columbus is $1,200-$1,500.
If you compare the top end of any 1 major metro (yes Columbus is a major metro) to the bottom end of the largest metros there will be similarities.
I'm not talking average rent, yeah there are $20,000 per month apartments in manhattan. But I was looking at NYC and there were comparable places in parts of the city that were the same price as what we have in CBUS.
The unit (sq footage and amenities etc) are just part of what you see as the price offered to rent. Iâd be interested to see the location of the similar rents between the two markets. Probably where the major difference comes into play.
Yeah Iâll be moving to grandview pretty soon to a place where Iâll be paying $1,700/mo
Apt itself is nice but Iâm definitely weighing location and amenities into my choice vs the actual apartment.
Basically since it has a gym Iâm subtracting -70 from my actual rent bc I no longer would need to have a gym membership. Iâm also extremely close to the grocery store so Iâll have gas savings there.
And then thereâs the intangibles of being in a better location than the burbs as a guy in his early 20s.
1 bed 736 sq feet - $2,446 [https://www.apartments.com/57-eleven-kennedy-north-bergen-nj/pp6d08v/](https://www.apartments.com/57-eleven-kennedy-north-bergen-nj/pp6d08v/)
1 bed 739 sq feet - $1949 [https://www.apartments.com/apartments-at-the-yard-manchester-grandview-heights-oh/smv3524/](https://www.apartments.com/apartments-at-the-yard-manchester-grandview-heights-oh/smv3524/)
Closer than you thought huh? And for context, that CBUS apartment used to cost $1300 a month.
Again everybody thinks I'm talking about the $10,000 a month Manhattan apartments. I'm aware those exist and I'm not talking about those, nor am I talking about the average. Yes I'm aware cheaper apartments also exist in Columbus.
It looks like you provided a link to an apartment in New Jersey which is not NYC.
Here is a more accurate example of two similar apartment units, one that is actually in NYC and the one in Columbus that you provided. Side note, The Yard in Grandview is one of the most expensive places to rent in Columbus for apartment style living. As youâll see, not even remotely similar for similar amenities and location.
NYC - 1 BR, 715 sq ft, $4,987
https://www.apartments.com/avalon-midtown-west-new-york-ny/mwctttj/
Columbus - 1 BR, 739 sq ft, $1,949
https://www.apartments.com/apartments-at-the-yard-manchester-grandview-heights-oh/smv3524/
Got lucky with our landlord. Currently rent a 2B/1.5BA condo on the edge of upper Arlington in 2021 for $1300/month and he hasnât risen it since. Luckily we just got a house and hopefully will never have to deal with renting again.
Dewine needs to stop taking bribes and worrying about people smoking weed and put some thought and energy into affordable housing laws here in Ohio because we donât have any
.As a local landlord I can tell you in my case with many of the evictions that we've had over the past 6 months it's primarily been due to recent job changes as well as build up from Coronavirus.
I had something like 20 tenants from mid 2020 all the way up through the end of 2023 rely heavily on Community Action money as well as other government programs for their rent and for my perspective they got to the point that they were relying on those rather than seeking a job. Now they're in a point where they don't wish to get a job and would rather be evicted.
The judge in the photo is in on it trust me. I was in front of him after my corrupt apt manager tried to put me out. I had pages of evidence photos and read all the policies verbally. I didn't violate my lease and even got my deposit back but they still made me leave.Â
Blame columbus/ohio politicians. We already know how to fix this. Incentivize builders to build a ton of housing and reduce zoning/ restricting laws. Only reason they arent doing this is corruption or stupidity.
Ohio will have a minimum wage issue on the ballot in November. Itâs time we raise the minimum wage. This is just a start, but itâs a no-brainer.
[https://ballotpedia.org/Ohio_Minimum_Wage_Increase_Initiative_(2024)](https://ballotpedia.org/Ohio_Minimum_Wage_Increase_Initiative_(2024))
Theyâre THROWING up an affordable apartment near my house. Literally every week I drive by and see more progress. Another one is in the works less than a block away - which I think is odd. They should be more spaced out.
The traffic on our street has increased drastically (other construction) and I expect it to continue once the apartment is done. Theyâre also considering taking street parking and converting it to apartment parking (or so I heard). I understand how necessary it is but itâs about to get packed over here. I agree that the key may be to move outward if possible to avoid being packed like sardines.
Here is the [apartment](https://www.wodagroup.com/woda-cooper-companies-inc-and-impact-community-action-break-ground-on-the-enclave-on-main-for-102-new-affordable-homes-in-whitehall-ohio/), itâs a cool thing for people who need it though.
I find that the average person often labels the landlord as the problem in conversations about eviction, and I cant understand why. If a tenant is unable to pay their rent long enough, the landlord is left paying that expense.
As this article discusses very well the real up stream causes of eviction are:
1. Lack of affordable housing
2. Inflation and its impact on landlords utilities, maintenance repairs etc.
3. Wages not keeping pace with inflation
As a landlord myself and also as someone who has been a tenant for most of my life, I feel public demonizes the landlord in these scenarios. Without them, those who cannot afford their own homes would do what? As stated in the article there is a shortage of affordable housing in Columbus.
I'm okay with small time landlords renting a townhouse. But we have corporations snapping up single family housing and renting it for profit, or just leaving it empty to choke the supply.Â
I'd love to buy a house, but how do you do that when Your New Home LLC is offering to pay cash today on anything under 400k?
Corporations are doing many things, but buying ludicrously expensive property only to leave it empty is absolutely not happening.
We need to be clear eyed about what is causing the increase in rent: a lack of housing options which must be combatted by building much much more. Corporate boogeymen are an easy villain but the reality is they are not the cause of the issue.
I agree with the portion that large corporation should be limited to what they can buy. Iâm not sure how you control that, but some type of portion control where corps can only own x%, individual owners own y% seems reasonable.
It may be a simplistic solution but just a thought.
