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Thread: A few anecdotal-ish observations about the economy

  1. #1

    A few anecdotal-ish observations about the economy

    1. Young people are consolidating into multiple roommate situations and this is driving up rents (and maybe even sale prices) on everyone else. Single people and single families are paying more because 3 young people can pay $450 each per month easier than a single family can pay $1350 per month. It's distorting the rental market, plus property taxes are rising too.

    2. Student "loans" are being used to finance lifestyles of young people without careers to eventually pay for the loans. When I went to college, loans and grants were paid directly to the school. Now, the students get the checks and spend them on a lot of things other than school. Is this a backdoor stimulus?

    3. Banks are starting to lend again. It may reinflate the debt bubbles (how big can they get?) but it will lead to inflation. This is why inflation has been somewhat subdued since the bailouts started. The money hasn't been circulated but I think it's starting to make it's way into the economy now. Just for reference, the dog food I buy has gone up nearly $10 from $50 to $60 for a 30lb bag in the last 4 months. Is dog food included in CPI? Probably not.

    Discuss.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul

    "We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book



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  3. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by devil21 View Post
    1. Young people are consolidating into multiple roommate situations and this is driving up rents (and maybe even sale prices) on everyone else. Single people and single families are paying more because 3 young people can pay $450 each per month easier than a single family can pay $1350 per month. It's distorting the rental market, plus property taxes are rising too.
    If 3 people are living together, then they're only using 1/3rd of the units they otherwise would. That should be driving the price down. Any price increase is likely due to rising property taxes and other expenses.

    But, college kids rooming together isn't new.

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by devil21 View Post
    1. Young people are consolidating into multiple roommate situations and this is driving up rents (and maybe even sale prices) on everyone else. Single people and single families are paying more because 3 young people can pay $450 each per month easier than a single family can pay $1350 per month. It's distorting the rental market, plus property taxes are rising too.

    2. Student "loans" are being used to finance lifestyles of young people without careers to eventually pay for the loans. When I went to college, loans and grants were paid directly to the school. Now, the students get the checks and spend them on a lot of things other than school. Is this a backdoor stimulus?

    3. Banks are starting to lend again. It may reinflate the debt bubbles (how big can they get?) but it will lead to inflation. This is why inflation has been somewhat subdued since the bailouts started. The money hasn't been circulated but I think it's starting to make it's way into the economy now. Just for reference, the dog food I buy has gone up nearly $10 from $50 to $60 for a 30lb bag in the last 4 months. Is dog food included in CPI? Probably not.

    Discuss.
    1. I don't think that has much effect. If anything, living together would decrease the demand for housing as 3 people living in 1 home take up 1 place vs. 3.

    2. That's always been happening. The loans go to the school first, then the cash left over is distributed back to students.

    3. Dog food is up because agricultural commodities as a whole are up. The drought this year was a special event, one which reduced the size of animal herds. Additionally, when temperatures are extremely high, the recoverable protein in animal carcasses is negatively affected. Supply and demand.
    Last edited by Jordan; 12-12-2012 at 04:17 PM.

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by enoch150 View Post
    If 3 people are living together, then they're only using 1/3rd of the units they otherwise would. That should be driving the price down. Any price increase is likely due to rising property taxes and other expenses.

    But, college kids rooming together isn't new.
    Hmm...not sure I follow your logic here. I should have mentioned that Im talking about houses, not apartment situations.

    If a property owner/landlord sees that more people are living together to split costs, they start to ask for higher rental rates across the board. To the landlord, they can attract multiple renters and charge more than a single family would otherwise be able to afford. Im having a hard time explaining my thought clearly.

    In my area, there are a lot of young people with service industry jobs that don't pay a lot. When they start flocking together to rent a house (because they can't afford an apartment on their own or the apartments are full already from people that moved out of foreclosed houses), their collective ability to pay more total rent per month pushes prices on rental houses up for everyone else. Hope that makes sense.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul

    "We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Jordan View Post
    1. I don't think that has much effect. If anything, living together would decrease the demand for housing as 3 people living in 1 home take up 1 place vs. 3.
    See post above. Landlords watch rental prices of other properties and adjust theirs accordingly. Other rental properties may still be taken but at a higher price. It's a rental market right now, not a buying market.

