r/Eugene • u/RottenSpinach1 • Nov 24 '24
Oregon's Housing Crisis News
"To avoid experiencing a rent burden, a renter should spend no more than 30% of their monthly income on housing costs. With the average cost of a one-bedroom apartment at $1,254 in 2023, a person would need to earn $50,166 to avoid experiencing a rent burden. Anyone earning less than this amount would be rent burdened by the cost of a typical apartment. About 48% of occupational groups have average wages meeting this definition and will account for 44% of job creation projected through 2032."
The full report has other really grim stats:
https://www.oregon.gov/ohcs/about-us/Pages/state-of-the-state-housing.aspx
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u/Nervous_Argument5061 Nov 24 '24
I pay 41% of my income in housing. I exist to pay rent.
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u/ApplesBananasRhinoc Nov 24 '24
I used to like playing music and making art, but now I just exist to pay rent.
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u/OculusOmnividens Nov 24 '24
The US desperately needs a mass scale / nationwide General Strike to remind the ownership class that it is The People who really wield the power. Hit them in their bottom line, remind them we exist and they'll change their tune.
It'll never happen because we're too afraid, but it's fun to daydream.
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Nov 24 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/diabolikyeti Nov 25 '24
This is a non-starter idea, meaning you couldn't even remotely feasibly begin to actually even plan this, much less execute this.
Thank yourself for voting for a nanny state at every given opportunity.
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u/AppropriatePirate702 Nov 25 '24
It'll never happen because when you sign a legally binding document, you go on "rent strike" and you're evicted for failure to pay and there isn't shit you can do about it. You agreed to the terms of the lease by law you can't "strike" they'll have you removed by the county sheriff and rent to the next person in line
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u/NormalAd9288 Dec 01 '24
You can if you team up with others. It’s worked and still works in many places. Solidarity is our missing key..
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u/phukew Nov 24 '24
I literally said this same thing the other day....I exist to pay my bills; I can't afford to do anything else. I feel you.
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u/Blaze1989 Nov 25 '24
Hey now, you exist more than just to pay rent. You also exist to pay taxes XD
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u/Total_Tumbleweed_560 15d ago
Nope…their rules have loop holes that only they have enough money to use so they (rules) don’t apply to them and look where they are and look where everyone else is that’s following their rules. Not that I needed permission, but in case others didn’t know, the Declaration of Independence states thats it’s not only our job but our duty, to remove a government that is self serving and corrupt like ours is. It doesn’t state how so I take that as to mean in anyway we see needed and I think not funding them any longer is the best way. So I’m not giving them my mo ey anymore. Claim exempt on your payroll and don’t file. And if they respond with violence then I’m ready to fight. Id rather die fighting so my kids and grandkids will live free, than do nothing and know they will be slaves.
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u/666truemetal666 Nov 24 '24
We need socialized housing immediately. Allowing the few to hoard shelter and charge a kings ransom isn't working
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u/Ilikeunions Nov 24 '24
Tell this to Eric Forrest. Been on strike to provide for my family and he doesn't care. Indicative of where we are at.
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u/Booger_Flicker Nov 24 '24
Get specific. When you say "socialized housing" it will conjure up dense housing projects with major issues.
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u/666truemetal666 Nov 24 '24
Are they more major than having thousands of people shitting in the streets and most of the rest working so many hours they don't have any time to live life?
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u/Booger_Flicker Nov 24 '24
Major enough to convince most of the vote.
It's good practice to try to design the solutions yourself so you can see how hard it really is. Then when someone says it's easy you can call them out as a fraud and pick apart their plan.
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u/666truemetal666 Nov 24 '24
Just because things have been done poorly before in the past does not mean you can't look at the failures and improve. Google socialized housing models in Europe and check it out. Our current model is not working for anyone besides the select few that are walking off with bags of money made off misery. Seems even more crazy to stick with that. We don't need a profit motive baked into every aspect of human life
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Nov 24 '24
"The vote" is a mass of propagandized and miseducated lemmings. They don't need convinced of anything, they just need enough targeted ideological nonsense pointed their direction -- that's the entire point of undermining education and critical thinking.
The same reason you instantly jump to the thought of "problems" when you think of "dense housing projects" is the exact outcome that Reagan, Bush, and the Third Way Clintonites wanted with their abandoning of the Projects. It's the exact outcome all these news pundits and talking heads that are the puppeted voices of the rich land/housing developers want.
Most people are completely ignorant and unwillling to observe and adjust their own biases but the fact you aren't chomping at the bit to complain about "single family zoning" in the same breath shows your biases and conditioning.
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u/Booger_Flicker Nov 25 '24
Pretty easy shit to rant about, huh? In the meantime, drink more water or something. Jesus. Maybe then you can try coming up with your own solution.
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u/666truemetal666 Nov 24 '24
The last apt complex i lived in owned by outside real estate speculatars had every single problem you would associate with what your talking about and I was trading 50 percent of my income to live there
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u/ScaleEarnhardt Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
Socialized answers are not solutions to real world problems in this situation. That’s just dreaming and idealism, at best. I won’t go into what it is at its worst.
