Why are the rents so high when wages don't support it? (Portland: for rent, how much)
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In 3-4 months you can have enough money saved to take certification classes for jobs that make 11 an hour with ample opportunity for overtime. Then you apply for school aid and with your low income you get school at a community college paid for or find a trade school. In some cases advanced certifications in the same area you got your first one exist. Most of those options will get you to a new base in the range of 14 to 20 an hour. At that point you can move to a better place and be a lot less frugal. Repeat this process once more: community college to university placement programs for a degree that gets you a job or a few years hard work in a trade, vocation, or career will boost you into the 20 to 30 range or beyond. Yes this is very doable. I've met people who have done it. I did something similar. I also met people that decided to spend their money unwisely, didn't work hard, called in sick a lot, or didn't try for promotions or advancements. More often than not the people that I have met who are stuck were "victims" of their selves and making bad choices..
$11.00/hr... ... man, you set a pretty low bar for rewarding attainment. Trader Joe's pays better than that, a lot better than that ~$13/hr to start IIRC and all you have to be is generally reliable and personable. You can have visible tattoo's, piercings, offbeat hair color and/or style and your hours are flexible. Costco is another retailer that resists the urge to treat staff as disposable, low end trash and compensate in excess of mandated minimums. $11/hr and maybe more if you work hard and show how much you appreciate being given the chance to free fall economically while your student loans accrue unpaid interest. America is an oil rich, nuclear Superpower with a GDP in the Trillions. It's citizens should be worth more than a mandated minimum wage of $7.25/hr! A Citizen of an enlightened Democratic Socialist country is worth 3x that just for being able to draw breath. In Europe, the higher education that a young person needs to get out of low wage scut work is FREE. In America a third tier state college is six figures all up, community college is five figures and the for profit certificate mills can also be five figures for anything with teeth enough to bring about upward mobility. A Dutch citizen with the candlepower, can go to the equivalent of Harvard, i.e. Ivy League...FREE.
All over City-Data you can read the fairy tale stories of how hard work and above average integrity allowed ordinary people to pull off incredible feats of upward mobility. And... ... everyone can do it. Its hard... but its really easy and everyone can and should do it. Really there is nothing stopping anyone from becoming an economic success story. Employers will always give the job to the kid that grunted through Community College over the privileged kid with the diploma from Sara Lawrence because they recognize 'heart' and 'work ethic' when they see it in the flesh. These fairy stories are supposed to inspire us and make us want to achieve similar results for ourselves. If it's so easy, so 'doable'... wouldn't a reasonable person start to wonder why there is so much decline, despair and discouragement among the masses? Wouldn't you begin to question the credulity of your opinions?
You can rent a 2-3 bedroom house in Woodstock or nearby for about $1300-$1500 a month so $1800-2200 is pretty high for that area unless it's like a bigger 4-5 bedroom place (I assume that's where Mike's house is near or close to). For about $2300-$2500 a month you can rent a larger and nice older home in the rich area around Reed College, which is a big step up from further east.
You can always charge more than the market rate though, the demand for rentals is high enough that someone might pay it...
Well, that was just a question.
I have no house for rent.
A 200k house is nothing special in Portland.
Especially in the Woodstock neighborhood.
Those $1000 to $1500 a month houses you are finding there are either mostly paid off, (someones grandma died, and they are renting the house) or the owner got a spectacular deal and financing.
Or someone bought the house in the early to mid '90's before real estate around here really started to skyrocket.
I just wanted to point out that for all those people complaining about high rental prices, that they aren't as high as they think, when you factor in the costs of owning and maintaining a house.
When I did have a house or two for rent, I did have people complain and tell me that the rent was too high.
I had one couple pull the "pity us" card and wanted me to reduce the rent by 400 bucks, and when I wouldn't, called me an evil soul sucking slumlord before storming off.
What do they expect?
I am not going to subsidize anyone, and my rental prices weren't making me much profit, if any at all.
Any extra money always went back into house repair.
And the guy that said that 1600 was for rich yuppies needs to get out in the real world a bit more.
That's about what it costs just to own a decent average house (mortgage, taxes, and insurance) in Portland, before utilities, etc...
I can't speak about the costs of renting an apartment, but houses, yes...
