r/personalfinance • u/WhiskeySauer ​ • Dec 07 '16

My 6-Year Journey from $60K College Debt to $115K Net Worth & 816 Credit Score [OC] Other

Getting a good job, paying off your debts, living cheaply, and saving as much as you can is straightforward advice, but it has always been hard for to me follow it without having something to visualize. So I started doing all of my budgeting on my own in MS excel and I’m using it to help me visualize my financial decisions and plan out my strategy to retire early. Here’s the total breakdown of how I have spent every dollar I’ve earned over the last 6 years. By keeping my expenses super low I was able to pay off my debts pretty quickly and my credit score spiked to over 800.

http://imgur.com/WEPAfry

Another great thing about budgeting on my own is that I can plan out the future easier. Here’s my projected spending into year 2030.

http://imgur.com/HRhyANF

If you're interested, here’s how I gather the data to make these spreadsheets:

http://imgur.com/a/zbWa2

And here is a link to my spreadsheet template if you want to start your own budget for 2017:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0/view

Disclaimer: This is a cross-post from /r/financialindependence that I'm bringing here based off the attention the post received on my budget/chart layout.

edit: grammar

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162

u/Iagos_Beard ​ Dec 07 '16

Bay Area reporting: 3 roommates, 6 years rent control, paying more than double your rent+utilities. Last time we had a vacancy, we put up an ad and had 53 applications in under 24 hrs when we took the ad down. For some perspective, the identical unit below us just lost their last master tenant (that unit signed the same time as us, so ~6 years ago), the landlords increased their rent 89% from the previous rent (which is what we pay).

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u/Antedev Dec 07 '16

I pay 1500 a month for a 1 bedroom cottage that is smaller than a 1 br apt. (room only fits my bed. ) and i live an hour away from my job because I cant afford anything closer. ;/

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u/fredandlunchbox ​ Dec 07 '16

16th and Mission here: $1685 / month for my room in a 2 bedroom, and we've had shootings, stabbings, robberies, beatings all directly in front of my house. At least its... well, I mean its... no nevermind it's terrible.

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u/marshull ​ Dec 08 '16

Yeah, but you aren't far from El Faralito. Damn I miss those burritos.

2

u/Fiddlydick Dec 08 '16

I moved to SF for that place. Life changing

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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '16

Even the chips, which normally I wouldn't care about, are delicious

1

u/tr0janman Dec 08 '16

Try out taqueria guadalajara. The al pastor is fantastic and their salsa bar is amazing.

1

u/Lilpeapod Dec 09 '16

That's still there? I miss that place.

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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '16

[deleted]

0

u/fredandlunchbox ​ Dec 08 '16

Like I said, there's not much else that's cheaper in San Francisco. If I want to pay less, I'll have to move to Oakland or Daly City or get more roommates in a different house. It's tough.

6

u/hotoven1 Dec 08 '16

I mean, you could move easily in SF to save money and be in a safer neighborhood. I've seen tons of 2 bedroom places with parking for around $2800 in the inner Sunset/Richmond.

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u/Bankster88 Dec 08 '16

My bro lives in Richmond. Pays $2800 for a nice 1-bedroom.

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u/sasquatch_melee ​ Dec 08 '16

That's insane. I pay $400 for a 2 bed 2.5 bath 2 car garage condo w/fenced yard, finished basement and creek/trees view (no mortgage). I invest a good chunk of my income as a result. CA is beautiful but I couldn't bring myself to ever part with that much $$ for rent.

1

u/Bankster88 Dec 08 '16

No, it's not insane. I encouraged him to do it too. He moved from Chicago and making $30k to SF and making $140k. It's totally worth it. And not just bc of the money - the quality and density of experience sets you up for life.

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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '16

encouraged him to do it too

I mean...how much encouraging did it take? Doubling your rent but quintupling your salary is a no-brainer if you can do simple math.

2

u/Bankster88 Dec 08 '16

Not much. He can do simple math but the common response on here is "I would never move to such a high COL area!!!"

Just look above and through this post.

1

u/sasquatch_melee ​ Dec 09 '16

The pricing is insane, he's just making up for that with a higher salary. But there's also the potential to get a higher paying job in Chicago or other market that doesn't have the insane housing prices.