The UGB needs to be mindfully extended in rational directions. ‘Up not out’ is crippling natural cycles of growth and strangling our city culturally and commercially, and, of course, is the single major factor driving up housing costs… no new houses, no supply to meet demand, hello inflated housing costs.
The thought that new homes and an expanded urban footprint automatically lead to immense urban sprawl like cities like Denver/Chicago/LA is such a simple-minded ((idiotic)) sky-is-falling fallacy, it’s almost believable.
The solution is incredibly simple, and would bring jobs and an economic boom. In case nobody ever leaves the Eugene area, let me tell you, this town is getting left in the dust of global growth and progress. It’s totally normal for cities to grow and evolve, and embracing that change is a good thing, while resisting it only brings stagnation.
At Eugene’s heart will always be a timber/hippy/track town, but if it’s allowed to deteriorate and is stunted by bad policy that is ineffectual at anything other than creating untenable living conditions, the city will simply fall behind and pitch slowly into irrelevance and economic struggle.
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u/diabolikyeti Nov 25 '24
You're absolutely gonna vote yourself and the rest of the working class into socialized housing. Its going to be tenement housing. You will fear for your life every second of every day.
You will deserve this. Many of your neighbors will not.
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u/666truemetal666 Nov 25 '24
My last apt here had people with machetes selling drugs, setting fires, prostituting, chopping bikes, stealing and assaulting in the parking lot at all hours, I'm not sure why it would be worse if the rent was half as much and no one was getting rich?
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u/diabolikyeti Nov 25 '24
Because it's better that fewer people have to live that way than it is for way more people have to live that way, which is what socialized housing on a wide scale will bring us.
Saying, "well, I had to live this way so fuck everybody else, they should have to live this way too!" is a loser mindset (not insulting you, insulting the mindset).
Conversely, though, saying, "nobody should have to live this way!" is just as naive as christians believing abstinence is ever going to be something the public at large is going to take seriously. MOST people that live that way in the US, by far, live that way due to choices they have made. Generally, choices that people consider to be bad ones. Being criminals, being kiddie diddlers, being bad with money, marrying the wrong woman or abusing a woman, etc.
This is not to say that I don't understand that some people end up here based on bad luck, but those people are in the extreme minority. And I'm only speaking of adults when laying blame. Children can't control their circumstances and it's a damn shame any of them have to grow up in an environment like the one described.
At the end of the day, though, realistically, the best we can shoot for is less people living this way than more people living this way. Socialized housing on a large scale can ONLY lead to more people living this way.
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u/666truemetal666 Nov 25 '24
I'm talking about a 1500 apartment that was literally the only place that wouldn't rent to me because of the poor life choice I mad of daring to have both a ten pound dog and a cat.... I own a house in a other state and work my ass off, im not a unmotivated "loser"
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u/WhiteGuyBigDick Nov 24 '24
Let me know when there's a way to get free rents so I can stop working lmao
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u/666truemetal666 Nov 24 '24
I'm not saying free I'm saying not for profit so people are paying what's needed to cover costs and labor but not line someone's pockets
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u/WhiteGuyBigDick Nov 25 '24
If the Gov built houses it would be triple the price of private sector. Gov is notorious for overspending on stuff.
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u/DrKronin Nov 24 '24
Allowing the few to hoard shelter and charge a kings ransom isn't working
The only reason that's possible is the artificial limits put on supply by our existing socialist-lite government. End the UGB and other stupid land-use policies, and prices will plummet. In the meantime, socialism is a shitty solution for problems caused by socialism.
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u/666truemetal666 Nov 24 '24
Limiting the building of housing stock isn't socialism it's just dumb misguided liberal nonsense. And you really think the benevolent mega corps won't charge everydime they can get and get tax write offs for all the vacant units like they do now?
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u/Jeff-the-Alchemist Nov 24 '24
Socialist lite? What part of our government is socialist?
Our hospitals are owned by private equity firms. Our health insurance options are all private companies.
We have local businesses closing because their corporate rent was jacked up, while the average person experiences both food and rent insecurity because of inflated costs largely tied to the fact that most of the rent options are corporate slumlords.
We have bottom of the barrel labor protections (looking at you Bigfoot). Education beyond k-12 is largely privatized.
Is the socialism in the room with us?
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u/ScaleEarnhardt Nov 24 '24
Didn’t see this comment, and just wrote one basically verbatim. Kudos, bold truth teller. You may be downvoted by the unwashed hordes, but I salute you
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u/educationaldirt285 Nov 24 '24
The only reason mine is lower than 30% is by having roommates, at the cost of my mental health lol
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u/purebredoregonian Nov 24 '24
Stop allowing rental companies to write off loss from empty units on their taxes.