    2. That's always been happening. The loans go to the school first, then the cash left over is distributed back to students.
    Hmm, the students I talked with last night told me straight up that they were getting "loans" and "grants" that were coming directly to them. One example that made me post this was a 21 year old that got a $5500 school loan and $5500 gov't grant. He said the checks went right into his bank account, where he then paid the school tuition, which is much less than the loan and grant combined and is now living off the remaining $5500. So basically the loan or the grant is financing his lifestyle, not his schooling. The loan has to be paid back. The grant does not. This is backdoor stimulus/welfare.

    3. Dog food is up because agricultural commodities as a whole are up. The drought this year was a special event, one which reduced the size of animal herds. Additionally, when temperatures are extremely high, the recoverable protein in animal carcasses is negatively affected. Supply and demand.
    Oh that's right, there's no inflation in Jordan's world. What's funny is the dog food I buy doesn't have rice, wheat, soy or corn in it.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul

    "We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book

  7. #6
    What the OP is saying with regards to #1 is that usually younger single people get apartments on their own or with one other roommate, but it is actually a bit cheaper and easier for them to get three roommates to pay rent on a 4 bedroom house and then they get the benefits of living in a house. They even get their own room. The downside is they have roommates sharing the kitchen/bathrooms/etc..

    They can pay more rent because there are four working people chipping in towards rent instead of 1 or 2 parents.

    I would tend to agree, since that is the situation I've been in for quite a while.
    Last edited by dannno; 12-12-2012 at 06:50 PM.
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  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by devil21 View Post
    See post above. Landlords watch rental prices of other properties and adjust theirs accordingly. Other rental properties may still be taken but at a higher price. It's a rental market right now, not a buying market.



    Hmm, the students I talked with last night told me straight up that they were getting "loans" and "grants" that were coming directly to them. One example that made me post this was a 21 year old that got a $5500 school loan and $5500 gov't grant. He said the checks went right into his bank account, where he then paid the school tuition, which is much less than the loan and grant combined and is now living off the remaining $5500. So basically the loan or the grant is financing his lifestyle, not his schooling. The loan has to be paid back. The grant does not. This is backdoor stimulus/welfare.



    Oh that's right, there's no inflation in Jordan's world. What's funny is the dog food I buy doesn't have rice, wheat, soy or corn in it.
    Eh, well, I'll just let the real estate thing go. You're suggesting that renters have no alternatives to renting a home, and that landlords have no carrying costs. Every landlord in the world knows its better to give up $25 a month than let a house sit empty for 6 months. Landlords don't have that much pricing power. Shouldn't there be a big supply of older large homes that seniors are vacating to live in retirement homes that are much smaller? You'd think that would bring on supply, huh?

    Your example students have no idea how their loans work. Learn directly from the DOE: http://www.direct.ed.gov/inschool.html

    I know quite a bit about the business of turning food waste into dog food. If there are fewer animals and they sit in the heat rotting longer, the protein is no longer recoverable. That's just how this business works. That's what I know.

    Now, what I don't know, and will happily admit, is that I don't know about your specific supplier of dog food. I don't know about their cost structure, what it costs them to purchase materials or make the food. I don't even know if they just decided to raise prices because they thought they could charge more. That's the bummer with anecdotal information - it's as worthless as polling one person to determine the outcome of an election. It doesn't tell the full story.
    Last edited by Jordan; 12-12-2012 at 07:24 PM.

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by devil21 View Post
    See post above. Landlords watch rental prices of other properties and adjust theirs accordingly. Other rental properties may still be taken but at a higher price. It's a rental market right now, not a buying market.



    Hmm, the students I talked with last night told me straight up that they were getting "loans" and "grants" that were coming directly to them. One example that made me post this was a 21 year old that got a $5500 school loan and $5500 gov't grant. He said the checks went right into his bank account, where he then paid the school tuition, which is much less than the loan and grant combined and is now living off the remaining $5500. So basically the loan or the grant is financing his lifestyle, not his schooling. The loan has to be paid back. The grant does not. This is backdoor stimulus/welfare.



