Public comment is bad. It gives people with time to comment far more power than those who can't. It's one of the major reasons we can't building housing or high speed rail.
Data from US gov since 2000 show this (BLS, SSA), as do multiple university studies (MN, KY). And the ratio for rural areas is getting worse, more pressure, than urban.
That it varies is not interesting, lots of things have variance. The data shows its generally true.
Income to rent ratio, which is what this thread is about, varies geographically. Rent eats 30-40% of income in prestige cities like NYC or SF or LA. It's only 25% in Kansas City or Columbus.
You seem to be thinking about overall cost burden over time.
> downsizing in the current market basically means that you pay way more for way less
Can you elaborate on that? It's pretty common for people to sell their 4 bedroom family house and retire to Florida. But it's not "way more for way less"
For seniors who sell a house they've owned for years (even decades), they're paying way more for each unit of "house" in this market.
Price per square foot tends to go up the smaller the home and the types of homes older people prefer (single-level, near hospitals, newer/lower maintenance) are in higher demand so they're also harder to find and more expensive.
Transaction costs (agent commissions, closing costs, moving) can be 8-10% of a sale. The capital gains exclusion is only $250,00 for singles and $500,000 for couples, so if you're sitting on big gains, a sale can come with a significant tax bill. In places like California, where assessment caps like Prop 13 keep property taxes low, buying a new home means that you could end up paying more in property tax on a much cheaper home. If you move into a condo, you have to deal with HOA fees. And so on.
Renting isn't always easy either. Senior independent communities can be really expensive (under some models you even have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars up front) and even if you just rent a regular apartment, you need to compare the rents to drawdowns. $400,000 (the median net worth for 65–74 year-olds) provides $16,000/year at a 4% draw. The median rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in the US is somewhere between $1,200-$1,500.
Of the two-dozen or so technical people whose lives I am familiar with, three are doing well (not at all wealthy, just comfortable). Two got there with good jobs, the third gets everything from wealthy parents. The rest live with parents or in dingy apartments in suburbs, with savings so modest as to possibly not even support that lifestyle in old age. We're all in our late 30's to late 40's. They're all smart and went to good colleges.
I don't think that's true. Prop 13 for example is priced into the market. Buyers bid higher because their taxes are frozen. This doesn't take decades to correct.
Market reactions are instant. Once the policy is fixed we don't have to wait for a generation
Buyers bid higher because sellers are giving up their low property tax, not because the buyer will have a low property tax in a decade or two. Sellers are hesitant to sell because they are giving up a lot, California had to pass a special law just to let old people downsize without losing their low property tax on the big home they raised a family in.
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