If you want to live in SF and the math works, great, do it!

1

u/Bankster88 Dec 09 '16

We are all from Chicago and my friends who live in SF can't get a better COL-adjusted compensation here. COL is a proxy for career and income potential for many white collared jobs. Embrace the big city life, it's the best and with the price!

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u/fredandlunchbox ​ Dec 08 '16

I have 2 cats, too. Literally 0 results for the criteria you described with cats.

3

u/RT1000 Dec 08 '16

Pets are expensive

1

u/hotoven1 Dec 08 '16

Not the exact location but...

https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/5909735038.html

They are out there...

Better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Rent for a month then inquire about the cats. I've had roommates do this many times and you just pay a deposit and fee.

Better to ask for forgiveness then permission.

Move in, hide the cats for a few months. Then ask and you will prob pay a small fee for them.

3

u/fredandlunchbox ​ Dec 08 '16

If anyone is reading this, don't do that.

You can be evicted, or they can tell you you have to get rid of your cats while still holding you accountable for the rent should you decide to move.

Your friend got lucky. The penalties can be very real.

Source: Got evicted from a place for having cats (even though we told the property manager ahead of time) when the property owner found out.

1

u/Idontlikethisshit Dec 08 '16

Richmond/Pinole area here 2bed2bath apartment $2k including some utilities and cat rent. I do have to commute for an hour but at the most is $8 to go and come from SF. Is not the best area but I refuse to pay more

2

u/WROL ​ Dec 08 '16

24th/Mission here. The struggle is real.

1

u/Fartingbricks ​ Dec 08 '16

Damn. Kick in the door robbery of a phone charger. I can't even..

1

u/mac2885 ​ Dec 08 '16

Yall San Fran guys have to get the f' out of that city. Take 80% of the money in Portland, Austin, Seattle, Houston, etc... and pay 1/3 the housing costs.

I down in Houston. 20 minutes from work, in the city. 2,400 sq. foot house with yard and pool. 1 roommate covers $700 of my $1,400 mortgage, taxes and insurance.

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u/KooliusCaesar Dec 08 '16

I could've told you that would happen before you even moved there. 16th to 24th is/was gang territory. Especially Dolores Park which they've cleaned up considerably. My buddy is SFPD and assigned to that area

0

u/indierocktopus Dec 08 '16

Ah, I stayed at 17 & Mission for a while on a contract gig. $900/mo for a tiny fold out bed in a small room. Not cool, SF. Not cool. burritos at the Little Chihuahua were worth it though.

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u/296milk Dec 07 '16

Sounds like you need to move instead of living like shit.

84

u/ionlypwn ​ Dec 07 '16

I live in Central Florida 3 bed 2 bath a touch under 2400 sqft. And I pay $975 a month in rent which includes lawn care.

174

u/732 ​ Dec 07 '16

Yeah, but that is central Florida...

103

u/FckReddit1 ​ Dec 08 '16

And he has to live there

8

u/onlyiknow1 Dec 08 '16

Which is beautiful.

8

u/nomadofwaves ​ Dec 08 '16

Yea beautiful weather year round. It's rough.

4

u/Ripred019 ​ Dec 08 '16

No, beautiful weather Dec - March.

11

u/Bubba_Junior ​ Dec 08 '16

Central Florida is amazing

14

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '16

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/catheterhero ​ Dec 08 '16

Unless you live in Celebration.

1

u/dcbrah ​ Dec 09 '16

Especially if your going to Wackadoos for a 30 ounce bladder buster

0

u/rohicks Dec 08 '16

HAH no, no it's not. Northern, panhandle, or the east/west coast only. Stay away from the southern tips and central.

1

u/Bubba_Junior ​ Dec 08 '16

Orlando is amazing man

0

u/rohicks Dec 08 '16

No it's not man.

1

u/XSavageWalrusX ​ Dec 08 '16

I like Miami.

12

u/DobbyDooDoo Dec 07 '16

We talking Kissimmee or something? Can't be Orlando or Tampa.