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u/Greedy_Disaster_3130 Nov 24 '24
That’s not how the tax law works, you’re making it sound as if they could rent the unit for $2,000 but they keep it vacant they get to write off that $2,000 off and that’s not how the tax code works at all and they definitely don’t get back what they write off because that’s also not how the tax code works
Keeping a unit vacant always results in lost income/profit
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u/BlackFoxSees Nov 24 '24
IMO they're just making it sound like it would be better to add incentive for owners to rent units quickly
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u/Greedy_Disaster_3130 Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
No they’re spreading this really misleading claim that I see all the time that property owners can keep units vacant and they get all these lucrative tax cuts for doing so, which is simply not true
It’s not normal for owners to sit on vacant units, you lose money when you do that, property owners are incentivized to rent their properties because then they have rental revenue versus no rental revenue
The government doesn’t need to add incentive, more government isn’t going to solve this issue, getting out of the way and encouraging development of more housing will solve this issue
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u/purebredoregonian Dec 03 '24
In my opinion, they should not be able to write off any lost rents. That’s the point I was trying to make. I worked for Umbrella Properties and was told they could write off some of those losses.
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u/Greedy_Disaster_3130 Dec 03 '24
I’m a landlord, I’ve never been able to write off a penny of lost rents and I have a very good accountant
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u/purebredoregonian Dec 03 '24
Well you probably have integrity, something Umbrella Properties doesn’t have.
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u/Greedy_Disaster_3130 Dec 03 '24 edited Dec 03 '24
That’s just not how the tax code works and even if it was true one doesn’t get back what they write off, their taxable income is lowered and they save the rate at which they pay taxes at but regardless that isn’t how the tax code works
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u/purebredoregonian Dec 04 '24
I don’t know what to tell you. A quick google search says it is possible, plus I was told by the CFO they could. Maybe because it was a property management company they have different rules. Regardless, I’m not going to keep arguing this with you.
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u/127Heathen127 Nov 24 '24
lyrics to a certain Dead Kennedys song playing in my head
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u/OculusOmnividens Nov 24 '24
Too bad we didn't vote for the lady building 3 million new housing units.
Instead we get... what, I dunno? Weird bathroom laws or something? Oh, increased cost of imported goods, that's right.
I guess the housing plan is to just mass deport millions in order to free up housing.
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u/fzzball Nov 24 '24
Stop single-family zoning. Period.
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u/mortuorum_cibum Nov 24 '24
Wait, what? So everyone would live in duplexes->apartments? Yo, there's way more room here than that. How about not allowing people to own houses that they don't personally live in for less than a certain amount of the year. Or not allowing people to own more than two houses, period. Or not allowing rental housing properties to be used as investments or for-profit entities.
Getting rid of single-family zoning seems like a really drastic overreaction that a 20 year old city kid would come up with.22
u/Moarbrains Nov 24 '24
No property taxes for primary dwellings. Double taxes for secondary and triple on the third.
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u/Independent_Fudge630 Nov 24 '24
Some people use rentals for their retirement, bad idea
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u/MountinD Nov 25 '24
Those people should stop holding housing to the detriment of their community and peers
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u/fzzball Nov 24 '24
That's not how zoning works. NYC has no single-family zoning and yet there are plenty of single-family homes.
ALL multifamily rental properties are investments (or owned by the government), so your scheme is dumb.
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u/ScaleEarnhardt Nov 24 '24
But, but, but building single family homes results in urban sprawl and creates suburbs and is bad for the environment. The only solution is to not make any progress at all and brutally stunt our city’s growth and progress.
Add in a never-extending urban growth boundary and it’s basically condemning the city to slowly but surely fail. I can see the overzealous 20 year old now….
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u/fzzball Nov 24 '24
How is promoting car dependence "progress"? The most successful cities have LESS car dependence.
Also? Single-family property taxes don't cover the cost of building out more single-family infrastructure. Sorry that you have hangups about density, but it's the only way to go.
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u/ScaleEarnhardt Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
Not everybody thinks that driving cars is the end of the world. In fact, holding back a local economy, making it unlivable by driving up rent, is a seriously short-sighted and ruinous way of going about your life.
Wake up call— The whole world isn’t going to suddenly start riding bikes, no matter the city design.
The impetus is on the automotive companies, the government, and the automotive consumer to invent, manufacture, implement, and ultimately choose to evolve into technologies that will be in balance with our world.
Hamstringing honest, hardworking promising communities by damning them for trying and intentionally reducing resources needed to succeed is as myopic and draconian as it gets.
And I wonder why the taxes are intentionally designed to not support single families. Curious, isn’t it?? You’d think government officials who care about the bedrock of our society would want to encourage and help families, especially with lower-income or starter homes.
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u/fzzball Nov 24 '24
You've failed to understand what I said and you got it backwards. The tax structure DOES support single-family construction, because the taxes on multifamily properties subsidizes it. In other words, the people with the least are paying for infrastructure and services for someone else's home ownership.
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u/ScaleEarnhardt Nov 24 '24
I’m not familiar with the exact subsidies or taxes, it’s relevant, certainly, and I’ll look into it, but honestly they are besides the current point. I heard you loud and clear when you said ‘promoting car dependence’ isn’t progress. My points still stand.
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u/hobbyhearse83 Nov 24 '24
This is an economy of scale issue. Single family dwellings do not support the cost of their infrastructure, but multifamily units concentrate the property tax cost per capita, allowing for, say, 5-10 taxpayers owning units on a cottage court or multiplex on the same footprint as a single family dwelling. Walkable neighborhoods mean less car dependence and more convenience* to walk to our everyday places that we normally drive to due to distance from a single dwelling unit.