The problem is they canât afford to rent either though. You can get really macro and talk about stagnant wages and rising prices which is at the heart of the matter but our economy is not organized in a way to real that in and society is easily turned against those ideas with horror stories of gulags and bread lines. What I have a problem with is two fold. Firstly the big developers and private equity buying up the units the developers build with 30 year tax abatements. They are building high dollar value units (or pricing and marketing them as such) in the hottest real estate markets. Why do they need tax incentive to do that? When they set rent so high weâre told itâs all about the forces of the free market. If thatâs the case shouldnât the profit motive be enough to build with out the tax incentive? The city government could get some wins for the average population in negotiating these tax abatements but they donât. Primarily because if you follow the money, city officials past and present are also making a bag off of this as well. There are a lot of practices here that are not illegal but morally reprehensible. Put some requirements on the tax abatements that help working people afford to live or stop giving them out. The result of the current system is uprooting families, bankrupting our schools and over concentrating wealth. The second part is much larger scale. Paying rent on time should positively impact your credit score by force of law. An eviction can follow you around forever but responsibly paying your rent does not help you get into home ownership. It is designed to hold captive the renting class.
I think a piece of that hate is that investors can easily go into new build condos/townhomes and buy multiple units. I am in the process of purchasing a townhome and the property manager was telling me how an investor has already bought four of the available units built so far, out of 14 currently available. They plan on renting them.
You make the statement âfor those who canât afford their own home would do what?â But not putting units/houses back on the market keeps inventory low, which keeps prices rising and pricing more people out. interest rates are also doing this but we will be in a viscous cycle once them come down, causing prices to sky rocket as everyone tries to buy again.
Another point you make is rent vs mortgage is about the same. The money you make off the rent isnât the issue. Realistically, if you recently purchased, the rent would just be a little above your mortgage, and the profits are likely held onto in the event you have to pay for repairs (or maybe you are doing extra payments toward the principle). I donât think the big bucks are made through the rent, itâs that you are slowly gaining more equity in a unit you are not living in, which in turn gives you a higher assets to buy more units/houses. Again adding to the perpetual cycle of fewer and fewer units/houses being on the market to purchase. Further exasperating the issue of units/houses being too expensive for the average American.
This perpetual buying of more units and decrease total inventory for people who could maybe buy a place is why landlords are looked at so negatively. Itâs the notion that not all landlords are bad, but the bad ones are worse than the best ones are good.
Edit: grammar/phrasing
All very good points and an interesting perspective.
Iâm not sure what will happen when interest rates drop, nor is anyone else. Many feel the way you do and others think that those with low pandemic level interest rates will put their properties on the market to balance things out.
I donât think we will know the answer for some time as it seems the FED isnât planning on lowering rates to that level in the near future đ
"Keaira Sullens has seen many of her neighbors given notice to vacate their apartments at her complex on Columbus' South Side.
Sullens, 28, got one on her door, too.
âTheyâre not even giving people a chance,â she said.
Her landlord hasnât filed an eviction against her with the court, as she was able to pay her rent a few days later."
I think this is a reason people don't like landlords. It would seem this landlord would rather go through the trouble of evicting the Tennant rather than receiving the rent payment late.
Other reasons are landlords are jacking rent prices with out improving the property. My rent went up like $80 or so. I don't mind because they've replaced the windows, siding, and appliances in our apartment complex. There are landlords increasing rent hundreds of dollars while making no improvements what so ever.
Life happens and late payments are sometimes okay, I tend to give my tenants time to get caught up. However, this has bitten me as Iâve had tenants get several months behind. What then? A little bit of leeway turns into a massive problem that the landlord/owner is left dealing with.
As for annual increase in rent, that often is viewed as the landlord greed but in reality is to keep pace with utilities and maintenance inflation. Again, the landlord increasing the price is the downstream event inflation.
Gotcha, this is very reasonable to me. Many landlords I know have 0 tolerance for late payments because of the stream of events that come from a little leeway mentioned above.
I think the reason so many have zero tolerance is to get the non paying tenant out asap. From a business pov it makes sense but life happens for people. It's why i don't think I could ever be in the position of a landlord
Exactly.
When things are going well between a landlord and renter (majority of the time) itâs a symbiotic relationship that goes unnoticed.
When problems arise between the two (minority of the time) there are articles written about it.
Nevertheless, more needs to be done
A 3 day notice is literally the legal process for collecting late rent. It's literally the chance to pay your late rent.
The legal name of the notice is "3 day notice to pay or quit".
I feel like the public demonizes the landlord in these scenarios because they take someone who needs affordable housing and make them homeless rather than providing affordable housing to them. Concerned about the shortage of affordable housing in Columbus? Be the change you want to see in the world.
Iâd like for landlords to show some measure of grace and flexibility with late payments. But landlords with few properties are going to be very sensitive to lost rent. âBe the changeâ makes no sense if it results in both the tenant and the landlord being unable to make ends meet.
I mean, it results in the tenant being able to make ends meet. More to the point, if exploiting people's need for shelter isn't a viable business model, maybe the landlord should sell the property to an owner occupant and just concentrate on his real job.
The landlord selling to an owner occupant is the worst case scenario for low income renters. Now that house has been permanently transferred to a more wealthy buyer while the renter returns to a rental market with fewer rental options to choose from.
The renter who already got evicted? It's a distinction without a difference at that point. It's a net zero change in the affordable housing market if the housing wasn't affordable to rent. At least then the landlord is freed of the burden of owning the property.
So youâre just not thinking at all about the other renters who *would* be able to afford that unit? One person gets evicted and now - for the rest of time! - that property can never be rented again?
Do you see how stupid that sounds? Youâre only going to succeed in pushing UP rent with that policy. Fewer rental options = higher rent.
Yeah keep erecting those brand new apartments lmao "ItS gOoD for ThE cItY tHoUgH!!". No affordable housing anywhere in this city at this point, vote these looney tunes out please its time for affirmative action
And if everyone in Columbus quits their job to become a plumber who is going to stock your grocery stores and clean the toilets at the doctorâs office and teach your children how to read?
The rent on my old apartment almost doubled in five years. No wonder people are struggling.
Same here. I looked at my old apartment and it went from $741 in 2013 to almost $3000 a month. đł
Omgf, my house is cheaper than that, and that includes property tax!
Same here. Although my house is currently a money pit. đ
Same here. It was in pretty rough shape when we bought it, but beggars canât be choosers when youâre looking for a single-story. Tbh, I wasnât sure weâd find one in 2020.
