Are roommates sharing rentals always a sign of a failed housing market? - Page 2

TexasPlaya · #21 Posted **Sep 28, 2021, 3:51 AM**

Variety is the spice of life.

SFBruin · #22 Posted **Sep 28, 2021, 3:52 AM**

Delete.

jmecklenborg · #23 Posted **Sep 28, 2021, 4:02 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by memph

Students are always being really cheap

Actually a huge number of them are supported by their parents or some other family money, which explains the explosion of "luxury" student rentals that have been built near every major U.S. university in the last 15 years.

I lived in a brand-new 4 bed / 2 bath unit back in 2002. At the time I thought it was amazing that there were two bathrooms in the apartment. Now, a lot of new student housing has a bathroom for each bedroom.

Also, anyone who has done some house flipping knows that there are two types of "starter" homes - those with just 1 bathroom, and then those with 1.5. There was like no such thing as a home with two full bathrooms in the United States until about 1970.

Most college students grew up in 2.5 or more bathroom houses, so sharing a single bathroom with roommates is like primitive camping. We're a nation that can't get enough bathrooms.

SFBruin · #24 Posted **Sep 28, 2021, 4:04 AM**

Not the most pervasive sign, but a sign.

jmecklenborg · #25 Posted **Sep 28, 2021, 5:11 AM**

Tons of stories of improvised roommate situations in NYC, Chicago, etc., back when cities were in ruins and everything was cheap in the early 90s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZDk94l57h8

jmecklenborg · #26 Posted **Sep 28, 2021, 6:50 PM**

Also, we ought to be very suspicious of all of the housing rhetoric that has dominated Twitter, NPR, etc. in the past few years. Anti-landlord, anti-SFH, anti-realtor, and now anti-roommate...who might stand to profit from all of this? It might look like a grassroots leftist push, but I suspect that Big Tech is behind it all. Zillow, Redfin, etc., have been looking to reshape property laws to their advantage, and cloaking their capitalist aims in a shroud of leftist "equity" wouldn't be a new strategy.

I mean, if the car companies, oil companies, tobacco companies, and Monsanto got to shape their industries through PR, why would anyone be surprised when Big Tech does the same?

pip · #27 Posted **Sep 28, 2021, 6:57 PM**

a conspiracy at every corner

harryc · #28 Posted **Sep 28, 2021, 7:09 PM**

• Video Link

Nothing new here .... move along.

memph · #29 Posted **Sep 29, 2021, 3:39 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Actually a huge number of them are supported by their parents or some other family money, which explains the explosion of "luxury" student rentals that have been built near every major U.S. university in the last 15 years.

I lived in a brand-new 4 bed / 2 bath unit back in 2002. At the time I thought it was amazing that there were two bathrooms in the apartment. Now, a lot of new student housing has a bathroom for each bedroom.

Also, anyone who has done some house flipping knows that there are two types of "starter" homes - those with just 1 bathroom, and then those with 1.5. There was like no such thing as a home with two full bathrooms in the United States until about 1970.

Most college students grew up in 2.5 or more bathroom houses, so sharing a single bathroom with roommates is like primitive camping. We're a nation that can't get enough bathrooms.

Well, they were pretty common in my experience in Canada. Now, to clarify, this was mostly not purpose built student housing but rather those 1 bathroom pre-1970 family homes rented out to students. I did later later live in a large century home that was converted into a duplex (4+5 bedrooms) where at least our 5 bedroom unit has two bathrooms and a large common room which was quite a bit nicer than the other places, but it was a recently renovated building.

And there's definitely still a lot of cheap students. Even ones with financial support might feel guilty about burdening their parents or try to prepare to be financially independent, or maybe feel some financial insecurity because they don't expect their parents to support them much longer and don't have a stable job yet.

jmecklenborg · #30 Posted **Sep 29, 2021, 10:02 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by harryc

Nothing new here .... move along.

I was drinking last night with...drum roll...an old roommate, and he mentioned that a former coworker of both of ours lives around the corner from him in a duplex she bought at the bottom of the recession for $65,000. The catch? She has never rented the upstairs unit. It has sat empty for almost 10 years. Why? She said because "she doesn't like living with people". Well, it's a completely separate apartment. I suppose that you could hear people walking and the occasional argument, but even if she only charged $500/mo for the unit, she has missed out on more than $50,000 in income, likely enough to pay off the building.

You can't make this stuff up.

iheartthed · #31 Posted **Sep 29, 2021, 2:53 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

I was drinking last night with...drum roll...an old roommate, and he mentioned that a former coworker of both of ours lives around the corner from him in a duplex she bought at the bottom of the recession for $65,000. The catch? She has never rented the upstairs unit. It has sat empty for almost 10 years. Why? She said because "she doesn't like living with people". Well, it's a completely separate apartment. I suppose that you could hear people walking and the occasional argument, but even if she only charged $500/mo for the unit, she has missed out on more than $50,000 in income, likely enough to pay off the building.