*zoning laws really fucked up the way neighborhoods have worked pre-war; not allowing small markets, local stores, dining, services, etc. in a neighborhood makes those resources less convenient to walk to, while also adding some infrastructure costs by having to build and maintain more miles of road.
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u/ScaleEarnhardt Nov 25 '24
I’ve lived all over this nation, east, west, north, and central parts of the country. Huge cities, to midsized cities, college towns, to one road towns, to totally rural. Downtown, midtown, old town, suburbs, and farms. I’ve lived in mud floor huts, tents, employee housing, to ramshackle apartments, industrial lofts, to very chic condos and apartments, to mansions beyond most people’s comprehension…. And I think Eugene has been dealt some really poorly designed neighborhoods over the years. Particularly pre-war and immediately post-war, but also leading up to today. Rigid, plain, inattentive to the details that bring fluidity and cohesion between class, value, and scale. Access to culture and amenity, form, came in a hard last to basic function.
But there are also some pretty beautiful and, to emphatically repeat a word I made a point of using in a comment above, mindfully crafted neighborhoods that absolutely have taken these complex yet essential variables in mind. It’s absolutely not impossible to both extend our UGB in strategic and constructive ways while also encouraging the building of multi family development.
I’m pulling away from your comment that you perceive the issue as being not necessarily about an increase in residential zoning, but essentially a need for more creative and inspired commercial zoning within residential neighborhoods, particularly in ways that encourage something more than the bland strip malls this town is known for.
Economy of scale is always a factor, but its almost too easy to flip that around and point out that the scale of our economic approach to our current societal circumstance is simply, very clearly, not working. Numbers don’t lie on both ends of this sociological equation, and sometimes the investment you think is antiquated in one sense ends up being essential and ultimately profitable for other unforeseen, downstream reasons. To write it off is overly simplistic and exactly how we got here in the first place.
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u/bartonlong Nov 24 '24
If it is inside a UGB Oregon no longer allows exclusive single dwelling unit lots. ALL lots are at a minimum duplex lots and if big enough (and most older ones are big enough) they can be triplex or quadplex lots automatically with no planning review and only building permit review that must be granted if you meed minimum building code requirements (and take care of things like sewer connections and not flooding your neighbors with excessive runoff from all the new roofs)
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u/Unlikely-Display4918 Nov 24 '24
I heard it is $38000 to 40000 for permits in eugene to build a house!? This is definitely a piece of this shit puzzle.
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u/Greedy_Disaster_3130 Nov 24 '24
$40,000 is pretty low, it’s honestly most likely higher, it’s much higher than that in Portland
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u/bartonlong Nov 27 '24
Well it depends on the house and the lot, and it is broken down into sveral different categories. The actual building permits are usually around 1% of the building value across the board for both commercial and residential. City system development charges vary widely across the state, in Springfield the city charges are around 20k for 3-bedroom 2.5 bath house (which most new houses are pretty close to this) but for a larger mcmansion kind of build might be 30k (mostly for more bathroom/plumbing fixtures). Park charges are around 4k (i think) and then utility fees are on top of that and I don't know for sure what those are currently, but last i did know a few years ago about 7500 for electricity and water supply.
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u/band-of-horses Nov 24 '24
Are you sure? There was a law passed a few years ago but it only required municipalities to allow multi-unit builds on properties, not require them. They just finished a new development of entirely single family houses nearby me...
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u/Quartzsite Nov 24 '24
That is correct. The new zoning laws allow multi family in all residential zones, they do not require them.
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u/bartonlong Nov 27 '24
This is true, a builder can still build a single dwelling, but that is up to property owner/builder. No legal residential lot in Oregon inside a UGB can be single dwelling only, every lot is a potential duplex lot at a minimum.
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u/fzzball Nov 24 '24
That's only a minor improvement. We need way more real multifamily zoning.
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u/bartonlong Nov 27 '24
That is all there is now-it is all multifamily zoning. Every legal lot is a duplex lot automatically. Now getting the very conservative (not politically just ordinary opposed to change money and construction businesses) to see and understand this is a different problem.
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u/PVT_Huds0n Nov 24 '24
That's only a temporary solution, rents across the nation are artificially high.
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u/Dan_D_Lyin Nov 24 '24
Most property managers require you to make at least 3x the rent, not to mention the outrageous deposits.
If only 50% of people can get into housing, at some point you'd think they'd have to drop the rent, or risk apartments sitting empty.
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u/Pertutri Nov 24 '24
Rent rarely decreases because building values are tied to rental income. Lower rents reduce the property’s value, making it harder for owners to refinance loans without losses, risking their business.
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u/Greedy_Disaster_3130 Nov 24 '24
This is only with commercial properties
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u/Pertutri Nov 24 '24
Yep, on the West Coast, including Oregon, apartment buildings with five or more units are usually considered commercial properties.