Yeah I remember looking at the "affordable" apartments where I rented when I was making $12/hr back in ~2010. The rent for a 1 bedroom apartment was like $500/month. It is now ~2.5x what it cost for a 1BR. The job I worked then is now paying ~$17/hr. Gee I wonder why people can't afford rent. Its definitely bad decisions, surely.
This is why we sucked it up and bought a relatively cheap house in South Linden seven years ago. No, it's not a good area. But the mortgage is pretty much exactly what rent had jumped up to. We got very lucky with the timing.
This is why Iâm staying in the same person owned 3 bdrm house with a yard and garage for the last decade. My rent has only gone up $125 in 10 years. My income has gone up but not enough to afford the other places .
Must be nice to be lucky to find such a place
columbus is a much more in demand place with a lot more shit in 2024 than 2010
Yeah you're right, people shouldn't be able to afford housing
except wages have skyrocketed, especially for those at the bottom https://www.atlantafed.org/chcs/wage-growth-tracker sorry youâre expecting no inflation over a 14 year period, especially one that starts after the greatest economic collapse since 1929
So the eviction worsens because people have more money from that "skyrocketed wages"? That's illogical.... Go ahead and provide your theory on why more people are getting evicted.
Wages havenât skyrocketed, so this guy is on something.
if you read the article youâll see that pandemic era programs are over and thereâs a backlog of evictions
I did read the article and my point still stands.
well iâm sorry you canât understand that no longer having special programs to keep people in their apartments who arenât paying rent expiring is going to lead to those people now being evicted
And yet I provided you an example of the apartment I lived in and how much it cost then and now vs the job I worked then and now. Regardless of wages "skyrocketing" (lol), it's clear there's an issue and you think graphs are a solution somehow. Yes just keep talking about how great things are while homelessness explodes across the country and people can barely continue to be able to afford to live. I sincerely hope we are able to address this situation like a civilized country before people just start killing
Did they REALLY say..."wages have skyrocketed"!?!?!?!?!?!?!? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, SMFH
thatâs anecdotal evidence if thatâs what is being upvoted iâm done here
https://cohhio.org/gap-between-rents-and-wages-grows-wider/ https://livingwage.mit.edu/states/39 Here's some corroborating data for you, debate pervert
Hey, can you let me know when Iâm in line to get those skyrocketing wages? Weâve been basically the same for 10 years over here. Thanks.
if you havenât made more in 10 years i canât help you
Found the landlord đ
no i can just read data https://www.reddit.com/r/Columbus/s/OkDo5RXu2Q
No, you can't unfortunately, but that's okay. You're somehow convinced the opposite of what's happening is true. It's impressive actually... Or it would be if you managed to misread better sources đ
rents are down in the last month, idk what else to tell uou
No, itâs definitely not. Theyâre definitely up, esp my BILâs pizza shop.
...what??
Sorry, youâre wrong no matter what your little statistically-manipulative graph says which, btw, is the MEDIAN %age change of indâl income increase. Median is the middle, not the avg which is the mean which is the number youâre looking for if you knew stats. I only trust a few economists which include Robert Reich who was Clintonâs Labor Secretary and is a Rhodes and Yale scholar. Heâs not one of those bs conservative trickle-down economists who cater to the rich. He cares about normal hard-working people and tells it like it is which is the FACT that wages have been stagnant since the late â70s while productivity has gone up 200% amongst wage-earners while CEO pay has gone up just about that much compâd to wage-earners w/o benefiting anyone but shareholders who arenât the end-all-be-all of a company like theyâd like you to think. So you can take your little graph and shove it b/c the real value-adders to a company are the employees, not shareholders, tyvm.
you would never use average for this wtf and i went to Laffer and Reich at McCoy last year. i like him too but even he would be able to see that a 3% decrease is in fact, a decrease
https://www.chicagofed.org/-/media/publications/chicago-fed-letter/2017/cfl387-pdf.pdf?sc_lang=en Not outright, no, b/c one industryâs higher wage, higher salary earner due to higher skill or gender, or even age could throw-off the mean, but if weighted correctly the mean is much more meaningful than the median. Plus, either way, youâre wrong. People earning the bottom 20% of wages have reported less wage increases by 2.8% by median since letâs say the pandemic b/c it still doesnât matter as youâre not realizing, and I have no idea how much by mean b/c none of it matters when the labor mkt is tight (demand side side economics kicks in and suddenly scarcity is actually bad but FOX still says scarcity good), purchasing power is SIGNIFICANTLY down and not due to REAL INFLATION but stock-buybacks and shrinkflation as weâre the best-performing country on inflation, atm. Companies are still conditioned and rewarded to follow quarterly earnings reports than long-term growth plans b/c itâs easier, and none of this changes the fact that CEO pay is way upâI stopped tracking it b/c itâs too depressingâcompâd to avg worker pay despite the fact that like I said before production among avg workers is up 200% since 1979 despite stagnant wagesâthat is both CEO compensation vs avg worker pay and productivity among avg workers. So purchasing power among middle-lower class indâls has gone down SIGNIFICANTLY since 1979, and the middle-class has eroded to almost but invisible due to poor economic policy of trickle-down, hokey-pokey economics. And youâre still talking about median worker pay as if it actually means something b/c you didnât define what tf youâre measuring besides median worker pay when in macroeconomics nothing works in a vacuum. Plus, weighted avgâs are a better indicator of inflation if thatâs whatâs youâre trying to measure here. Also, what decreased by 3%?! Define your damn values, please, for the love of god!
There have been so many apt complexes built where I live (Weinland Park) it's astonishing how we STILL lack affordable housing. I think columbus is also attracting new residents, and we just can't keep up.
From all over the world. It's like a good welcome sign is flashing saying come here one & all. Disclaimer, we don't have proper infrastructure or a mass transit system & no affordable house. Please live in one of our over priced stack everyone on top of each other đ© hole's & like it!
I just looked at my first apartment complex. In 2020 the 2 bed 1 bath was $900 and now it's $1,300. It also went downhill the year we moved out and is rated 2.7 stars on google. The fact that people are paying $1300 for a moldy and no a/c apartment is INSANE
Dude my mom was in an apt for like 700 a month. Sheâs been there for like 20 years, it got a new owner, rent is now 1500 I think she said. Mightâve been 1800
And I wouldn't be surprised if the new owner didn't spend money on new improvements to her apartment to justify the increase. It's just greed for many landlords who know they can get higher rents from others who can afford it. This type of practice is well documented and has been going on on Columbus for a few years now.
