The comments here are so far not good. The big problem in Seattle, as in many other U.S. coastal cities, is zoning, which prohibits the supply of housing to rise to meet demand. See my post, "Do millennials have a future in Seattle? Do millennials have a future in any superstar cities?" (<a href="https://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/24/do-millennials-have-a-future-in-seattle-do-millennials-have-a-future-in-any-superstar-cities/" rel="nofollow">https://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/24/do-millennials-have-a-fut...</a>) or "Zoning's Steep Price" (<a href="http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/2002/10/v25n3-7.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/re...</a>) for more detail.
High-density housing has been going up throughout the area because the population is skyrocketing. It's true that single-family homes are in short supply and sell quickly, but they can't build enough single-family homes to keep pace with the demand; there simply isn't space, <i>especially</i> in the city. Wallingford is a desirable neighborhood and rents are going to increase there. That's just reality. These tenants had been insulated from the last decade of market pressures, but there are plenty of apartments available.<p>I do sympathize with their situation. Being priced out of your home and having to quickly find a new place and move is incredibly stressful and can be personally devastating if you've grown attached to where you live, your neighbors, etc. And I do think legally limiting the rate of rent increase each year (as a percentage of overall rent) is a reasonable compromise. Unfortunately, with Amazon and other tech companies importing thousands and thousands of young men with six-figure salaries, housing prices in general will only continue to increase.
Free lunch! The home hoarding rentier class have been engorging themselves on the biggest free lunch going for a generation. Funded with borrowed into existence free money, and protected from market forces on the downside using money taken from the very people they're pricing out, in the form of state funded intervention and negative real interest rates.
Oh dear, what a headline.
What about the 'free lunch' that landlords already enjoy in the form of rent, just by owning property. Or should that be "im-property".
Are the rent increases part of the inflation indexes ? I ask because Fed seems hell bent on stoking up inflation and I don't see why this shouldn't be part of it.
Housing articles appear on HN quite frequently and the comments are usually quite devisive. The same people that deride owning property as a terribly illiquid investment also complain about instability with regards to rent. Yes a 30 year mortgage may cost you interest expense and yes your down payment is locked up in an illiquid asset buy one of the main things you get is stability in your cost of housing. Your 20 year old self may be fine with moving here or there,telecommuting, etc..buy your 60 year old self on fixed income may be in another boat being forced to move from a community you have been in for 30 years. Buy land...it's the only thing they aren't making more of. Take a RE investment class, learn about valuations, figure out a place where you want to live. As hard as it is to do now...IMAGINE YOUR LIFE AT 60 OR 70. Set yourself up to be in control of your life then and make the immediate gratification sacrifices now.
"Their pleas for a smaller, phased-in rent hike were rejected.<p>“We couldn’t believe it. All my friends have just said that it’s not right,” Haug said. So now, they’re getting ready to move out."<p>Would they have preferred he had raised the rent slowly over the last five years, thereby resulting in more money paid to him overall?
I'm not very familiar with the situation, but could these fast rising prices have anything to do with the recent bump in minimum wage in Seattle to $15? It doesn't mention it in the article.<p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/02/19/seattles-15-minimum-wage-jobs-down-unemployment-up-this-isnt-working-is-it/" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/02/19/seattles-...</a>
Since these rent hikes usually occur when a property changes ownership, we should encourage landlords to offer their tenants a first right of refusal to purchase. At least it would prime every tenant's mind that the rental terms might change one day.<p>I recently told one of my tenants that I'd be selling the property next year and would give her first rights. She now keeps the front yard clean (the city had filed past complaints), she is saving money to prepare, and she has hope. Simply put, she is a better citizen.<p>People need encouragement to think long term. It is human nature to not consider risks when things haven't been a problem in the past. Nearly everyone now wears a seat belt and a helmet, but a few decades ago even the smartest people didn't bother until they were strongly and repeatedly encouraged to do so.