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u/Greedy_Disaster_3130 Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
That’s not a West Coast thing, that’s the entire country but I just want to make clear that that’s not how properties are valued that aren’t commercial which is a lot of rental properties
Rent doesn’t decrease because there is a massive housing shortage; Look at Austin Texas, they built a lot of housing and both rents and housing prices went down significantly; it isn’t because of how commercial properties are valued, it’s because of the most basic economics principle and that is supply and demand
If we built 25,000 new housing units in Eugene both rents and home prices would drop significantly but that won’t happen because the city and the state have done everything they can to stop that from happening while also complaining about rent and home prices
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u/TheRisingValkyrie Nov 26 '24
My complex had apartments sitting empty - then they made a deal with the local immigration place to house all the refugees from Pakistan. Now no one else can get in as its filled immediately. They didn't raise my rent the last few years tho so whatever
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u/Dan_D_Lyin Nov 26 '24
That's kind of awesome actually.
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u/TheRisingValkyrie Nov 26 '24
Yeah the cost is the lowest I can find in essentially the whole state for what I have. I would tell people about this place and they just wouldn't apply lol. Snooze you lose I guess. Lived here 4 years. Rent raised once.
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u/erika1972 Nov 24 '24
Gross or net income?
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u/RottenSpinach1 Nov 24 '24
US Census Bureau says pre-tax.
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u/Aolflashback Nov 24 '24
Cool cool, because almost half of my paycheck already goes to taxes and healthcare.
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u/Moon_Noodle Nov 24 '24
I managed to buy a condo but you bet your ass I'm gonna be house poor for a while. At least I'm building equity I guess.
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u/Bassnerdarrow Nov 24 '24
If the new administration does half of what it claims it wants to do with mass deportation, we Oregonians are in for a rough go for at least 4 and, more likely, 8 more years when it comes to our housing crisis.
It is shaping up to be a perfect storm of just enough federal judges that will more than likely refuse to sign warrants for deportation in the state of Oregon along with Oregon and Illinois being the two strongest "Sanctuary States" that will inevitably draw immigration into the state of Oregon at rates I believe we have never seen.
By our own sanctuary state rules and laws we are more or less inclined to refuse warrants and we are one of the few states that have said that and I am sure California will also participate in the same kind of federal disobedience but we are more than likely to see the brunt of the illegal immigration woes of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Florida.
We will be holding up the federal/state court systems over the issue, but in the meantime, we better prepare for the wave of immigration or collectively make a decision to reverse our sanctuary state status.
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u/letsmakeafriendship Nov 24 '24
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u/notime4morons Nov 24 '24
"The only way to get lower average rents is to reverse migration into Eugene or increase the housing supply."
Right, need to find a way to entice people to leave and dissuade others from coming, then rents will do down. This would have a much quicker than adding more a few more units would. People moving here and complaining about the cost of housing don't seem to want to accept responsibility their role in exacerbating the "crisis".
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Nov 24 '24
Imagine the flood of new residents from all over the planet, if Eugene/Springfield suddenly had affordable housing/rents.
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u/oregon-dude-7 Nov 25 '24
Property managers should only be able to profit so much from renters. That needs to be fucking controlled. If people have more money that will boost the economy. Soon we will have stagnation because of the high cost of living.
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u/ShastaPlaster Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
edit nm
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u/LocalInactivist Nov 24 '24
Meaning you need to make about $80,000 a year to afford a one-bedroom. How did we get here?
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u/ShastaPlaster Nov 24 '24
The giant corporations that own a lot of the housing in this country will do everything they can to keep you barely head above water and just on the edge of drowning. That's their purpose, to extract the maximum amount of money from you as possible without leaving you unable to pay the next month. You never drown but you also never get ahead enough to escape from wage slavery and devotion to what they have.
The fix is insanely simple: Enact laws that make it illegal to charge renters more than 25% of their gross income for anyone making under $100,000 a year. Problem solved.
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u/PNWthrowaway1592 Nov 24 '24
How many units of housing in Eugene are owned by giant corporations?
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u/fzzball Nov 24 '24
Very few, despite the impression you'd get from this sub. Housing is expensive because demand exceeds supply.
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u/oreferngonian Nov 24 '24
Managed and owned are two different things
Due to many factors most rentals are managed by companies vs the owner
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u/ShastaPlaster Nov 24 '24
It's a nationwide problem, not just a local one, but the nationwide issue affects us at a local level.
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u/L_Ardman Nov 24 '24
Most houses in this town are owned by middle class people. And your plan is a recipe for mass homelessness.
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u/blackviper6 Nov 24 '24
See and the shit thing is that figure is calculated off gross income and not net.
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u/AxDeath Nov 24 '24
https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/41039
only updated once a year, but here is the MIT living wage calculator for our area again
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u/Chardonne Nov 24 '24
There was an article in today's Register-Guard about the most affordable city in the US for a renter who was earning minimum wage (presumably of the place where they were renting, not necessarily Federal minimum wage). And the winner was ... Buffalo, NY. But even that would require 39% of your salary, not 30%. And that was supposedly the best deal in the country.