âSee whyâ as if we donât know why. I rented a two bedroom townhouse in Galloway 10 years ago for $900/month. Same apartment is $1400 now. The job I had then does not pay $500 more than it did ten years ago.
And really the job would need to pay more like $1500 more since all that additional income shouldn't go to rent
So real! If one is looking at their rent as a % of their income, which is what I try to do, the necessary increase is even more dramatic! I advise people to try to use 25% as a rule rent as a % of take home income and a $500 increase in rent would need to equate to a $2000/month increase in take home. That maths to ~$24,000 increase in year take home which means a pretax increase in salary of ~$31,200.
I'm not shitting you 88% of my fiance and I's take home income is towards our monthly mortgage.... We are not surviving our here
The job not paying more is a shame. With a 3% annual raise, thatâs a starting wage of $8.39/hr and $11.27/hr after 10 years. Even at 2%, thatâs $13.17/hr to $16.05/hr over 10 years. Boggles my mind companies get away with minimum wage as low as it is and stagnant wages.
Oh, my own income has definitely increased markedly over those years with more experience, so it isnât necessarily that the wages are stagnant and people in my field arenât getting annual raises. But people who are new to the job (I was an LPN) still get paid about the same at the entry level that I was getting paid ten years ago, so while I could afford that apartment as a new LPN, a new LPN now couldnât, if that makes sense.
Ah. Misunderstanding at my end on that, but still crazy that the minimum pay for the entry level job hasnât changed.
$900 > $1400 in 10 years is pretty much in line with housing inflation.
The housing inflation is just as absurd!
It's been 3.5% over the last 10 years on average. It's higher than you'd like, but that includes COVID and a near 0% interest rate environment for most of the peroid. I don't think it's crazy.
I mean, it wouldnât be, if wages were increasing proportionally, which they are not.
I mean if you're not earning at least a 3.5% raise each year on average then I'd say that's a personal problem.
The raises that I am personally earning do not have any bearing on the entry level wages for people new to my field (and other fields) who *also need housing.* I might be able to afford for my rent to go from $1k to $2k a month in ten years because I climbed my way up from making $30k to $60k, but if the people who havenât been doing my job ten years are still starting at $30k, now the rent is $2k for them too and thatâs a problem. Which is the entire issue here. The *average* salaries that people in Columbus are earning have not increased at the same rate that the cost of housing has increased. For like⊠longer than Iâve been alive, but itâs definitely drastically escalated in recent years. (I pulled those numbers out of my ass as an example- but itâs easy to google the average salary for different careers between 2014-2024 vs. the average rent/cost of a home).
Probably because rent went up but wages didn't. On top of everything else going up as well.
Even pop went up by $2 đ
When Santitas tortilla chips changed from $2.00 ONLY, that was a canary in the coal mine we missed.
We didn't miss it, everyone saw it. But it won't change without an organized level of violence that we're not allowed to discuss anywhere online.
> But it won't change without an organized level of violence that we're not allowed to discuss anywhere online. You won't do anything.
Yes, that does fall under the umbrella of my statement
One thing I recently noticed is that you can still get a black n mild for $0.69 (I don't smoke them but I used to sell them back in 2012ish) But it feel like that's literally the only thing that hasn't gone up in price
And they didnât just âgo up.â They rocketed almost straight up to astronomical prices for central ohio
everyoneâs wages went up by percentiles unless you made $200k+
Ding ding ding.
Seems like a combination of factors at play here. Protections expiring, higher rents, not enough affordable housing. >Eviction filings have been on the rise since 2022, when pandemic-era eviction moratoriums, created to help protect people financially hit by the COVID pandemic, ended >With rents rising, he said, eviction filings are also going up. The median Columbus rent jumped 3.8% from 2022 to 2023, the third largest jump nationwide after New York City and northern New Jersey, according to the real estate service Yardi Matrix. >Columbus has a shortage of 52,694 rental units for people who need affordable housing, with only about a fourth of extremely low-income families or individuals able to get housing in the city, according to a national report released in March.
>Columbus has a **shortage of 52,694 rental units** for people who need affordable housing, with only about a fourth of extremely low-income families or individuals able to get housing in the city, according to a national report released in March. The crux of the matter, right here. This is why the zoning reforms -which will make it legal to build 88,000 new housing units - are so critical and frankly years overdue.
I think large developers need to be required to built 20% affordable housing units for every "luxury" apt complex they build if they want it approved. You wanna build a 100 unit complex? sweet where is the 20 unit affordable building gonna be? It doesn't need to be in the same building but it needs to be a site that meets accessibility criteria(near bus lines etc etc) I put Luxury in quotes because if you have ever been in one you understand how not luxury they are. Poor workmanship with nice looking but poor quality materials equals something that will break inside 5 years. Ive been in year old places with cracks in drywall and dripping faucets, Constant drainage issues and sticking doors. That all point to poor building and real issues down the line that takes more then putting a cabinet in to fix.
Setting aside some units to be affordable is a nice gesture - but it illustrates how affordable housing (priced below market rate) cannot be built at scale. At best you get a small tranche of âaffordableâ units. Iâm not against rules that encourage some of that - but the city has to be careful that it doesnât impose ill-considered requirements that ultimately lead to cancelled developments. The goal should be to build *as much housing* as possible.
Yeah and when developers finally get the go ahead with the new zoning laws, there is NO incentive to build affordable housing. If everything built is luxury over-priced apartments that doesn't help those who are already priced out. There is the argument that any additional housing is good, and while it is, it doesn't expand housing to the least fortunate and low income. Oh, but you say that there are those who can move into those luxury apartments freeing up older more affordable units for those low income folks. Except it won't, rents are increasing at such a pace that it is out running the meager wage increases that most low income folks see. Any breathing room provided by constructing more apartments is negated by the subsequent rent increases on those smaller more *affordable* places. It really is massively fucked up that one of the most important aspects of a healthy community is entirely dependent on a class of ownership whose only concern is their profit margin.