Last edited by pdxMIKEpdx; 06-17-2014 at 03:08 PM..
$11.00/hr... ... man, you set a pretty low bar for rewarding attainment. Trader Joe's pays better than that, a lot better than that ~$13/hr to start IIRC and all you have to be is generally reliable and personable. You can have visible tattoo's, piercings, offbeat hair color and/or style and your hours are flexible. Costco is another retailer that resists the urge to treat staff as disposable, low end trash and compensate in excess of mandated minimums. $11/hr and maybe more if you work hard and show how much you appreciate being given the chance to free fall economically while your student loans accrue unpaid interest. America is an oil rich, nuclear Superpower with a GDP in the Trillions. It's citizens should be worth more than a mandated minimum wage of $7.25/hr! A Citizen of an enlightened Democratic Socialist country is worth 3x that just for being able to draw breath. In Europe, the higher education that a young person needs to get out of low wage scut work is FREE. In America a third tier state college is six figures all up, community college is five figures and the for profit certificate mills can also be five figures for anything with teeth enough to bring about upward mobility. A Dutch citizen with the candlepower, can go to the equivalent of Harvard, i.e. Ivy League...FREE.
All over City-Data you can read the fairy tale stories of how hard work and above average integrity allowed ordinary people to pull off incredible feats of upward mobility. And... ... everyone can do it. Its hard... but its really easy and everyone can and should do it. Really there is nothing stopping anyone from becoming an economic success story. Employers will always give the job to the kid that grunted through Community College over the privileged kid with the diploma from Sara Lawrence because they recognize 'heart' and 'work ethic' when they see it in the flesh. These fairy stories are supposed to inspire us and make us want to achieve similar results for ourselves. If it's so easy, so 'doable'... wouldn't a reasonable person start to wonder why there is so much decline, despair and discouragement among the masses? Wouldn't you begin to question the credulity of your opinions?
H
I had typed out an intelligent reply, but it's more easily summed up as
You have to shop, and buy when you want to, not when you need to. Renting is the same way. Don't wait until you have to move.
We are buying this place with 2,400 square feet and an attached apartment which we rent out at $350.00 including utilities, for under $700.00 a month with taxes and insurance. And that is not your normal small city lot although we are in the city. It's view acreage. You just have to look and shop, and shop.
When we decided to try out living full time in our 5th wheel, all the rental spaces with tiny yards were in the $400 a month plus range. We shopped and got view acreage , In the City of Coos Bay, on a large wooded lot, on a dead end street, right off Bayshore, for $250.00 a month, with water, and sewer, and garbage. Why, because we shopped.
I had typed out an intelligent reply, but it's more easily summed up as
americans are suckers
L is not telling you the other side of the story though.
All that generosity comes at a price, and that price is being taxed at levels that would make an average American gag and choke.
Minimum seems to be higher than 50%, France is 75% for individual taxes.
There are things that are taxed in Europe that aren't taxed at all in the US.
Corporate Taxes are much higher.
All that "enlightenment" is not free.
Sure they may get a "free" education and a higher wage, but it all goes back to pay for their "enlightened system".
The same house you are paying 1500 to rent in Oregon would be completely out of your reach in a city in western Europe.
Last edited by pdxMIKEpdx; 06-17-2014 at 04:06 PM..
You can rent a 2-3 bedroom house in Woodstock or nearby for about $1300-$1500 a month so $1800-2200 is pretty high for that area unless it's like a bigger 4-5 bedroom place (I assume that's where Mike's house is near or close to). For about $2300-$2500 a month you can rent a larger and nice older home in the rich area around Reed College, which is a big step up from further east.
You can always charge more than the market rate though, the demand for rentals is high enough that someone might pay it...
From what I am seeing, renting a whole house in Portland is getting more expensive. I am not saying you can't find houses in the price range you mentioned, I am just saying I have seen them going for as much as I said. A 2 bedroom house in North Portland across from my sister-in-law is renting for $1600. Plus in Portland it is one of the tightest rental markets, and combine that with the rents for any new building that is going up now, the rents are much higher than they use to be. Definitely wouldn't be finding a studio apartment for $550 on the edge of downtown these days.
Well, that was just a question.
I have no house for rent.
A 200k house is nothing special in Portland.