    Oh that's right, there's no inflation in Jordan's world. What's funny is the dog food I buy doesn't have rice, wheat, soy or corn in it.



    I think either you misheard or someone was feeding you a line of bull$#@! about the student loan management. I have been in college for a while now and my loan amounts are deposited in my school account and the remaining balance which is usually around 150 bucks or so is sent to me in the form of a stipend which I send back to the loan agency towards my balance. I have never received the full loan amount, subsidized or unsubsidized, in a personal bank account. If that were the case I would have probably close to 35 grand in savings right now which I will be the first to tell you it's less than that. A lot less :/
    Peace sells, but who's buying?



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Jordan View Post
    Eh, well, I'll just let the real estate thing go. You're suggesting that renters have no alternatives to renting a home, and that landlords have no carrying costs. Every landlord in the world knows its better to give up $25 a month than let a house sit empty for 6 months. Landlords don't have that much pricing power. Shouldn't there be a big supply of older large homes that seniors are vacating to live in retirement homes that are much smaller? You'd think that would bring on supply, huh?
    Landlords don't have much pricing power? What are you smoking? They set their prices! I did mention that property taxes are rising so this is also pushing up prices. In my area, ymmv, I can tell you for a fact that rental prices are up because of taxes and the multiple roommate arrangements on the rise. With the large amount of empty foreclosed houses (shadow inventory or not), people have to move SOMEWHERE to live. It's a simple reallocation of resources (malinvestment in a way) and it affects those of us that rent and live on our own when other people start pooling resources, thus being able to afford more collectively.

    It's interesting that you mention the older large homes coming onto the market. Ive observed a move toward turning these sorts of houses into "apartments" instead of keeping them single family homes. The amount of rent one of those properties can bring in isn't ignored by neighboring landlords and to "keep up", prices rise for the other properties in the vicinity.

    Your example students have no idea how their loans work. Learn directly from the DOE: http://www.direct.ed.gov/inschool.html
    Maybe. There's a ton of search hits for things like "student loans for living expenses". Loans designed and marketed to pay for living expenses as a student. This is such a bad idea for so many reasons but it's being taken advantage of.

    http://www.studentloanconsolidation....-expenses.html

    http://www.ehow.com/how_5325719_appl...dent-loan.html

    http://www.loan.com/student-loans/ho...-expenses.html

    http://www.ehow.com/list_5949218_gov...ng-school.html

    Quote Originally Posted by first sentence
    Most federal government grants for students can be applied to living expenses, if your tuition is already covered via other financial means. Grant payments are dispersed through your school’s financial aid office. There, they will either hand you a check directly, or apply the disbursement to your outstanding balance with the college and give you the difference.
    It's possible the people I spoke to didn't understand the exact process under which they receive the money but that's neither here nor there. Loans and grants are being used for student living expenses, not school itself, and that's backdoor stimulus/welfare. No wonder the school loan bubble is past a trillion dollars now.

    I know quite a bit about the business of turning food waste into dog food. If there are fewer animals and they sit in the heat rotting longer, the protein is no longer recoverable. That's just how this business works. That's what I know.

    Now, what I don't know, and will happily admit, is that I don't know about your specific supplier of dog food. I don't know about their cost structure, what it costs them to purchase materials or make the food. I don't even know if they just decided to raise prices because they thought they could charge more. That's the bummer with anecdotal information - it's as worthless as polling one person to determine the outcome of an election. It doesn't tell the full story.
    This is occuring regardless of manufacturer or food content. High quality food, low quality food, whatever. The dog food example was just an example of something that I noticed in particular, hence "anecdotal-ish". It wasn't a linchpin for my observation that banks are starting to lend again and inflation is taking hold.
    Last edited by devil21; 12-13-2012 at 05:45 AM.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul

    "We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Cody1 View Post
    I think either you misheard or someone was feeding you a line of bull$#@! about the student loan management. I have been in college for a while now and my loan amounts are deposited in my school account and the remaining balance which is usually around 150 bucks or so is sent to me in the form of a stipend which I send back to the loan agency towards my balance. I have never received the full loan amount, subsidized or unsubsidized, in a personal bank account. If that were the case I would have probably close to 35 grand in savings right now which I will be the first to tell you it's less than that. A lot less :/
    Same reply as above:

    http://www.ehow.com/list_5949218_gov...ng-school.html

    Quote Originally Posted by first sentence
    Most federal government grants for students can be applied to living expenses, if your tuition is already covered via other financial means. Grant payments are dispersed through your school’s financial aid office. There, they will either hand you a check directly, or apply the disbursement to your outstanding balance with the college and give you the difference.
    It's possible the people I spoke to didn't understand the exact process under which they receive the money but that's neither here nor there. Loans and grants are being used for student living expenses, not school itself, and that's backdoor stimulus/welfare. No wonder the school loan bubble is past a trillion dollars now. The amounts surely vary from student to student and Ill bet most aren't as responsible as you are!
    Last edited by devil21; 12-13-2012 at 05:49 AM.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul

    "We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by devil21 View Post
    See post above. Landlords watch rental prices of other properties and adjust theirs accordingly. Other rental properties may still be taken but at a higher price. It's a rental market right now, not a buying market.
    Yes, and when people who used to demand 3 units now only utilize 1... the demand for housing units goes down, there are now 2 vacant units that drive the price down.

    Quote Originally Posted by devil21 View Post
    Oh that's right, there's no inflation in Jordan's world. What's funny is the dog food I buy doesn't have rice, wheat, soy or corn in it.
    You feed your dog dirt?

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by devil21 View Post
    2. Student "loans" are being used to finance lifestyles of young people without careers to eventually pay for the loans. When I went to college, loans and grants were paid directly to the school. Now, the students get the checks and spend them on a lot of things other than school. Is this a backdoor stimulus?

    Discuss.
    Somewhat. I earned a scholarship from the state of Florida. I probably only spend 40% of the check I get each semester on books. The rest goes to silver and gold.
    Rand Paul 2016

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by ronpaulfollower999 View Post
    Somewhat. I earned a scholarship from the state of Florida. I probably only spend 40% of the check I get each semester on books. The rest goes to silver and gold.
    LOL, LOL

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by gerryb1 View Post
    Yes, and when people who used to demand 3 units now only utilize 1... the demand for housing units goes down, there are now 2 vacant units that drive the price down.
    Not if those other two are being taken by families that left foreclosured houses. You don't think the shadow inventory of empty foreclosed houses figures into these numbers? There's less actual properties available! You would be right if the housing sales market is strong, but it's not.

    You feed your dog dirt?
    She is fed grain free (aka filler free) products like Eukanuba Naturally Wild - Venison and Sweet Potato recipe. No corn, no wheat, etc.

    Quote Originally Posted by ronpaulfollower999 View Post
    Somewhat. I earned a scholarship from the state of Florida. I probably only spend 40% of the check I get each semester on books. The rest goes to silver and gold.
    That's better than spending it on beer and the other crap Im seeing these loans and grants being spent on.
    Last edited by devil21; 12-13-2012 at 03:19 PM.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul

    "We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by devil21 View Post
    Landlords don't have much pricing power? What are you smoking? They set their prices! I did mention that property taxes are rising so this is also pushing up prices. In my area, ymmv, I can tell you for a fact that rental prices are up because of taxes and the multiple roommate arrangements on the rise. With the large amount of empty foreclosed houses (shadow inventory or not), people have to move SOMEWHERE to live. It's a simple reallocation of resources (malinvestment in a way) and it affects those of us that rent and live on our own when other people start pooling resources, thus being able to afford more collectively.

    It's interesting that you mention the older large homes coming onto the market. Ive observed a move toward turning these sorts of houses into "apartments" instead of keeping them single family homes. The amount of rent one of those properties can bring in isn't ignored by neighboring landlords and to "keep up", prices rise for the other properties in the vicinity.