7

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

Yea has to be kiss. Can't be Orlando I pay 850 for a 1br

1

u/dflemingsss Dec 08 '16

I live in winter park, just off the ave for 1200 2/1 1200?sqft

1

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '16

I'm at semoran & Lee vista nice area of semoran by airport wife works at fedex on corner and I work bonefish grill well use too so works close

1

u/Spencer51X Dec 08 '16

Probably St. Cloud.

1200 foot 3 bedroom apartments in orlando go for 1300 a month easily.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '16 edited Jun 30 '18

[deleted]

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u/Spencer51X Dec 08 '16

I live in metro west, near universal. Two bedrooms usually go for like 1100ish around here and 3bd for like 1300-1400

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u/Bubba_Junior ​ Dec 08 '16

I don't even see Kissimmee being that cheap unless it's really ghetto

1

u/MontazumasRevenge ​ Dec 08 '16

When I lived in downtown Orlando in 2013 I had a 700 sqft 1 bedroom apartment with literally 2 windows (nice apartment though) and paid about $900/month. It was on the far end of downtown so about a mile walk to get to anything worth getting to. Same apartment now is $1100. Not terrible but not great. Get more bedrooms and the price goes up A LOT.

3

u/Winkus ​ Dec 08 '16

Not anywhere in central Florida someone wants to live. I'm guessing somewhere where there's a few too many confederate flags where you are.

2

u/evolvedant Dec 08 '16

I just checked Zillow using those exact requirements, went from seeing thousands of apartments available, to exactly ZERO as soon as I added your filter. Not even the worst of the worst neighborhoods had anything even remotely like that come up.

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u/ionlypwn ​ Dec 08 '16 edited Dec 08 '16

I live in Palm Bay, Florida, in the South side of it in the middle of no where so I don't have to worry about neighbors and I can go shoot my guns and ride dirt bikes on all the undeveloped roads without getting into it with the police. Also only 20 minutes from the beach.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '16

Central CA, 4 bd 2 bth, 2100 sq ft, 0.25 acre, custom build 1966, great developed neighborhood with high rating schools = $959/mo mortgage.

1

u/newborn_without_ins Dec 07 '16

West TN. 4 bed 2 bath 3000 sq ft. $1050 a month rent, but I have to do my own lawn care.

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u/MrDeerHunter Dec 07 '16

NE KS, 37 acres a 3 car garage, 2500 sq ft and a mortgage of $1080 a month... After a healthy down payment of 40k

1

u/Dont____Panic ​ Dec 08 '16

But you live in Rural Kansas. :-D

Cheapest run-down pile of shit house within 1 hour of my work would cost me.... $3600/mo PITI.

If I wanted one that didn't have 1970s era carpet and wood paneling that'd run $4300/mo PITI.

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u/MrDeerHunter Dec 08 '16

Wow. That would be rough. I don't know how anyone could afford that. It's not really that rural of an area. I am 30 mins from downtown Kansas City

5

u/SantistaUSA ​ Dec 08 '16

I hear ya. I'm in KCMO close to Zona Rosa I've got lucky finding a good inexpensive apartment. Little over 800 sqft for $645 with gas, water, trash included, laundry room is free to use and on top of that I've got Google Fiber. Cost of living is low comparing to other major cities but the income is also not that high either.

2

u/optigon ​ Dec 08 '16

The rents are bumping up quite a bit. I moved to KCMO a little over two years ago and managed to get a three bedroom, 1500 sqft place for $650 with all utilities covered except for electricity, but I live in the "Historic Northeast" and had to repaint my apartment.

I just moved my brother-in-law into town and it's hard to find much of anything for a similar rate.

2

u/SantistaUSA ​ Dec 08 '16

yes it is. I've been at my apt complex for almost 6 years and love it, but a different company just bought it few months ago and lots of things are changing and not for the better. They just try to take every body's storage and laundry room away to turn into new apartments but we are all still under previous owner's contract, and everyone complained and/or moved out so they put those plans on hold and are going to wait until everyone is under the new lease. Luckily my lease is good until May and I am looking for a house with my gf.

2

u/optigon ​ Dec 08 '16

That sucks!

I'm under a private landlord who spends three weeks out of the month in California. His handyman/security has a year plan to quit his job, so I'm cutting down debt and setting aside money for a down payment on something for when the day comes that he hires a property management company who will bump up my rent.