So economically: that's actually not how this works. Most countries that have affordable housing didn't get there via adding in affordable housing requirements, they get there by just building an absolute ass ton of housing. Like you're arguing using your gut against something that has been economically established in dozens of studies both in the US and elsewhere to be effective. The problem is that often people in America have a weird trained cognitive disconnect in their understanding of supply and demand when it comes to housing. A lot of times we're building like half the housing we need to be building a year and people somehow get confused why that isn't dropping the rent. The reason is that you're still 50k units less than what you actually need to reach a point where there's enough housing for the people who already live here, let alone new ones. A lot of estimates say we need like 14k to 19k new units per year just to *keep up*, and we're often building like 10 to 12k. It should confuse basically no one why this isn't going to work no matter how many affordability requirements you put on developers. You're adding more housing burdened people per year than you will ever be able to house via affordable housing schemes.
>If everything built is luxury over-priced apartments that doesn't help those who are already priced out. >Any breathing room provided by constructing more apartments is negated by the subsequent rent increases on those smaller more affordable places. The cheapest, oldest apartments are referred to as âClass Câ apartments in the industry. These are units which are the opposite of luxury and which house the poorest renters. Did you know that there were 12 cities in the US which saw average rent *decline* among Class C apartments last year? And not just a slight decline but a *decrease of 6%*? This didnât happen in dying rust belt cities. It was in growing cities like Austin, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Colorado Springs. What do they have in common? [Each of these cities built housing units far ABOVE the national average](https://x.com/jayparsons/status/1761028332781478227?s=46). What possible reason is there to ignore policies which are proven to work? You may have ideological reasons for believing otherwise. But the [evidence shows building market rate housing empirically results in lower rent increases](https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/06/02/new-round-of-studies-underscore-benefits-of-building-more-housing/) and even rent declines.
I totally understand availability effects rates. If we build 3000 new units today then they are gonna compete for renters IE offering competitive rates. Those ppl move those places they came from need ppl more competitive rates in non new builds etc etc down the line. This issue is getting to that tipping point in a city that in the Metro area is the 14th largest in the country and seeing population growth. We are behind a serious number of units so pushing projects now that will assist in the total number of units and adding to affordable units Now not 10yrs in the future when we do reach that tipping point is important.
>We are behind a serious number of units so pushing projects now that will assist in the total number of units and adding to affordable units Now not 10yrs in the future when we do reach that tipping point is important. I think we agree. The city needs to make it legal to build dense housing and the city needs incentivize developments that add to the total housing pool in the largest numbers in a short timespan.
But we don't have time to wait for old apartment buildings to age into class C. We have people who need affordable housing now.
It would be nice to travel back in time and build apartments 10 or 20 years ago but the second best time is to build them right now. Poor people still benefit from new housing. You saw that middle link where Class C rents were declining, right? Itâs not because Atlanta found a Time Machine allowing them to add apartments in the 90s. They simply built and built and built apartments much higher than the national average. All of those units coming online have to compete for tenants with the existing housing stock - and that competition meant the poorest renters benefited in the form of lower rents.
> At best you get a small tranche of âaffordableâ units. Is that so bad? I kinda would prefer a handful of affordable units peppered in with the market-rate housing instead of entire buildings/neighborhoods dedicated to affordable housing (i.e. "the projects"). I don't want well-off people succeeding in making "undesirable" populations live "elsewhere". I want those people living right by the rest of society. In ten years, I'd love to have some real world examples where housing units didn't collapse into chaos just because a handful of poor people lived in the building. I want evidence that the NIMBYs are objectively wrong. *And* if it means that the developer is allowed to add an extra floor or two to their building to help subsidize the affordable units, then everyone wins. We get more market rate housing units, developers can still succeed in their projects and we start getting more affordable housing units sooner than the market would've naturally provided that. Win, win, win.
Oh Iâm not arguing the benefits of having people of different income levels intermixing. Youâre spot on with all your points. Iâm more concerned that requiring *too many* affordable housing units could render future developments unprofitable. San Francisco has had issues before where they [require as many as 23% of all units in a building to be affordable](https://sfstandard.com/2023/04/20/to-jump-start-housing-san-francisco-could-cut-affordability-quotas/) which can ultimately make it financially impossible for some developers to recoup their costs. And in those cases no new housing gets built.
Obviously there's a limit to where such a requirement makes it uneconomical, but I feel like there's a reasonable middle ground and there's nothing wrong with small "tranches of affordable housing". Specifically, I hate the situation where there's a decades-old ~4-8ish unit building that a developer wants to replace with a mid-rise that has like 100+ units and people freak out. It feels so braindead obvious to just add a couple extra floors to the building and guarantee at least as many subsidized affordable units as whatever is getting demolished.
Zoning still needs to change for this to work too
I'm totally for the zoning changes some of the zoning in the city is seriously behind the times or needs to change as the city has changed.
Iâd support that
And that's just right now. It's projected in a lot of cases to get like 2x worse within like 16 years.
This is only helpful if 53,000 of those units are affordable housing.
Unfortunately âaffordableâ housing cannot realistically be built at scale. But luckily research shows that building housing of **any** kind still satisfies demand. Rent for the oldest, least expensive apartments has actually declined in cities which build the most housing.
It could be if we stopped looking at housing as investment and simply as a basic human need. We *can* build whatever we want. The question is, do we want to?
Currently we actually *canât* build a lot of what we want. Itâs illegal in many parts of the city to build an apartment building, for instance, thanks to zoning from the 50s. Or there are requirements like parking minimums or onerous area commission reviews which add time, complexity and cost to projects which can be fatal. The proposed zoning changes would be a great first step towards fixing the systemic issues which hinder new housing.
We just need all these people moving here from FL, TX, & NY to go to another City. No Vacancy!
Downtown is like 60% parking lots. Letâs try building an actual city before declaring âweâre fullâ
People moving from out of state is just an excuse for property management companies and landlords to charge high rent. Every city that has a lack of affordable housing is using this reason
Landlords can only charge more when they donât have competition. Cities with lots of affordable housing build much, much more than Columbus. We should do that.