    Maybe. There's a ton of search hits for things like "student loans for living expenses". Loans designed and marketed to pay for living expenses as a student. This is such a bad idea for so many reasons but it's being taken advantage of.

    http://www.studentloanconsolidation....-expenses.html

    http://www.ehow.com/how_5325719_appl...dent-loan.html

    http://www.loan.com/student-loans/ho...-expenses.html

    http://www.ehow.com/list_5949218_gov...ng-school.html



    It's possible the people I spoke to didn't understand the exact process under which they receive the money but that's neither here nor there. Loans and grants are being used for student living expenses, not school itself, and that's backdoor stimulus/welfare. No wonder the school loan bubble is past a trillion dollars now.



    This is occuring regardless of manufacturer or food content. High quality food, low quality food, whatever. The dog food example was just an example of something that I noticed in particular, hence "anecdotal-ish". It wasn't a linchpin for my observation that banks are starting to lend again and inflation is taking hold.

    If you think landlords have pricing power, then you have a very poor understanding of even basic microeconomics. Houses are very much a commodity. There isn't much one can do to differentiate a one house from another if they're in the same area - they were probably built by the same builder at the same time with the same materials and contain all the same fixtures. To suggest landlords have pricing power is asinine.

    Student loan money can be used for living expenses. Always could be. That's why schools have an estimated cost of attendance which includes the cost of transportation and a place to live, among other costs.

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Jordan View Post
    If you think landlords have pricing power, then you have a very poor understanding of even basic microeconomics. Houses are very much a commodity. There isn't much one can do to differentiate a one house from another if they're in the same area - they were probably built by the same builder at the same time with the same materials and contain all the same fixtures. To suggest landlords have pricing power is asinine.
    Hogwash. That's like saying two Chevy Tahoes have the same value because they're off the same assembly lines, regardless of the amenities the manufacturer or dealer adds or the upgrades made by owner over the years or the amount of maintenance each has received. I don't know where you live but houses here are not all the same. Maybe when they were built in the 50's they were all the same but not anymore. Some are heavily upgraded, others are nearly as they were when they were built. Where -do- you live Jordan? Location bias probably has an impact, hence the anecdotal nature of my observations.

    Student loan money can be used for living expenses. Always could be. That's why schools have an estimated cost of attendance which includes the cost of transportation and a place to live, among other costs.
    Glad Im paying for that through grants. Backdoor stimulus on my dime.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul

    "We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book



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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by devil21 View Post
    Not if those other two are being taken by families that left foreclosured houses. You don't think the shadow inventory of empty foreclosed houses figures into these numbers? There's less actual properties available! You would be right if the housing sales market is strong, but it's not.
    So then why didn't you go about explaining the distortion the shadow inventory is causing?

    The fact remains, the folks rooming together taking up less units then they previously or otherwise would, are driving down the cost of rents and property values, not making them more expensive.

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by devil21 View Post
    Hmm...not sure I follow your logic here. I should have mentioned that Im talking about houses, not apartment situations.

    If a property owner/landlord sees that more people are living together to split costs, they start to ask for higher rental rates across the board. To the landlord, they can attract multiple renters and charge more than a single family would otherwise be able to afford. Im having a hard time explaining my thought clearly.

    In my area, there are a lot of young people with service industry jobs that don't pay a lot. When they start flocking together to rent a house (because they can't afford an apartment on their own or the apartments are full already from people that moved out of foreclosed houses), their collective ability to pay more total rent per month pushes prices on rental houses up for everyone else. Hope that makes sense.
    The split-up houses go at a higher rate than the rent-a-whole-house, and have for years. I paid $850, I think, as the rent on my house a few years ago (it may have been less; at this point my memory is fuzzy). The people across the street rented by the room, so there were four of them and the TOTAL they were paying was DOUBLE what I was paying to rent the entire house for myself. The individuals thought they were getting a great deal, of course, but the landlord was charging a huge markup.

    Now, why doesn't everyone do that?