Good luck house hunting!

1

u/SantistaUSA ​ Dec 08 '16

Thanks. House market for buyers is tough right now, meanwhile I'm doing everything I can to cut down debt as well!

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u/optigon ​ Dec 08 '16

The sprawl being what it is, 30 minutes from Kansas City may as well be Kansas City if you're talking from downtown Kansas City and not one of the random suburbs that bump into it.

1

u/Rawtashk ​ Dec 08 '16

How's the internet out there though?

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u/indeedyouarecorrect Dec 08 '16

Best internet on the goddammed country! Kansas City ranks really high in cost of living / quality of life indexes.

1

u/MrDeerHunter Dec 08 '16

To be mild, it sucks. 1.5mb for $70 a month and no other options. It is exhaustive service too, so at night when you want to watch TV it cuts in and out or takes too long to buffer. (We have Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon)

1

u/Rawtashk ​ Dec 08 '16

Do you have a cap on that? I have a few KC rural area friends who have to pau about that and have a 20gb cap.

1

u/fuckthiscrazyshit Dec 08 '16

Similar, but I'm Alabama. I'd gladly take my place over an urban broom closet.

2

u/citizen_reddit Dec 08 '16

I can understand people staying in places with such high costs of living if they're making a great deal of money, but I don't understand it when people don't have the means and struggle so much.

There isn't much that would keep me in that type of area I don't think, but I know people have their own reasons.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '16

What is keeping you there?

1

u/Itchy_Craphole Dec 08 '16

Damn, I pay that and rent a whole big house off the beach in South Carolina!

1

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '16

Do you just earn that much more in America?

I pay £550 and that's considered a lot(a lot for anyone who isn't born into riches) for student/part timers. Split rent/bills two ways between my self and my flatmate so it's like 1100 total

1

u/snuka ​ Dec 08 '16

I'm guessing you don't live in London.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '16

Well no, but the person I responded to didn't live in NYC either.

1

u/snuka ​ Dec 09 '16

Fair enough

1

u/FCB_TB ​ Dec 08 '16

$1700 for a room in SF. And people are jealous of my "deal."

1

u/ziegler935 ​ Dec 08 '16

Tucson, AZ $650/month. 4 bed 2 bath...What's this lawn care that you speak of? I look out and just see rocks

1

u/Rawtashk ​ Dec 08 '16

Does your job not exist farther away from the coasts? I live in the Kansas City area and my MORTGAGE is less than that for a 4 bed 3 bath 2700sq ft house on a quarter acre in a nice neighborhood.

1

u/EONS Dec 08 '16

You must have some extremely undesirable qualities (big dogs, smoking, felonies, other strange shit) to be forced into such a claimed scenario.

I found a wide variety of things from South Bay to SF all cheaper and better than you described. And I did it in 3 weeks while having multiple offers.

1

u/dickholebrownsimpson Dec 08 '16

Have you considered vandwelling? Similar sq/ft for less, plus added mobility.

1

u/PokemonDoodler Dec 08 '16

I am from an area where I don't have this issue so I'd like to get your perspective if you don't mind. Why do you stay if it's so expensive to live there for so little space and so much wasted time commuting? What is the draw to the job/area that makes is worth all of that?

1

u/Antedev Dec 08 '16

Weather. Having Family close. And I just love the area.

Yeah, I can move to a lot of places and keep my job as I am a federal employee I can just transfer and get payed the same... Im just surviving right now and I convince myself that things will get better here if I stick around.

1

u/PokemonDoodler Dec 08 '16

I understand having family close, I hope it does get better! If not, take a risk and make it better!

1

u/Antedev Dec 08 '16

Yeah, Thanks. :)

0

u/MontagneHomme ​ Dec 08 '16 edited Dec 08 '16

You accepted this position, though, so I hope it makes sense for you. Personally, I'd flip burgers in a rural area before taking my dream job if it meant that I couldn't save as much of my income per year. My dream job can come back after I've secured my freedom.

EDIT: It should be noted that the value of taking calculated risks should be used which making such decisions.

2

u/Guoster Dec 08 '16

I don't know, it's kind of a invest in yourself vs. invest in your bank account kind of trade-off, I don't think I'd make the same choice as you.