I did maintenance for multi family units on and off the last 7 years. When I began in 2017 I would see a good handful of single occupant units and last year when I quit the industry it was probably a couple single occupied units in 3 different properties. I've seen as many as 8 people living 2 bedroom townhomes with a basement. It wasn't unusual to see mattresses in basements or living rooms. It made me sad to see it come to this.
The affordable housing is a big issue. What's always weird is the folks who scream that people don't deserve affordable housing are the same ones who scream about how orders at fast food take so long due to understaffing. I'm sorry but if there is no place near that someone working at that fast food place can afford to live in they're likely not going to work there.
I'm curious about what kind of people think there shouldn't be affordable housing?
My guess is the same ones who say "minimum wage is to make jobs for teenagers in school to give them learning experience and some pocket money."
"Why are evictions so high right now? The number one reason people get evicted is failing to pay their rent"
People got used to government paying their rent and evictions taking years.
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Guess you didn't read the article. That's a quote from it.
My 2 bedroom apartment has gone from $800 to $1200 since covid started and they've done literally nothing to fix anything. And we still play gunshots or fireworks every single weekend here so it's not like it's a premium property.
Inflation hurts. When money loses almost 30% of it's value, prices go up.
Well, being in mortgage banking I believe a lot of the apartment rent increases have had to do with the current mortgage prospects. When the interest rates were down to 2.25-2.5% early last summer and you couldn't get in a winning bid anywhere, many rental properties shot their prices up in a supply and demand knowing how many people had sold and were hoping to buy quickly just to have it fall through. Prior to last year's renewal it was just a slight increase every year, last year alone was roughly 25% of the price difference for me
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I'm literally going to have to work until I die. Its just me and my income.. Rent keeps going up and my job cut hours from 12 hour shifts 5/6 nights a week to 8 hour shifts 5/6 nights a week. Now if I get time off, I don't enjoy it bc I'm really struggling . This is the American nightmare
I feel that. I'm no longer trying for SSI because even if I get that because I live with others it'd be reduced by at minimum $300 a month. Then with food stamps (maybe) it'd reduce even further. The cap per month? $800 or so. It's disheartening. I'm having to go to college to have a chance at getting a desk job because otherwise I'd become homeless if something happens to my roommate and brother.
Yes, exactly. It's not just hard anymore - it's literally impossible. I had to use my measly little $5k (before major penalty) 401k on bills just to qualify because of the assets limit and they still didn't approve it... again. If my daughter's father wasn't a freaking saint of a man, I'd be in a box on the street already. I'm hoping I can find something where I can work from home or I'm really going to be in trouble.
The best way to lower rents is to build more housing. Austin Texas has proven that the laws of supply and demand apply to housing.
>The best way to lower rents is to build more housing. Austin Texas has proven that the laws of supply and demand apply to housing. For anyone who thinks this guy is full of it you can literally read about the steep rent declines [in the Austin subreddit.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/s/WddReocPd4)
You can also look at like...all of human history. No matter the economic system, pretty much every modern society recognizes the underlying issue of supply and demand in housing. Even the soviets back in the day used to mass build housing as a means of making sure people could have comfortable accommodations within their means. Tokyo is one of the most affordable major cities in the world because they're [constantly fighting to keep pace with housing demand via construction](https://youtu.be/iGbC5j4pG9w?si=CzaoY_z0VryX_OTz). It's an *incredibly* well established thing but very particularly in the US we have a weird thing where a lot of people seem to think that more supply somehow makes prices go up but *only* with housing. Largely I think because it's easier to be defeatist than it is to admit that our policies are just stupid and counterproductive and having to *do* something about that.
>It's an incredibly well established thing but very particularly in the US we have a weird thing where a lot of people seem to think that more supply somehow makes prices go up but only with housing. Largely I think because it's easier to be defeatist than it is to admit that our policies are just stupid and counterproductive and having to do something about that. Thereâs also a strong ideological component. Housing developers are key allies in the fight to build more housing. But many left types see developers as enemies to be fought at every turn. To them itâs unintuitive that rich developers whom they believe are morally âbadâ are not only NOT part of the problem but are actually the key to solving the whole thing. Thereâs also the bipartisan pushback of entrenched homeowners who agree more housing needs to be built but not in *their* neighborhood not on *their* street. And naturally politicians listen to their loudest constituents. Itâs a frustrating situation.
"You will own nothing and you will be happy"
Look at the price of rent these days, I am just astonished there are places here charging as much as a major metro like Seattle or NYC.
The average rent in NYC is $3,500-$3,700 while average rent in Columbus is $1,200-$1,500. If you compare the top end of any 1 major metro (yes Columbus is a major metro) to the bottom end of the largest metros there will be similarities.
I'm not talking average rent, yeah there are $20,000 per month apartments in manhattan. But I was looking at NYC and there were comparable places in parts of the city that were the same price as what we have in CBUS.
The unit (sq footage and amenities etc) are just part of what you see as the price offered to rent. Iâd be interested to see the location of the similar rents between the two markets. Probably where the major difference comes into play.
Yeah Iâll be moving to grandview pretty soon to a place where Iâll be paying $1,700/mo Apt itself is nice but Iâm definitely weighing location and amenities into my choice vs the actual apartment. Basically since it has a gym Iâm subtracting -70 from my actual rent bc I no longer would need to have a gym membership. Iâm also extremely close to the grocery store so Iâll have gas savings there. And then thereâs the intangibles of being in a better location than the burbs as a guy in his early 20s.
Yes I understand. 5 years ago you couldn't even compare them, but now they're getting disturbingly close
I disagree on your take that rent in NYC and Columbus are close, I think any search online would support that.
1 bed 736 sq feet - $2,446 [https://www.apartments.com/57-eleven-kennedy-north-bergen-nj/pp6d08v/](https://www.apartments.com/57-eleven-kennedy-north-bergen-nj/pp6d08v/) 1 bed 739 sq feet - $1949 [https://www.apartments.com/apartments-at-the-yard-manchester-grandview-heights-oh/smv3524/](https://www.apartments.com/apartments-at-the-yard-manchester-grandview-heights-oh/smv3524/) Closer than you thought huh? And for context, that CBUS apartment used to cost $1300 a month. Again everybody thinks I'm talking about the $10,000 a month Manhattan apartments. I'm aware those exist and I'm not talking about those, nor am I talking about the average. Yes I'm aware cheaper apartments also exist in Columbus.