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u/trapercreek Nov 25 '24
Speaks to OR Democrats’ abject failure to address meaningful & effective minimum wage & rent cap controls that protected their most vulnerable to burden constituencies.
Instead, they’ve caved to lobbying pressure & campaign contributions from the business & landlord/property owner interests for the past 2 decades. Our current Gov played a huge role in this as Speaker.
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u/Wonderful_Medium1187 Nov 25 '24
My half of mortgage is 53% my monthly income. I make well above minimum wage and work 55-60 hours a week
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u/CheeseGraterFace Nov 25 '24
11.6% here. But there are hentai pictures up all over the house. You get what you pay for.
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u/Justlikearaindrop Nov 26 '24
Yeah, and good luck finding a decent apartment for that price. Most apartments around here are 1400+. It is terrible.
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u/Few-Cry-9763 Nov 28 '24
A one bedroom apartment is a luxury, have a two bedroom apartment with three roommates would be more affordable.
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u/No-Reporter-2769 23d ago
Wow yall pay alot for rent out there I was thinking about trying to get a place out there so I could help my son but sounds like I would be homeless with him I better stay my butt In Louisiana where I can afford this nice 3 bed room house with a big nice yard for only 600$ a month I wish my son would move home he Hates Louisiana and will not come home I'm just a sad mom missing her son he's in Eugene
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u/Next_Mechanic_8826 Nov 24 '24
The government isn't coming to save you from this issue. Better plan on earning more money, only way to escape the rent trap.
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u/SnooMachines6509 Nov 24 '24
The government definitely hasn't helped hawaii, north Carolina, or East Palistine Ohio after disasters.... why would they help us.
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Nov 24 '24
HOW DARE YOU say the quiet part out loud! Yes, some people simply will never be able to afford living on the west coast, despite how intensely they lOvE tHe aREa. If you want to stay, you better start steering your academic goals toward "Hedge Fund Manager."
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u/TieImportant6603 Nov 24 '24
Okay but hedge fund managers still like to go to restaurants and go shopping and enjoy leisure activities and the people staffing those jobs can’t just commute from states away. If we want all these people around, we have to make it possible for them to live here.
-6
Nov 24 '24
Truth...people have sadly been developing a mommy and daddy complex with the government. We need less government, not more.
0
u/I-will-judge-YOU Nov 24 '24
Ok, what do you suggest.
2
u/TheLordofAskReddit Nov 24 '24
Get a two bedroom for $1550 and get a roommate
2
u/I-will-judge-YOU Nov 24 '24
This is how I got out of homeless as a teen. Cheap apartment with a few roommates
0
0
u/Ordinary_Plane8700 Nov 24 '24
It’s fucked be lane county cops are ptsd handicap pussies that can’t fight
0
u/Next_Mechanic_8826 Nov 24 '24
Your lack of income is NOT your landlords problem. This thinking your rent should be based on a certain percentage of your income is fantasy land......
-1
u/squatting-Dogg Nov 24 '24
Get a roommate. Doing nothing and waiting for “someone” to fix the problem is a stupid strategy.
-3
u/Fotzlichkeit_206 Nov 24 '24
Petition for the state of Oregon to build 10 brezhnevka apartment blocks in Eugene, 10 in Salem, and 30 in Portland.
After that, we change the name of Eugene to Yevgeny, the name of Salem to Miroslav, and Portland to Pristav.
soviet anthem begins playing
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u/Odd-Buffalo-6355 Nov 24 '24
Are you saying, half the people earn an average wage that will afford them an average apartment?
-5
u/WhiteGuyBigDick Nov 24 '24
I'll be frank. Too many unskilled laborers trying to make it in a rich cost of living state. They can deal or go to Mississippi. You don't deserve to live in a wealthy area just because you were born there.
1
0
u/purplespacekitten Nov 25 '24
We need “unskilled” laborers to staff restaurants, grocery stores, and coffee shops. Would you still want to live here if there were no such services available?
The people who work those jobs also need to be able to live here.
0
-2
Nov 24 '24
Yeah its true, free market rules. This is not a communist country, there are plenty of those people can go to if they like.
-11
u/Z0ooool Nov 24 '24
Eh, I used to spend half my take home pay in rent. Gotta be honest: It taught me hard core budgeting that has served me in later years.
It's still not great, but, silver lining?
6
u/ShastaPlaster Nov 24 '24
The thing is, it doesn't have to be this way like, at all. But the giant corporations that own a lot of the housing in this country will do everything they can to keep you barely head above water and just on the edge of drowning. That's their purpose, to extract the maximum amount of money from you as possible without leaving you unable to pay the next month.
The fix is insanely simple: Make it illegal to charge renters more than 25% of their gross income for anyone making under $100,000 a year. Boom, problem solved.
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u/tri0xinn245 Nov 24 '24
This is a tough one. I think it's kinda always like this. My first apartment I got in 1993 was $400 a month and it was a pretty cheap one back then on West 11th. That $1 is $2.30 now.. so close to $950 now. I can find a cheap apartment for 950 in Eugene/Springfield now.. in fact that same apartment rents for $885 now. I also made like $6 an hour at Southwest airlines in Eugene(Morris Air) and 4.25 at Taco Time. People can make $16+ at Taco Bell now and more than that at other places. That's $2600(gross)/$2100 take home.. working full time. If you roommate with someone it should be very easy to rent something, that is if you can find someone you trust.