1

u/MontagneHomme ​ Dec 08 '16

Very, very few people take it to such an extreme. Probably for good reasons; happiness and sanity being chief among them. The basics of it are what you and I disagree on, though. Money is measured in currency, but where I live (USA) it's also a measure of freedom. As far as investments into myself go, freedom is very high on the list of Needs. My needs are all more important to me than my wants; happiness being among them. That makes it a simple decision for me. I won't be happy about it, but the ability to delay gratification is, I believe, one of the core behaviors that leads to success.

2

u/Guoster Dec 08 '16

I agree with you that, in principle, you are saying everybody has their own priorities. However, investing in yourself is not about quality of life, it's about sucking it up and gaining the skills and knowledge to develop yourself and grow professionally and personally.

I won't be happy about it, but the ability to delay gratification is, I believe, one of the core behaviors that leads to success.

Funny you should say that, that core belief is EXACTLY what I'm advocating. For me my dream job is one, at the very least, in my field. I'd go for a unpaid internship in my field to get experience and skills to move me to that next level before I go flip burgers and waste my time just to get money, and freedom (as you prioritize). You are in fact not delaying gratification, but succumbing to it.

2

u/MontagneHomme ​ Dec 08 '16

I appreciate your perspective, and do not disagree with your assessment. However, I haven't and will not claim that such an approach is for everyone. The first word I submitted when I brought this up was, after all, "Personally."

You're right that there are times when one must take a calculated risk in order to achieve greater success. I did not adequately convey that in my original post, and am glad that you called me out on it. I suppose my mindset is that once the wagers have been made and the risk calculations approximated as closely as possible, the values are to be treated as absolutes until additional information is provided.

1

u/Guoster Dec 08 '16

I gotcha, and honestly, I'm really surprised by the rational measured response. Not very much of that on here, haha. I'm personally very similar in employing a risk based approach to my decision making, and then letting the decision play out.

2

u/Bankster88 Dec 08 '16

Literally the worst advice I have ever read on this sub.

1

u/MontagneHomme ​ Dec 08 '16

Duly noted.

0

u/onlyusernameleftsigh Dec 08 '16

I had an issue like this, as to where to live. I'm living with the gf so it would have cost us about $300+ our time to commute monthly. We figured it was worth it to then spend $300 more on rent and save our time. We went with a 1 bdr a block from both of our works for which we pay $1850.

3

u/NightGod ​ Dec 08 '16

I feel ya. In the Dallas area I'm paying $1800 a month for a 2 bedroom, but I'm eight minutes door to door for work. I could pay half that, but I'd be an hour+ each way. After 20 years of driving that sort of distance, the improvement in quality of life from being so close is well worth it.

39

u/Pulstastic ​ Dec 07 '16

Rent control, height restrictions, and NIMBYism is why the Bay Area is scewed in a macro sense

Amazing how such a highly-educated part of the country has managed to utterly fuck up its housing situation so much.

26

u/ngmcs8203 Dec 08 '16

Foreign investment buying up the property and managing the rentals isn't helping either.

10

u/EONS Dec 08 '16

Like the Chinese national living in China who owned the Oakland Warehouse where the fire happened. "She" owns over a dozen other properties, all but one of which, a laundrymat, seem to be illegally inhabiting people in one way or another (and nearly all have complaints).

2

u/Pulstastic ​ Dec 08 '16

I believe this. There should be heavy taxes on property not actually occupied for at least six months of a given year.

3

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '16

Call me a pessimist but the properties would still be bought up as investments, but only by a smaller population of even richer investors

8

u/ngmcs8203 Dec 08 '16

They're pricing out those of us who just want to buy a home. Not even as an investment property. Being outbid by somebody with cash and 25% more than asking is getting out of hand.

1

u/Pulstastic ​ Dec 08 '16

If taxes are high enough that returns are negative then investors won't invest

Even foreign investors just wanting to get money out of their communist countries will balk at -20%/year

0

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '16

Again, pessimist.

The overall property values and rent would just go even higher

1

u/Pulstastic ​ Dec 10 '16

That makes no sense. Making something financially damaging to hold makes its value go down not up.