Especially in the Woodstock neighborhood.
Those $1300 to $1500 a month houses you are finding there are either mostly paid off, (someones grandma died, and they are renting the house) or the owner got a spectacular deal and financing.
Or someone bought the house in the early to mid '90's before real estate around here really started to skyrocket.
I just wanted to point out that for all those people complaining about high rental prices, that they aren't as high as they think, when you factor in the costs of owning and maintaining a house.
When I did have a house or two for rent, I did have people complain and tell me that the rent was too high.
I had one couple pull the "pity us" card and wanted me to reduce the rent by 400 bucks, and when I wouldn't, called me an evil soul sucking slumlord before storming off.
What do they expect?
I am not going to subsidize anyone, and my rental prices weren't making me much profit, if any at all.
Any extra money always went back into house repair.
And the guy that said that 1600 was for rich yuppies needs to get out in the real world a bit more.
That's about what it costs just to own a decent average house (mortgage, taxes, and insurance) in Portland, before utilities, etc...
I can't speak about the costs of renting an apartment, but houses, yes...
Understood we might be talking about hypotheticals. My estimates though were just based on a look at Craigslist and Zillow for that area as well as what I know people who rent in that area to pay. There are a number of average homes in that area of SE for around $1500 listed, once you get closer in you're looking at closer to $2000 or more. Location can change the price in just a very short area though.
Basically thought just as potential landlords don't really care if rent is too expensive for most people--just as long as someone is willing to pay that rent--potential tenants don't really care what circumstances cause a landlord to rent for a certain price or if they're breaking even or not. In the end rents will end up at the price that people are willing to pay for them--people keep moving to this town.
In a hot housing market like Portland though, if one rent a home at a cost that's profitable to pay off a mortgage one should be able to sell it to make a profit(unless they bought right at the last peak). Real estate isn't always the greatest investment though some seem to think that the go-go-years of the mid-2000s will come back and that will somehow be the new normalcy. It's not. Things will go up but eventually there will be another crash or correction as it is. Which is why I'm only doing financially well right now because I didn't buy a home when everyone else I know was around 2006-07 and I'm dreading the fact that my fiancee wants me to buy a home. Buying a home longterm though should be a safer investment(though with inflation and taxes and the fact that you have to buy a new place to live when you sell alot of people don't make as much as they think they do)--but I don't have much sympathy for people who lost money on homes as a short term investment and not a place to live in--investments are always a risk.
From what I am seeing, renting a whole house in Portland is getting more expensive. I am not saying you can't find houses in the price range you mentioned, I am just saying I have seen them going for as much as I said. A 2 bedroom house in North Portland across from my sister-in-law is renting for $1600. Plus in Portland it is one of the tightest rental markets, and combine that with the rents for any new building that is going up now, the rents are much higher than they use to be. Definitely wouldn't be finding a studio apartment for $550 on the edge of downtown these days.
There's studio apartments in Inner SE or trendy areas of N/NE going for $1000 these days or 1 bedrooms going for like $1400. Though sometimes you can live a mile or two away and then save several hundred dollars with a small home. Home values can go from $1400 for a small home to $2200 in a short distance. One thing is that many people move to Portland think they have to live right in the middle of the most popular areas--so people can basically charge whatever they want if you're looking at the Mississippi area or inner SE or NW 21st or so on. Rental prices have gone up everywhere, even in some of the cheaper areas--though prices can drop if you're looking at a ranch home rather than an old Craftsman--or willing to live in a neighborhood with no sidewalks.
The thing is though compared to other larger US cities, distances aren't that far--so one can find something more affordable that's really not that far from the inner areas or downtown. Like my fiancee thought living at SE 71st was "far out"(and she grew up in inner NE Portland), but it's like 10 minutes to get to everywhere else in SE Portland. It's not the same as somewhere like LA or New York or Chicago or the Bay Area where you can find something cheaper but you'll end travelling for an hour to get somewhere. Even living east of 82nd or north of Killingsworth--you're only about 15-20 minutes away from a lot of stuff--and once you're east of 82nd things get cheaper fast. Portland overall isn't cheap these days, but people will pay a premium to live close-in.
Last edited by Deezus; 06-17-2014 at 05:00 PM..
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