Hopefully with our new president we'll at least get some cheaper gas and prices on goods might start coming down a little.. and over time interest rates will drop enough that real estate isn't impossible for most people anymore.
But hey.. who knows
19
u/fzzball Nov 24 '24
Hopefully with our new president we'll at least get some cheaper gas and prices on goods might start coming down a little.
I have to ask how exactly you think he's going to do that.
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u/tri0xinn245 Nov 24 '24
When Trump left prices were at 2.10 average.. within a year they just about doubled. Several of Bidens first few day executive orders were to cancel profitable Arctic drilling and the Keystone pipeline. Prices immediately started rising. Trump will be reinstating some.. should see some drop fairly quick. We'll see though. Fingers crossed
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u/fzzball Nov 24 '24
When Trump left, 5,000 people a day were dying of covid and the economy was in a shambles. THAT was the reason gas prices were low.
Biden did NOT cut production, in fact the exact opposite is true.
https://www.vox.com/climate/24098983/biden-oil-production-climate-fossil-fuel-renewables
And the oil execs who paid for Trump to be in office, and who he's putting in charge of the Department of Energy, are NOT going to drive the price of oil down because that cuts their profits. Duh.
Oil companies are already signaling they will pull back on drilling next year as crude oil prices sag. And companies are wary that Trump’s threatened tariffs will worsen trade tensions, driving up their costs and risking closing off foreign markets for their energy exports.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/07/trump-win-pyrrhic-victory-for-oil-industry-00187559
You got scammed, bro.
-19
u/tri0xinn245 Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
Guess we'll find out. You can thank me later :) .. Oh yeah.. Trumps gas prices were substantially lower than Obama's as well... in fact the lowest since 2005. Probably just a coincidence though..
10
u/fzzball Nov 24 '24
This is false. Gasoline prices were falling for more than a year BEFORE Trump took office and then increased while he was president. As much as you'd like to believe otherwise, Trump doesn't have magical powers.
The fact is that the president has very little ability to lower gas prices. And grocery prices definitely ain't coming down. Unless Trump crashes the economy again, that is.
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u/tri0xinn245 Nov 24 '24
Of course.. So no matter what Trump can do no good. If things get worse it will be because of Trump.. and if things get better it will be because of Biden.
Bottom line just about every metric was better under Trump no matter how you explain it.. that's why he was just re-elected. People need to curb their TDS. I had someone follow me home about a week ago for over a mile.. and yell at me from my driveway because of my Trump bumper sticker. People really bought into the CNN/MSNBC/ hate. People will wake up though when things get back to the way they were.
7
u/fzzball Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
He was re-elected because people have short memories, don't understand basic economics, and are lousy at determining cause and effect.
Bottom line is that Trump has ONE big test as president and he royally screwed it up. I'm not going to write a long essay on everything he did wrong, but the death rate was MUCH worse in the US than in other Western countries. Conversely, under Biden post-covid inflation and the recovery of the economy was substantially better than in other countries. Nearly all economists were predicting a recession, but it never happened, and you can thank Joe Biden for that.
Trump badly mismanaged covid and in all likelihood killed about half a million people, but what you remember is the brief period of $2.00 gas. And you wonder why we think you're idiots.
-1
u/tri0xinn245 Nov 24 '24
Biden only made things worse.. more people died in his first year than in Trump's year with Covid.. and that's with Trumps fast tracked vaccine that Biden said was a pipe dream.. but decided to force people to get if they wanted to keep their jobs(like me).
Luckily he only got a fraction of his climate change act(inflation reduction act) otherwise things would be getting even worse.
And unvetted illegal immigration to the tune of 10-20 million.. who knows. Crime/Fentanyl.. 400k kids that are lost or dead.. or likely in sex slavery.
Trumps got an uphill battle. But things will improve.. no matter how you'll explain it to yourself when it does.
We'll have to disagree.. for now :)
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u/fzzball Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
Interesting. So was the vaccine effective or not?
Also, Trump didn't have a full year with covid. Covid cases didn't start to take off until April.
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u/fzzball 26d ago
Not even inaugurated yet and he's already admitted that his promises to lower prices were a scam (Time interview):
Yet already, the President-elect is moving the goalposts on some of his pledges, like lowering the price of groceries. “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up,” Trump says. “You know, it’s very hard.”
1
u/tri0xinn245 23d ago
yeah .. yeah... doesn't matter what he does or doesn't do. You have TDS and won't acknowledge anything.. it will be Biden's/Obama's administration to credit if things improve and completely unquestionably Trumps fault if things don't improve. And if it's a mix of good and bad you can do both :)
And in 4 years you can jump on the "Vance is a white Supremacist/nazi/dictator" or whatever the nasty line is.