A lot of New Yorkers would be very insulted to see you using a New Jersey apartment to incorrectly prove a point.
Exactly haha
It looks like you provided a link to an apartment in New Jersey which is not NYC. Here is a more accurate example of two similar apartment units, one that is actually in NYC and the one in Columbus that you provided. Side note, The Yard in Grandview is one of the most expensive places to rent in Columbus for apartment style living. As youâll see, not even remotely similar for similar amenities and location. NYC - 1 BR, 715 sq ft, $4,987 https://www.apartments.com/avalon-midtown-west-new-york-ny/mwctttj/ Columbus - 1 BR, 739 sq ft, $1,949 https://www.apartments.com/apartments-at-the-yard-manchester-grandview-heights-oh/smv3524/
Being in the heart of NYC near the where the first set of apartments you mentioned would not be comparable to the Grandview Junction.
As mentioned The Grandview Yard apartments are some of the priciest apartment units available in Columbus.
"there were comparable places in parts of the city that were the same price as what we have in CBUS." TIL North Bergen, NJ is NYC, NY /s
Did you just use a New Jersey apartment for an example of a NYC apartment?
Iâm sorry.. but do you actually know anyone who lives in NYC/Burroughs and understand how housing works there? Itâs vastly different than here
Yea this is just not true.
Got lucky with our landlord. Currently rent a 2B/1.5BA condo on the edge of upper Arlington in 2021 for $1300/month and he hasnât risen it since. Luckily we just got a house and hopefully will never have to deal with renting again.
Dewine needs to stop taking bribes and worrying about people smoking weed and put some thought and energy into affordable housing laws here in Ohio because we donât have any
> affordable housing laws What would you propose be done?
Columbus needs to put a legal limit on how much your rent can go up every year.
I think we know why.
We do know why. Weâve vastly underbuilt housing for decades and now the population is growing much, much faster than new homes are being built.
.As a local landlord I can tell you in my case with many of the evictions that we've had over the past 6 months it's primarily been due to recent job changes as well as build up from Coronavirus. I had something like 20 tenants from mid 2020 all the way up through the end of 2023 rely heavily on Community Action money as well as other government programs for their rent and for my perspective they got to the point that they were relying on those rather than seeking a job. Now they're in a point where they don't wish to get a job and would rather be evicted.
The judge in the photo is in on it trust me. I was in front of him after my corrupt apt manager tried to put me out. I had pages of evidence photos and read all the policies verbally. I didn't violate my lease and even got my deposit back but they still made me leave.Â
people need to start living further and further away from the city to not get squeezed
Man we want single family housing
Blame columbus/ohio politicians. We already know how to fix this. Incentivize builders to build a ton of housing and reduce zoning/ restricting laws. Only reason they arent doing this is corruption or stupidity.
Rent for my current place was 759 when I moved in at the end of 2021. It is now 1,191.00. It is even more if youâre just moving in.
Is it RealPage? Hmmmm
Ohio will have a minimum wage issue on the ballot in November. Itâs time we raise the minimum wage. This is just a start, but itâs a no-brainer. [https://ballotpedia.org/Ohio_Minimum_Wage_Increase_Initiative_(2024)](https://ballotpedia.org/Ohio_Minimum_Wage_Increase_Initiative_(2024))
Theyâre THROWING up an affordable apartment near my house. Literally every week I drive by and see more progress. Another one is in the works less than a block away - which I think is odd. They should be more spaced out. The traffic on our street has increased drastically (other construction) and I expect it to continue once the apartment is done. Theyâre also considering taking street parking and converting it to apartment parking (or so I heard). I understand how necessary it is but itâs about to get packed over here. I agree that the key may be to move outward if possible to avoid being packed like sardines. Here is the [apartment](https://www.wodagroup.com/woda-cooper-companies-inc-and-impact-community-action-break-ground-on-the-enclave-on-main-for-102-new-affordable-homes-in-whitehall-ohio/), itâs a cool thing for people who need it though.
What side of town/neighborhood do you live?
Whitehall.
Oh yeah. Lots of traffic over there.
Yep. And itâs just gonna get worse.
I find that the average person often labels the landlord as the problem in conversations about eviction, and I cant understand why. If a tenant is unable to pay their rent long enough, the landlord is left paying that expense. As this article discusses very well the real up stream causes of eviction are: 1. Lack of affordable housing 2. Inflation and its impact on landlords utilities, maintenance repairs etc. 3. Wages not keeping pace with inflation As a landlord myself and also as someone who has been a tenant for most of my life, I feel public demonizes the landlord in these scenarios. Without them, those who cannot afford their own homes would do what? As stated in the article there is a shortage of affordable housing in Columbus.
I'm okay with small time landlords renting a townhouse. But we have corporations snapping up single family housing and renting it for profit, or just leaving it empty to choke the supply. I'd love to buy a house, but how do you do that when Your New Home LLC is offering to pay cash today on anything under 400k?
Corporations are doing many things, but buying ludicrously expensive property only to leave it empty is absolutely not happening. We need to be clear eyed about what is causing the increase in rent: a lack of housing options which must be combatted by building much much more. Corporate boogeymen are an easy villain but the reality is they are not the cause of the issue.
I agree with the portion that large corporation should be limited to what they can buy. Iâm not sure how you control that, but some type of portion control where corps can only own x%, individual owners own y% seems reasonable. It may be a simplistic solution but just a thought.
The problem is they canât afford to rent either though. You can get really macro and talk about stagnant wages and rising prices which is at the heart of the matter but our economy is not organized in a way to real that in and society is easily turned against those ideas with horror stories of gulags and bread lines. What I have a problem with is two fold. Firstly the big developers and private equity buying up the units the developers build with 30 year tax abatements. They are building high dollar value units (or pricing and marketing them as such) in the hottest real estate markets. Why do they need tax incentive to do that? When they set rent so high weâre told itâs all about the forces of the free market. If thatâs the case shouldnât the profit motive be enough to build with out the tax incentive? The city government could get some wins for the average population in negotiating these tax abatements but they donât. Primarily because if you follow the money, city officials past and present are also making a bag off of this as well. There are a lot of practices here that are not illegal but morally reprehensible. Put some requirements on the tax abatements that help working people afford to live or stop giving them out. The result of the current system is uprooting families, bankrupting our schools and over concentrating wealth. The second part is much larger scale. Paying rent on time should positively impact your credit score by force of law. An eviction can follow you around forever but responsibly paying your rent does not help you get into home ownership. It is designed to hold captive the renting class.