    Well, your premise hinges on a few different factors. Let's round the numbers for the sake of argument, even though it will render them unrealistic. Let's say I was renting at $500/month for the whole house. The people across the street each pay $250/month for a total of $1000/month.

    In your scenario, my landlord should have seen that an almost carbon copy of the house I am renting is renting for $1000/month, and been able to charge me that much. No dice. I would not pay that much, and there are oodles of apartments and houses that rent in the $500 range. Any variation beyond, say, a $100 increase is going to send me packing. My landlord can still set the rent, but they are locked in for the life of my contract. Once they give me notice that they are going to price a house at $1000/month rent, they are either going to attract roommates like my neighbors, or they are going to have an empty house... one that they will still have to maintain, in addition to paying to advertise the fact it is for rent unless they just leave it to languish on Craigslist.

    In the meantime, in theory, my neighbors' landlord is raking in the dough. Not really. It was amusing to go visit them the first time and see the amount of damage that four college kids and their various pets could cause. Suffice to say that they were never, ever, getting a cent of their security deposit back. The landlord was going to have a losing battle suing them for the damage caused. The property, which once those four graduated or otherwise vacated was going to have to be rerented, needed a LOT of care and repair. There goes most of the "profit" we were discussing earlier, and then some.

    In other words, there are a lot more factors at play here other than pure price.
    Genuine, willful, aggressive ignorance is the one sure way to tick me off. I wish I could say you were trolling. I know better, and it's just sad.

  22. #19
    Four school kids with pets? , probably paint, carpet , at least, in a years time.

  23. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by oyarde View Post
    Four school kids with pets? , probably paint, carpet , at least, in a years time.
    Don't forget the mystery smoke, the mold, the holes in the walls...
    Genuine, willful, aggressive ignorance is the one sure way to tick me off. I wish I could say you were trolling. I know better, and it's just sad.

  24. #21
    I forgot about all the holes in the walls. Dear Lord , I am glad I am out of the rental business.

  25. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by devil21 View Post
    Hogwash. That's like saying two Chevy Tahoes have the same value because they're off the same assembly lines, regardless of the amenities the manufacturer or dealer adds or the upgrades made by owner over the years or the amount of maintenance each has received. I don't know where you live but houses here are not all the same. Maybe when they were built in the 50's they were all the same but not anymore. Some are heavily upgraded, others are nearly as they were when they were built. Where -do- you live Jordan? Location bias probably has an impact, hence the anecdotal nature of my observations.
    That's not what I'm saying at all. Obviously there are very big differences between a $500,000 home for rent and a $200,000 home for rent.

    What I am saying, though, is that you can't just go buy a condo unit in a building where rents for a 1bd are typically $600 per month and start renting units at $900 or $1500. Your unit will be empty all day every day. The rest will be full.

    Melissa has it right: there is way more to it than just the rent. Real estate is a pretty efficient market. If you get more in rents from a similar building, it's because 1) you invested more capital into it, and thus your returns stay the same 2) you take on the risk of crappy tenants that ruin your home, which reduces the actual profit from renting a home 3) you have lower turnover because you're a better marketer (turnover and vacancy being the biggest cost of renting)

    Real estate is a competitive and efficient market. If you think you can make money by just raising rents you're a fool, but it does leave me to wonder why you aren't invested in real estate since it's that easy.

  26. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Jordan View Post
    That's not what I'm saying at all. Obviously there are very big differences between a $500,000 home for rent and a $200,000 home for rent.

    What I am saying, though, is that you can't just go buy a condo unit in a building where rents for a 1bd are typically $600 per month and start renting units at $900 or $1500. Your unit will be empty all day every day. The rest will be full.
    Again, my observations are about rental houses, not condos or apartments. Apples and oranges. There are very few condos/apartment buildings in my area.