What happened to the good 'old days where the biggest differences between the Republicans and Democrats were the Dems just wanted to spend a bit more on social programs. Now the dems won't even define a woman.. think it's ok to give kids drugs that will sterilize them... harbor illegal immigrants that literally have rape/assault/murder charges against them in other countries and in ours.... and if you gave them full reign would spend so much money on climate change theories that it would sink our country. I could go on.. but you'll figure it out at some point.. hopefully it's not too late for you.
Good luck man/woman or whatever you identify as.
1
u/fzzball 23d ago
lol you must have "Trump derangement" if you can't see that the guy is full of shit. The president cannot magically make the cost of living go down and even he knows that. Too bad you and the other 49.7% of voters don't.
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u/tri0xinn245 20d ago
Let's see.. he was president for 4 years and did a pretty darn good job.. it's like you TDS people can't remember more than 4 years ago. Never said he would magically improve everything but he can get us moving back in the right direction.. and stop the woke idiots who want to "re-imagine" our country.
You'll be enlightened at some point... hopefully your young and still have time.
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u/fzzball 20d ago
I have to ask: "Right direction" means what exactly? And what exactly does it mean to "make America great" and why is Trump the guy who can accomplish that?
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u/tri0xinn245 19d ago
the right direction would be.. get back to less illegal border crossings like Pre Biden.. re-open some of the profitable oil drilling contracts as well as continue construction on the keystone pipe line.. allow Anwar drilling again, like Pre Biden... some diplomacy with foreign countries instead of just spending billions on war, like Pre Biden... stop going after political opponents.... curb some of the spending on climate change theory.... lots of other things.
Trump is the guy to do this because he was doing this pre Biden. In fact I have my quibbles with Obama/Bush/Clinton but at least I felt like they were the ones making the decisions. Biden was way off the rails and Harris when asked what she would have done differently she said "I can't think of anything". Terrible answer. I think if the dems would have selected a few different options at their convention this year things may have turned out different.
I don't think Trump is a perfect person.. far from it but he was definitely treated different by the media. Imagine if they would have gone after Biden for everything.. including keeping documents for 40 years he shouldn't have had.. especially as a senator which he was found guilty of.. or the many women who accused him of things.. Do a little research on Tara Reade which was one of them .. and his "inappropriate showers with dad" according to his daughter which was also confirmed. Imagine the media if Trump was accused of this.
Anyway.. I'm rambling
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u/fzzball 19d ago
Ok, thanks for the answer, but all of this begs the question. Why would climate change denial, trashing ANWR, giving Putin a big chunk of a sovereign nation's territory, or reducing the number of border apprehensions make America great?
And going after political opponents is a centerpiece of Trump's agenda, so I'm not sure what you mean there.
1
u/tri0xinn245 18d ago
holy cow.. did he go after political opponents before? No he didn't.. literally the opposite happened. They've been after him since day 1. And it's pretty telling that for everything they've accused him of the only things he's been convicted of is overvaluing property where there were no complaints(other than the judge) and a non disclosure agreement from 8 years ago where it was filed incorrectly according to some people. And yeah.. He's said of some people he thinks they should be in jail for doing stuff they did to him and put the country through ... but also said it's definitely not at the top of his list and said making the country better and more prosperous will be his revenge. He's said this about every time they ask him about it.
Also there is climate change.. always has been forever. Not denying anything.. just saying we shouldn't spend trillions and slowly bankrupt our country in an attempt to convert to some magic energy that can't replace oil at this time. Especially when China/India and other massive polluters have little intention to spend money or show very little care in improving their smoggy emissions. We are getting closer to cleaner energy but not there yet.. other countries are starting to do more nuclear energy which is about as clean as you can get but of course has the stigma and I'm sure big oil won't let that happen easily.
No one wants Putin to have any chunk of a nation like what happened with Crimea(Obama)... but no one will tell us who is winning there.. all we know is millions of deaths and many billions have been spent for what 3-4 years now.. and Putin has his huge arsenal of nukes if he starts to get panicky. I for one would welcome some diplomacy about now. For some reason Biden is fine with having peace talks and trying for diplomacy in Israel.. but he is fine not even attempting anything like that with Ukraine/Russia.
It's weird no matter what I say to people like you and I know quite a few in Eugene.. that you/they will never give an inch.
I'm gonna call it done on this conversation. Good luck and Merry Christmas !
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u/rollerroman Nov 24 '24
Don't interject logic into a reddit thread. My first apartment in Eugene in 2000 was $465 a month. I made $6.60 an hour at Target. As a ratio of how many hours at target you need to work to afford that same apartment, it's actually less today than it was 24 years ago.
2
u/Mountain-Candidate-6 Nov 24 '24
No one looks at wages vs rent. You’ll get downvotes for your comment but rent is up in relative proportion of wages over the last 20 years. The one thing no one wants to do it seems is have a roommate or two. That’s how most people used to get by but today everyone wants single bedroom alone and then wonder why they can’t afford anything
2
u/rollerroman Nov 24 '24
I had a roommate (my girlfriend) and the first year we were here we couldn't afford to turn the heat on, we shared a car, and we both had full time jobs. As you said, maybe people just expect more these days.
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u/uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhnah Nov 24 '24
I spend more than 80% lulz