Exclusive: most renters surveyed by Harris Poll say the areas they live in have become so unaffordable they are ‘barely livable’
The poll, conducted by the Harris Poll Thought Leadership and Future Practice, asked survey takers to identify themselves as renters or homeowners, along with other demographic information. Those polled were asked their opinion on home ownership in the United States. For many, especially renters, the outlook is bleak.
Though the vast majority of renters polled said they want to own a home in the future, 61% said they are worried they will never be able to. A similar percentage believe no matter how hard they work, they’ll never be able to afford a home.
“When you think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and housing is right at that foundational level of security, the implications on consumer psyche when things feel so unaffordable is something that will impact everyone,” said Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer at Harris Poll. The American dream of owning a home “is looking more like a daydream for renters”.
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It often isn’t. I say this as someone who volunteers weekends on such a group (food donations).
It’s very often chasing dopamine hits to compensate for how utterly isolated and desolate they feel. WIthout a support network or community to back them up, the easiest at hand way to compensate is small expenditures on treating themselves to help stave off the doom.
Which add up very fast, because turns out treats aren’t free.
And this can take many forms. Collectibles, fast food, literal treats, energy drinks, coffee, cigarettes, weed, booze, etc.
When you have learned helplessness and truly believe it’s pointless to save money, it becomes trivial to waste it on dozens of little pick me ups.
I’ve seen it endless times. I’ve helped people budget and so often they are shocked to realize they are spending absurd amounts of money on their guilty pleasure.
Let me make this clear, I’ve helped a decent handful of folks unfuck their budget. They had jobs, they rented, they couldn’t figure out why saving money was hard.
We took a look and so much random shit Id be like “do you know you spent $300 at convenience stores this month?” And they’d be like “what? No way, that’s impossible”
But I’d show em and they’d be flabbergasted.
Turns out that red bull and a snack everyday before work, and a treat everyday after work, adds up to a huge hole in the pocket.
And these are people truly in poverty, min wage at best, part time, struggling to pay bills.
This is nothing but the avocado toast thing all over again you rancid piece of shit
The house my folks paid 120k for 6 years ago is valued at 650k, none of that has to do with my Steam collection.
Some houses shooting up in price due to various (shitty) factors does not mean every single house has. Only a small portion of them have which has biased the average price up.
If 10% of houses go up x5 in price, the average price will now calculate significantly higher even if the other 90% only change a small bit.
This is a common thing people try and cite. “Yeah but some house skyrocketed in price so that must mean house prices are fucked across the board”
They aren’t, that’s just a fact.
The following are fucked areas:
Major City cores as the west’s renting markets are unhinged atm.
Closer to the core suburbs of tourist destinations for the Airbnb markets
Pockets of speculation areas that are being heavily gentrified.
Properties with land large enough to be potentially capable of being split into 2 smaller properties legally, as a speculation market. (This us why sometimes you see big old spots suddenly skyrocket, they satisfy the conditions to turn into 2 properties which can be lucrative if leveraged by a rental company)
Everything else had been fairly well in lockstep with inflation from what I have seen.
Nice anecdata and all but I bought in 2020 and my place has almost doubled in value already. It’s a run of the mill condo.
The (already high) rent prices have also approximately doubled over the same time span.
Buying in early 2020 was the difference between me easily living here and likely having to move to a cheaper area of the country.
And I’m a debt-free, child-free elder millennial who has a large salary and whose parents paid for my college.
The problem isn’t that they aren’t scraping together enough of their $30k a year to save due to buying too many bon bons, it’s that they gross $30k a year and $15-20k of their net goes to the landlord.
That sounds 100% like your property fits roughly into one of the groups I outlineded above then.
It doesn’t, but you’ll keep believing anything you want no matter what the data says because you’re dug into an anti-reality position.
Rents have gone up rapidly across the country, and that’s after a long period of wage stagnation that didn’t keep up with inflation for three or four decades. But yeah you’re right, I’m well off not because I timed the real estate market and had all of the other advantages I listed, but instead because I didn’t buy avocado toast. 🙄
Except I have bought basically whatever I wanted and from the look of things (e.g. mega yachts and private planes) so have other people who are considerably richer than either of us.
It’s math dude, if your rent is $2k a month and you net $25k a year you aren’t going to be able to save your way out of that hole.
As an aside, people like yourself who told me to move to lower COL areas also provide extremely bad financial advice and pretend it’s universally applicable. Lower COL areas usually also have lower salaries, and you may be able to get a better dinner out in lower COL area, or get a slightly better house or something, but you aren’t going to see the $20-$40k in additional salary you receive in a higher COL area.
Better just keep working the same job and renting the same place then, as we know those are absolutes that can’t possibly be changed to fix the problem.
Renting somewhere you can’t afford counts as bad budgeting.
If only there was some way to live in one place, and work in another… perhaps even several ways to do that… oh well.
Seriously do people just never move, and stay in shitty jobs and settle with a shit hand?
I moved several times abd changed jobs several times in my 20s as I clawed my way out of poverty. You have to get cool with not staying tied down if you want to do well.
If a place fuckin sucks, sell your shit and move.
If your job sucks, get a better one.
If rent is insane, get roommates.
And if you struggle with getting a job, you either aren’t looking in the right places, you’ve set your standards too high, or you have some deeper rooted issue that’s red flagging your application.
Or you are struggling with systemic racism/sexism/classism/ableism in the domain which of course fuckin sucks, and that one doesn’t have as easy of a solution.
I wonder if you’ll sing a different tune after the next rounds of tech layoffs.
“Learn to code, bro” doesn’t hit the same for me in the post EQ economy, and not every job can be done remotely.
The stats are clear that wages for non-c level positions have stagnated, but you’ll keep believing whatever you want despite them.
You also seem to have gone out of your way to step over the point I was making which is that I did everything you’re saying, had no dependents, and had it not been for a little bit of luck in my timing, I too would’ve been in the “can’t afford a house” camp.
A perfect example of this is actually people who stayed in the same exurban area and work similar jobs to the generation before them. I have relatives that are teachers, and former neighbors who are teachers. Wanna guess which generation is barely making ends meet in a shitty little house and which is living fat and rich next to engineering and management neighbors?
Edit: PS this Vonnegut quote is for you: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/158414-america-is-the-wealthiest-nation-on-earth-but-its-people
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I hope one day you can connect the dots on how the the former helps with the latter.