    Melissa has it right: there is way more to it than just the rent. Real estate is a pretty efficient market. If you get more in rents from a similar building, it's because 1) you invested more capital into it, and thus your returns stay the same 2) you take on the risk of crappy tenants that ruin your home, which reduces the actual profit from renting a home 3) you have lower turnover because you're a better marketer (turnover and vacancy being the biggest cost of renting)

    Real estate is a competitive and efficient market. If you think you can make money by just raising rents you're a fool, but it does leave me to wonder why you aren't invested in real estate since it's that easy.
    I don't debate there is more to it than just rent (there always is) but this phenomenon is definitely putting upward pressure on rental prices of surrounding area properties. There's only so many houses that you can pack more and more people into and not have their collective ability to pay higher total rent affect other properties.

    Anyway, take my observations for what you will. Done debating it.

    (years later update: now there's a $#@! ton of apartments/condos courtesy of agenda 21!)
    Last edited by devil21; 11-04-2016 at 03:27 PM.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul

    "We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book

  27. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by devil21 View Post
    I don't debate there is more to it than just rent (there always is) but this phenomenon is definitely putting upward pressure on rental prices of surrounding area properties. There's only so many houses that you can pack more and more people into and not have their collective ability to pay higher total rent affect other properties.

    Anyway, take my observations for what you will. Done debating it.
    I thought you conceded that these living situations were actually driving prices down, and not up. That it was really the "shadow inventory" causing price to rise?



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  29. #25
    Seems ZeroHedge agrees with me on one of my observations.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-0...s-surge-record

    Why? Because as we have been warning for quite a while, everyone is now piling into student debt (and NINJA Uncle Sam subprime car loans). Sure enough, non-revolving credit soared by $18.2 billion in December - a monthly record for this time series since its revision several months back - and shows that when it comes to levering up, few are using their credit cards, as increasingly more opt to rotate proceeds from their "student loans" into everyday purchases.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul

    "We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book

  30. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by devil21 View Post
    2. Student "loans" are being used to finance lifestyles of young people without careers to eventually pay for the loans. When I went to college, loans and grants were paid directly to the school. Now, the students get the checks and spend them on a lot of things other than school. Is this a backdoor stimulus?
    This one is definitely true and it's going to bite a bunch of people in the ass. It used to be smart people went to college and got better jobs - partly because of college and partly because they were smarter than average.

    So the government thinks "well if everyone goes to college everyone will make more money". False. Now that every dumb person I know goes to college they graduate and are still dumb. Just dumb with $50K of student loan debt.

    If you graduate Harvard with $100K debt it's probably worth it. If you graduate University of Phoenix with $20K debt you're never paying that $#@! off.
    Ron Paul: "For those who have asked, I freely confess that Jesus Christ is my personal Savior, and that I seek His guidance in all that I do."

  31. #27
    Around here, landlords charge different rates. They'll rent a house for x dollars. If you try to get a roommate to split expenses, they'll go up on your rent. They charge according to how many people are in the house. How does the market prevent that?

  32. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by BAllen View Post
    Around here, landlords charge different rates. They'll rent a house for x dollars. If you try to get a roommate to split expenses, they'll go up on your rent. They charge according to how many people are in the house. How does the market prevent that?
    It doesn't - and shouldn't. Two young guys living in a house are going to be rough as $#@! on it when compared to a couple of 30 sometimes with a kid and a cat. I know, I used to always go to one of my fathers rental houses after people moved out to help him fix it up for the next folks. The 20 something college kids/navy guys find the most interesting ways to $#@! up a house.

    If I was renting a place, you're goddamn right i'd charge more if a group of 3 or 4 college kids came to me and wanted to rent.

  33. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by VBRonPaulFan View Post
    It doesn't - and shouldn't. Two young guys living in a house are going to be rough as $#@! on it when compared to a couple of 30 sometimes with a kid and a cat. I know, I used to always go to one of my fathers rental houses after people moved out to help him fix it up for the next folks. The 20 something college kids/navy guys find the most interesting ways to $#@! up a house.

    If I was renting a place, you're goddamn right i'd charge more if a group of 3 or 4 college kids came to me and wanted to rent.
    Who said anything about college kids? I said roommate. You rent a house it is for the house. Number of tenants should not matter if you keep the place up. There's no guarantee that a single renter will keep the place up better than multiples, is there?

  34. #30
    I would only want to rent to hermits that wish to live behind the house in a tent

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