The Snowballing U.S. Rental Crisis Is Sparing Nowhere And No One
A Las Vegas bartender coping with a recent cancer diagnosis is fearing eviction. A young professional in Tucson is skipping car payments to afford her higher rent. A researcher in Miami signed the lease for her new apartment sight unseen.
Rental costs in the US are soaring at the fastest pace in more than three decades, surpassing a median of $2,000 a month for the first time ever and pushing rents above pre-pandemic levels in most major cities. Increases are particularly steep in metropolitan areas that saw large influxes of new residents during the pandemic, but the rental market is sparing almost nowhere and no one.
While the affordability crisis in the US is not new, it has snowballed over the past year as people returned to big cities and some areas short on housing supply saw a boom of new residents. Demand for rentals has soared, with many would-be homebuyers backing out of the market after mortgage rates jumped this year as a result of the Federal Reserves aggressive interest-rate hikes.
Tight inventory is leading to bidding wars, typically more a fixture of the homebuying market. Rising costs and a shortage of available units are giving landlords the leverage to hike rents at all price points. And the end of the federal eviction moratorium, combined with dwindling rental assistance, has forced people to make tough choices.
Its pretty much the perfect storm for renters right now, said Kate Reynolds, principal policy associate at the Washington-based Urban Institute. Those renters and their landlords dont have a place to turn if theyre unable to pay the rent.
https://www.fa-mag.com/news/the-snowballing-u-s--rental-crisis-is-sparing-nowhere-and-no-one-69188.html
dalton99a
(81,590 posts)keithbvadu2
(36,912 posts)CountAllVotes
(20,878 posts)This is an OUTRAGE!!!!!!!
& recommend !!!!!
bluedigger
(17,087 posts)Seems like a bad idea.
intheflow
(28,504 posts)I work with homeless people, as well as the working poor. My job is to help them apply to jobs, and/or help them get their papers in order to apply for financial assistance. The hoops people have to jump through - not the least of which is requiring everyone to apply for even basic local jobs (like dishwasher or janitor) online when many of the folks looking for those jobs are not only computer-illiterate but may also be functionally illiterate. This is for jobs that pay shit to begin with. I love the jobs that require specific certification (for, say, being a sanitation worker), but that certification is only available when employers pay for it. It's bullshit, all around.
no_hypocrisy
(46,191 posts)New owner/landlord hiked my rent by $200.