17

u/Dont____Panic ​ Dec 08 '16

Rent control doesn't CAUSE high housing prices. It actually depresses real estate prices and has lots of other weird distorting effects, but it certainly doesn't CAUSE them.

Ultra-low interest causes high housing prices. Combine that with a concentration of high-end jobs and a scarcity of land...

You honestly think that an in-demand area like SF on a small pennensula could avoid high housing costs?

I mean Toronto has no height restrictions, so there are currently 65 major highrise buildings going up. That doesn't stop the median home price from being $1.45m and the cheapest pile of shit 3br in the ghetto being $759k.

It's where the jobs are, so people move here, even if it means getting 3 roommates and selling 3/4 of your stuff.

8

u/flash__ Dec 08 '16

There's a whole Bay Area that has refused to build new housing, refused to lift height restrictions, and refused to adapt to the influx of new workers. There is room, friend.

27

u/Pulstastic ​ Dec 08 '16

Of course rent control causes high prices. It depresses the prices of the unit actually subject to the control, but in the long run it decreases larger incentives to build more housing, leading to too-small housing stocks.

Yes, SF is in demand. But you're focusing on only one part of the supply-demand equation. Supply should be reacting to demand (via tons of new apartment buildings) but in SF it isn't. Why? Because Bay-Area politics fucks everything up.

You say that the situation is partially caused by SF being on a small peninsula. Maybe that's partially true. But if so, why is the rest of the Bay Area still so expensive? And even if SF's land area is limited, that still doesn't explain it. I enjoyed visiting SF a couple months ago. Beautiful city. But why oh why is so much of this "small peninsula" covered in quaint 2-story Spanish-style rowhouses? It makes zero sense. Somebody should go in and bulldoze whole blocks of them and erect half of downtown Chicago (whose rent, incidentally, is in comparison cheap as fuck) in their place. The fact that they politically can't is the kind of mismanagement that makes SF housing so expensive.

I can't speculate as to Toronto without knowing more about the city. All I can say is that I believe in basic economics.

0

u/pewpsprinkler Dec 08 '16

in the long run it decreases larger incentives to build more housing, leading to too-small housing stocks.

No it doesn't. It doesn't affect "housing" at all, only apartments. Homes, townhomes, and condos would simply be built instead.

Supply should be reacting to demand (via tons of new apartment buildings) but in SF it isn't. Why?

Uhhh, because it is on a peninsula and there is no significant room to add it.

You say that the situation is partially caused by SF being on a small peninsula. Maybe that's partially true. But if so, why is the rest of the Bay Area still so expensive? And even if SF's land area is limited, that still doesn't explain it.

You said 3 times in 2 sentences that the land scarcity doesn't explain it, almost like you are trying to convince yourself. You are wrong, the land scarcity is the lion's share of the problem.

Somebody should go in and bulldoze whole blocks of them and erect half of downtown Chicago (whose rent, incidentally, is in comparison cheap as fuck) in their place.

Are you serious? Do you have any idea how hard that is to do? The landowners would not consent. If you tried to seize their land with eminent domain for "redevelopment", they would fight you to the death in the courts. Fighting rich people doesn't work. That is why governments target poor people for redevelopment, and even then, it is a huge hassle.

The fact that they politically can't is the kind of mismanagement that makes SF housing so expensive.

You wouldn't feel that way if you owned one of the homes that some random internet guy wanted to bulldoze to jam pack in high density housing.

p.s. you can't just add a shit-ton of people into an area. You need the road infrastructure, utilities, and all that to be upgraded to match. THAT can be even more difficult. You can't just start dumping massive high rises on the same roads. The whole road network would clusterfuck.

2

u/Scalded1 Dec 08 '16

Rent control is pretty complicated and a lot depends on how it is implemented but yes it can constrain the rental market supply. it tends to favor some renters with lower prices and raise the prices for the rest of the renters.

1

u/pewpsprinkler Dec 08 '16

It does suppress rental property values, but not overall housing supply. It just means you end up with more housing for sale instead of for rent. Prices can't be raised over what the market can support no matter what, so you can't shift the costs onto other renters. They will just live somewhere else.

