Rent prices are so high that Gen Z can't afford to live alone anymore

return2ozma@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 561 points –
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That's $10.39/hr adjusted for inflation.

Imagine if the average home was $114,290 adjusted for inflation.

Houses were smaller back then and priced more appropriatly because they weren't being bought up for renting and as financial safe-haven by financial entities. The majority of new homes are 2,500+sqft, average new homes in the post-war era were around 1,000sqft. In the 70s average homes were around 1,500sqft.

There are a lot of homes in the 1,000-1,200sqft range that are under $150k. In my area there are about 1k homes under $150k(2/3 under $120k), there are about 3k priced $150-350k.

You referenced the adjusted price and I am talking about $150k homes because the homes under $120k tend to be houses that need $30k in renovations/repairs because the previous owners stopped doing maintenance and haven't updated in decades which leaves first-time buyers holding the bag.

Home prices aren't even the problem, stagnated wages are the problem. The size of homes increasing doesn't help and people demoing reasonably priced homes to build 2.5+sqft homes doesn't help. If builders had incentive to build sane starter homes and wages were where they should be, the housing market would be in better shape for people trying to start a life and own property.

Home prices and minimum wage not linked and linking them would cause a spiral upward in home prices, as available spending money would go up but supply would not.

... you mean what's already happening?

Are you serious?

This is not happening in any way the way it would if home prices were somehow tied to wages.

Do you really not understand that bad things can become worse things?

So stop talking about things, they could be worse?

More like "don't offer suggestions that will make things demonstrably and predictably worse or someone might point out how much worse things will get"

Not all solutions are equally valid.

In our current situation, I can't think of many ideas worse than "tie wages to home values" aside from maybe just burning down a fuckload of apartment buildings. It's that bad of an idea.

'Adjusted for inflation ' is kind of a joke. If inflation worked the way the adjustments would have you believe, the average home of today would be $120,000 apx. It's about three times that.

Adjusted for inflation works to show people how much less they're paying us every year.