You can't make this stuff up.

I doubt she'd feel that way if you added a zero to the sale price and moved it to NYC.

Steely Dan · #32 Posted **Sep 29, 2021, 3:10 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

I was drinking last night with...drum roll...an old roommate, and he mentioned that a former coworker of both of ours lives around the corner from him in a duplex she bought at the bottom of the recession for $65,000. The catch? She has never rented the upstairs unit. It has sat empty for almost 10 years. Why? She said because "she doesn't like living with people". Well, it's a completely separate apartment. I suppose that you could hear people walking and the occasional argument, but even if she only charged $500/mo for the unit, she has missed out on more than $50,000 in income, likely enough to pay off the building.

You can't make this stuff up.

as i mentioned in another thread recently, the 2-flat next door to us has been COMPLETELY vacant for 27 years now.

people do weird things.

jmecklenborg · #33 Posted **Sep 29, 2021, 4:37 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I doubt she'd feel that way if you added a zero to the sale price and moved it to NYC.

I looked up the property on the county auditor's website. The sale was in 2015 (later than I thought, so after the market starting improving here) and the price was $61,750.

About a year later in 2016, my dad was under contract to buy a 2-family about a mile from that one. It was listed for $64,000 and my dad's offer of $63,000 was accepted, but then the seller decided not to sell it because one of the tenants' cats escaped when the realtor was showing it.

It's comical to me that national city discourse has been completely overrun by housing rights/costs issues when it's still cheap as hell to live in most of the United States.

jmecklenborg · #34 Posted **Sep 29, 2021, 4:37 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

people do weird things.

Like take a rental property off MLS because one of their tenants' cats escaped during a showing.

JManc · #35 Posted **Sep 29, 2021, 5:15 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

as i mentioned in another thread recently, the 2-flat next door to us has been COMPLETELY vacant for 27 years now.

people do weird things.

Yeah, I am curious about this story. Tax write off? Mob operation? Meth lab? FBI/ CPD safe house?

dchan · #36 Posted **Oct 4, 2021, 3:36 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gordo

In my mind the only broken thing are areas that were clearly meant to be auto-oriented suburban single family homes that now have 4-5 roommates, each with a car (so an area that appears relatively low density has zero street parking available and you have to circle endlessly for spots - it's bizarre). You do see this in parts of the Bay Area and LA. Not sure I've heard of it being a thing anywhere else in the US.

Welcome to parts of Brooklyn and Queens. Off the top of my head, I can say that Astoria, Park Slope, Bay Ridge, and Bensonhurst suffer from this problem. My ex-GF lives a 10 minute drive from her work, but often took a 40-60 minute transit ride back and forth (pre-pandemic) because she didn't want to spend 20 minutes looking for parking after work. Or, parking too far away on a street with alternate side rules (meaning she has walk there to move the car at some point).

iheartthed · #37 Posted **Oct 4, 2021, 3:52 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by dchan

Welcome to parts of Brooklyn and Queens. Off the top of my head, I can say that Astoria, Park Slope, Bay Ridge, and Bensonhurst suffer from this problem. My ex-GF lives a 10 minute drive from her work, but often took a 40-60 minute transit ride back and forth (pre-pandemic) because she didn't want to spend 20 minutes looking for parking after work. Or, parking too far away on a street with alternate side rules (meaning she has walk there to move the car at some point).

Park Slope and Astoria weren't ever meant to be auto oriented neighborhoods.

Crawford · #38 Posted **Oct 4, 2021, 4:03 PM**

I'm in Park Slope, and street parking, while bad, isn't unusually bad. And neighborhood vehicle ownership rates are pretty low. About half of households have vehicles.

If you insist on parking on the street, to avoid paying for a parking spot, yeah, you should expect to be wasting 30 minutes or so every day. It's illogical behavior. Wasting away your life to save $10, not to mention the inevitable damage and wear/tear that you wouldn't get if your car were garaged, makes no sense. Garage your car or, better yet, take transit.

Crawford · #39 Posted **Oct 4, 2021, 4:09 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Park Slope and Astoria weren't ever meant to be auto oriented neighborhoods.

Even Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst were never meant for cars. Bay Ridge has really nice prewar built form and some very high density tracts. Bensonhurst is more so-so, with denser, older tracts, and some mediocre stretches.

iheartthed · #40 Posted **Oct 4, 2021, 4:15 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crawford

I'm in Park Slope, and street parking, while bad, isn't unusually bad. And neighborhood vehicle ownership rates are pretty low. About half of households have vehicles.

If you insist on parking on the street, to avoid paying for a parking spot, yeah, you should expect to be wasting 30 minutes or so every day. It's illogical behavior. Wasting away your life to save $10, not to mention the inevitable damage and wear/tear that you wouldn't get if your car were garaged, makes no sense. Garage your car or, better yet, take transit.

How much is a monthly space in a garage over there? I'm guessing it's $400+/month?