2

u/ohcrocsle Dec 08 '16

he's not saying to bulldoze without the owner's consent, he's saying that almost all of these places are rental properties and development companies should buy the properties and make high rise apartment buildings to capitalize better on the space.

the issue is that, like LA, there are restrictions on building development designed to prevent this because the people who own property in the cities don't want their property value to go down when housing supply increases.

1

u/pewpsprinkler Dec 08 '16

It isn't that simple. It isn't like a conspiracy to manipulate housing supply, it is more like (1) They don't want the traffic situation to be even worse than it already is, and (2) they don't want all the problems that come with high density housing, like crime, etc.

Increasing the resident population in an unplanned community means you have to upgrade a ton of other things, from roads to utility infrastructure.

1

u/ohcrocsle Dec 08 '16

you're right, there are a myriad of reasons to keep property value and rent high. there's not really any stimulus in the direction of lower rent and property values.

3

u/bmc2 Dec 08 '16

Rent control removes a ton of inventory from the rental market, which results in significantly lower supply. This causes higher rental prices.

You honestly think that an in-demand area like SF on a small pennensula could avoid high housing costs?

Have you ever been to the Bay Area? It's all single family homes and small apartment buildings. We could have significantly lower housing prices if we built more.

2

u/Dont____Panic ​ Dec 08 '16

So, I can buy height restrictions being a catalyst for cost growth. There's no doubt about that.

That said, places with similar desirability (Vancouver, Toronto) that have NO rent control have very similar prices for single family homes (the only exception being increased availability of high-rise units- which themselves are crazy expensive averaging $680k)

Rent control distorts the markets, but there are equal upward (supply constraints) and downward (reduced desirability of investment property) pressures and overall it appears to be almost neutral, to me.

1

u/WROL ​ Dec 08 '16

Had no idea it was that crazy in Toronto.

1

u/0102030405 ​ Dec 09 '16

The median home price is just over 800k according to the listing service, and the lower end is definitely not in the 700s. A small detached house is a sketchy area is around 400k or less.

Source for the first stat, with info about condos, semi-detached, and others: http://creastats.crea.ca/treb/mls/mls05_median.htm

I'm not saying that isn't much more expensive than other areas, it totally is. But for what it's become and where it's moving towards, it's pretty much in line with other dense metropolitan areas. The only difference is that it's happening extremely quickly. This happened to London, New York, LA, etc, but over a much longer period of time and with fewer condos of course.

The Bay Area is very similar to Vancouver, with the NIMBYism and the super high costs. But the wages are much lower.

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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '16

The local politicians realized they could keep their offices by raising the value of land. Make people rich by keeping land value high and they'll support you.

It's only the renters who get screwed.

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

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u/glasspheasant ​ Dec 07 '16

$2,800 a month in NC??? I lived in Raleigh and near Charlotte a decade or so ago. I know prices have gone up some, but you can still get a nice 2Br in uptown Charlotte for well under $2K.

I think that's part of what he's referring to when he talks about living within his means.

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

you can find reasonable rent in cities in the southeast (I'm guessing Charlotte). Get a roommate, look for rentals on craigslist and street signs.

I pay about $800/mo in Atlanta in an intown neighborhood 5 mins from work. Finding a good rent situation requires a few weeks of searching for a few minutes every few days.

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '16

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u/JayhawkRacer Dec 08 '16

I don't mean to sound crass, but why don't you move to another part of the country where income is more in line with cost of living? A good economy with high employment is the right time to search for career advancement.

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u/Iagos_Beard ​ Dec 08 '16

You're not being crass, its a valid question. There's a reason that rent is so high here, beyond the job market: it's a wonderful place to live. Ten minutes from the beach, two hours from great snow in the mountains. Some of the most beautiful state parks in the world within an hour drive. Its a truly eclectic place, culturally, traditionally, and socially. From a culinary and fine arts perspective, it hosts some of the best in the world. And its surely one of the most tolerant areas I've ever been to. We have our problems, sure. NIMBYism on one end of the spectrum, homelessness on the other. Its definitely not the best place to raise a family, and even with all its perks the cost of living is getting unwieldy. I've spent the happiest years of my life here, particularly undergraduate at Berkeley, which I couldn't be more grateful for. But you're right, there are good jobs with high quality of life elsewhere and I'll be moving on soon enough.