Wow, look at that rent shoot up in Portland, Oregon

[58rhodes]

life sucks

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by freemkt

You are accepting the legitimacy of a morally illegitimate system.

The playing field has always been rigged to be tilted.

Government rigged the rules to prevent low-wage workers from buying homes they could afford

So you cannot legitimately say that people who were precluded from buying homes must move because they did not buy homes.

That is how the system works, sorry if you don't like it...

[58rhodes]

Originally Posted by urbanlife78

That is how the system works, sorry if you don't like it...

why would the govt rig buying homes when people have to pay property taxes?

[58rhodes]

and of course it only happens in Portland ------LOL

[freemkt]

Originally Posted by 58rhodes

why would the govt rig buying homes when people have to pay property taxes?

Because humans are hierarchical social animals and therefore inherently classist.

Poor and working class people are tolerated to the extent they are allowed to live in places nobody with more money wants to live - when someone with more money wants to live there, the poor must move.

In this context, undesirables (see above) must not be allowed to buy homes, because homeowners have property rights and cannot be forced to move, short of eminent domain.

Government and homeowners also benefit financially from the existence of a large underclass of rent slaves by taxing rental properties up the wazoo.

[freemkt]

Originally Posted by 58rhodes

and of course it only happens in Portland ------LOL

Sarcasm noted, but no idea what you're actually trying to say.

Of course, it happens pretty much everywhere, because that is the nature of hierarchical human social animals.

[oldtintype]

Originally Posted by 58rhodes

yada yada yada

the best thing to happen would be that average Portlanders move out--just being honest

I'll chalk that comment up to ignorance because you don't realize who this affects. Stuff happens in people's lives and some of those "average" people weren't always average. There's a lot of senior vets who are struggling now as an example--people who have never had food stamps, any kind of hand out, have always owned a home, etc. who find themselves renters after a spouse dies or goes into a care facility and those people should just "get out?" You don't really understand the complexity of the situation. It's easy to assume all of these people mismanaged their money or didn't have good jobs, but things are different now, especially for people who lost a lot of their pensions or savings in the last financial crisis.

It's easy to assume people who can't afford to pay rent are losers who never had a career or savings. But you'd be wrong. We also get a lot of people who become disabled at the height of their career--injured on the job or come down with a health condition that prevents them from working any longer. Most are in shock as they never envisioned themselves low income or having to live on disability. Life happens to a lot of good people and many people become renters when they never planned to be.

They can't just "leave" even though many would like to, but they're stuck here because their medical care is tied into OHSU or the VA, etc. or they don't have family any where else in the country. It's important for many to be close to a major hospital and if you looked into it, you'd see that most of the cheap places to live also have limited access to hospitals or only access to hospitals that don't provide the level of care they need. Plus, many places require cars and people who are senior or disabled often can't drive, or afford to maintain a car.

Life happens. You're lucky if nothing happens to you because it happens to even people who own property or have invested wisely. Diversity economic and otherwise is important to a city. Portland is quickly getting rid of economic diversity. I love Portland and plan to stay here but it's not "hating Portland" to point out concerns.

[redguard57]

HUD's been talking about this for several years - they came out with a big survey in 2011 and it was about the end of 2013 when I started to see it for myself. About half of the metros in the U.S. are experiencing an increase in "severe rent burden" which is where tenants spend 50% of their income or more on rent.

It's the same all over the place. I live in Bend and it's the same here - the city's quickly becoming unaffordable for average people.

Push liberal, high cost, high tax agendas hard enough though and companies will move. Happening in NY, CN, NJ and IL right now. Companies are moving to TX and have been for decades.

I'm born and raised from Texas - lived in 5 different towns & cities there, so I know exactly what it's like. It is not that great. Companies do not locate there for quality of life. Please go there if you think it's so great.

It's not even that cheap, either; if you want to live in the decent parts of Texas like the neighborhoods in Austin with good schools by God you'll pay. It's cheap in a relative sense because it's huge and there are few land use restrictions. There is no limit to how far you can drive out from your job - you can just drive to the rent you want to pay (but then you'll spend it on gas/car). You think Gresham is bad? Try entire swaths of Dallas, Houston or San Antonio that are 3x as bad and 5x as big. Try colonias in south Texas. I can point you to some relatively cheap waterfront property in Port Lavaca, TX - but you get what you pay for.

[Blutbad]

Originally Posted by 58rhodes

life sucks

You said it, man.

[freemkt]

Originally Posted by redguard57

HUD's been talking about this for several years - they came out with a big survey in 2011 and it was about the end of 2013 when I started to see it for myself. About half of the metros in the U.S. are experiencing an increase in "severe rent burden" which is where tenants spend 50% of their income or more on rent.

It's the same all over the place. I live in Bend and it's the same here - the city's quickly becoming unaffordable for average people.

I'm born and raised from Texas - lived in 5 different towns & cities there, so I know exactly what it's like. It is not that great. Companies do not locate there for quality of life. Please go there if you think it's so great.

It's not even that cheap, either; if you want to live in the decent parts of Texas like the neighborhoods in Austin with good schools by God you'll pay. It's cheap in a relative sense because it's huge and there are few land use restrictions. There is no limit to how far you can drive out from your job - you can just drive to the rent you want to pay (but then you'll spend it on gas/car). You think Gresham is bad? Try entire swaths of Dallas, Houston or San Antonio that are 3x as bad and 5x as big. Try colonias in south Texas. I can point you to some relatively cheap waterfront property in Port Lavaca, TX - but you get what you pay for.

Always hold low expectations for a cow town.