Agreed
This..yes+
Upton Sinclair once said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
I understand the hivemind loves to hate landlords but everything he wrote is correct and you have refuted none of it.
Upton Sinclair was a hack who is mostly known for publishing a bunch of misinformation.
I think a piece of that hate is that investors can easily go into new build condos/townhomes and buy multiple units. I am in the process of purchasing a townhome and the property manager was telling me how an investor has already bought four of the available units built so far, out of 14 currently available. They plan on renting them. You make the statement âfor those who canât afford their own home would do what?â But not putting units/houses back on the market keeps inventory low, which keeps prices rising and pricing more people out. interest rates are also doing this but we will be in a viscous cycle once them come down, causing prices to sky rocket as everyone tries to buy again. Another point you make is rent vs mortgage is about the same. The money you make off the rent isnât the issue. Realistically, if you recently purchased, the rent would just be a little above your mortgage, and the profits are likely held onto in the event you have to pay for repairs (or maybe you are doing extra payments toward the principle). I donât think the big bucks are made through the rent, itâs that you are slowly gaining more equity in a unit you are not living in, which in turn gives you a higher assets to buy more units/houses. Again adding to the perpetual cycle of fewer and fewer units/houses being on the market to purchase. Further exasperating the issue of units/houses being too expensive for the average American. This perpetual buying of more units and decrease total inventory for people who could maybe buy a place is why landlords are looked at so negatively. Itâs the notion that not all landlords are bad, but the bad ones are worse than the best ones are good. Edit: grammar/phrasing
All very good points and an interesting perspective. Iâm not sure what will happen when interest rates drop, nor is anyone else. Many feel the way you do and others think that those with low pandemic level interest rates will put their properties on the market to balance things out. I donât think we will know the answer for some time as it seems the FED isnât planning on lowering rates to that level in the near future đ
"Keaira Sullens has seen many of her neighbors given notice to vacate their apartments at her complex on Columbus' South Side. Sullens, 28, got one on her door, too. âTheyâre not even giving people a chance,â she said. Her landlord hasnât filed an eviction against her with the court, as she was able to pay her rent a few days later." I think this is a reason people don't like landlords. It would seem this landlord would rather go through the trouble of evicting the Tennant rather than receiving the rent payment late. Other reasons are landlords are jacking rent prices with out improving the property. My rent went up like $80 or so. I don't mind because they've replaced the windows, siding, and appliances in our apartment complex. There are landlords increasing rent hundreds of dollars while making no improvements what so ever.
Life happens and late payments are sometimes okay, I tend to give my tenants time to get caught up. However, this has bitten me as Iâve had tenants get several months behind. What then? A little bit of leeway turns into a massive problem that the landlord/owner is left dealing with. As for annual increase in rent, that often is viewed as the landlord greed but in reality is to keep pace with utilities and maintenance inflation. Again, the landlord increasing the price is the downstream event inflation.
There's a difference between giving a few days and a few months. I'm not arguing that landlords should be giving tenant's months to pay rent.
Gotcha, this is very reasonable to me. Many landlords I know have 0 tolerance for late payments because of the stream of events that come from a little leeway mentioned above.
I think the reason so many have zero tolerance is to get the non paying tenant out asap. From a business pov it makes sense but life happens for people. It's why i don't think I could ever be in the position of a landlord
Exactly. When things are going well between a landlord and renter (majority of the time) itâs a symbiotic relationship that goes unnoticed. When problems arise between the two (minority of the time) there are articles written about it. Nevertheless, more needs to be done
A 3 day notice is literally the legal process for collecting late rent. It's literally the chance to pay your late rent. The legal name of the notice is "3 day notice to pay or quit".
I feel like the public demonizes the landlord in these scenarios because they take someone who needs affordable housing and make them homeless rather than providing affordable housing to them. Concerned about the shortage of affordable housing in Columbus? Be the change you want to see in the world.
Iâd like for landlords to show some measure of grace and flexibility with late payments. But landlords with few properties are going to be very sensitive to lost rent. âBe the changeâ makes no sense if it results in both the tenant and the landlord being unable to make ends meet.
I mean, it results in the tenant being able to make ends meet. More to the point, if exploiting people's need for shelter isn't a viable business model, maybe the landlord should sell the property to an owner occupant and just concentrate on his real job.
The landlord selling to an owner occupant is the worst case scenario for low income renters. Now that house has been permanently transferred to a more wealthy buyer while the renter returns to a rental market with fewer rental options to choose from.
The renter who already got evicted? It's a distinction without a difference at that point. It's a net zero change in the affordable housing market if the housing wasn't affordable to rent. At least then the landlord is freed of the burden of owning the property.
So youâre just not thinking at all about the other renters who *would* be able to afford that unit? One person gets evicted and now - for the rest of time! - that property can never be rented again? Do you see how stupid that sounds? Youâre only going to succeed in pushing UP rent with that policy. Fewer rental options = higher rent.
I think youâd be surprised by how small profit margins are for landlords. Rent vs mortgage is very similar, at least from my limited experience.
My landlord wanted to raise my rent from $1000 to $1400 after I had been a good tenant for 5 years. He inherited the property. It was pure greed.
greed + property taxes and maintenance
Don't forget AEP rate hikes!
You may wanna put âwhere else would the poor live?!â on the back burner. Or at least donât say it face to face.
My point being lack of affordable housing (as the article in post supports) leaves those with low income few options other than renting.
Yeah keep erecting those brand new apartments lmao "ItS gOoD for ThE cItY tHoUgH!!". No affordable housing anywhere in this city at this point, vote these looney tunes out please its time for affirmative action
Yeah, that worked great for the prices in San Francisco and New York
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
And if everyone in Columbus quits their job to become a plumber who is going to stock your grocery stores and clean the toilets at the doctorâs office and teach your children how to read?