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[Caz]

How horrible is your rent and what % of your income? Discuss.


Where I live people who work here can only live in hostel because there are no houses they can afford.

[Frumple]

Ain't no one living in hostels around where I'm at but that's 'cause there ain't no hostels, ha. Closest one google's aware of is like an hour out and it's pretty damn doubtful anyone staying at one would be transiting to here, rather than working in the area it's in that actually has something resembling a job market. Folks longstay in some of the hotels but that's an even worse beast.

Average is around 4-500 USD/mo last I was looking at it, though. Not terrifying on the face of it in comparison to other places, but that's relative to like 20% of the area's population being below the poverty line (me too!) and no one really wanting to, like, live in this deadend shithole of a rural sump.

Also availability's kinda' iffy even if you have enough money to sustain it -- the housing stock never really bounced back from chunks of it getting knocked down by a cat 5 hurricane.

... anyway, I don't personally pay rent. Living in family owned, just covering utilities (which, in fairness, between that and food and transport and like an average of ~10 bucks a month in entertainment it's making what savings I had built up while my grandparents were alive slowly drain, so, y'know, budget's negative), so it's not been a primary focus. Not looking forward to dealing with it when I get around to leaving this place, blech

[McTraveller]

I think the highest percentage of my income I ever paid on housing was right out of college, and I had a roommate; think it was around 22% of my gross income.  Key thing, that: I had a roommate.  You want to cut housing cost?  Two people instantly cuts the rent in half.  The best marginal improvement you can make.

Now my housing is something like 7% of my gross income, and yes I do have a mortgage¹ but I bought the house I needed, not the house "I could afford."  Sure my income has more than doubled² in the past 10 years I've owned the house - but I think when I bought it was only about 17% of my income on housing, roughly half the "33%" They™ say is "affordable to spend on housing."

¹I won the interest lottery there though; I was able to refinance at 2.25% fixed for 15 years.  Almost never before in history has it been possible to earn more interest from no-risk savings accounts than you have to pay on a mortgage; I'd actually be losing money now if I paid my mortgage off early.

²Supposedly the market value of my house is between 60% and 75% more than I paid for it though, so that would probably put me at around 15% my income if I was to buy a similarly-priced home with current mortgage rates.  So I'm in the rare camp whose income has outpaced at least the housing price increases in my area.

EDIT:

That all said... I wish I had a solution for all those who are stuck in locales where basic housing is a challenge. I don't have the resources to fix all the problems. At worst I could possibly pay for housing for a few individuals.  At best I can find some others with whom to pool my resources and maybe make a foundation or something to really improve housing affordability.

[martinuzz]

In the Netherlands, there is affordabble rent.
But... It's way too little

People are forced to live at home with their parents until 35-40 years old until they are finally able to find a home in the 'social rent' segment.
Also, people who earn just a little too much to rent in the social rental segment are forced to live with their parents until 35-40 as well, because rent prices above social rent are unaffordable for anyone except those who are fortunate enough to have very rich parents.

We need to build build build.
And we need to stop accepting migrants. Not for racist reasons, but because we are one of the most densly populated countries in the world, and we don't even have enough housing for our own population, let alone housing for migrants or asylum seekers.
Our domestic population growth is negative. our total population growth is excessive. 100 thousand migrants per year crowd out already overcrowded housing systems (most of those are not asylum seekers but workers from the EU (free Schengen borders) and expat tech workers from India and the rest of the world.

Don't get me wrong. I would like anyone fleeing from war, famine, persecution and whatsmore to find a safe place. But please go to the US, Canada or some other country that still actually has the room to build houses.

Look at sattelite pictures of the Netherlands and you will understand.

Economic migrants should really stay away. Our latests elections got an extreme right, anti-migrant populist result. I love migrants but I hate extreme right populists.
If we want to keep our accepting, enlightened human right governed policies, we will sadly have to stop migration.

[McTraveller]

So what is a typical % income for rent/housing in the Netherlands? For those living with parents, you can use total household income.

What prevents building in the NL? Zoning laws, or something else?

Also - where are all the immigrants living, and why can’t (won’t?) the natives live there? Or is that housing also “not affordable”?

[martinuzz]

People living off 'social minimum' in the Netherlands have a netto income of 1120 euros.
Any housing with rent below somewhere around 750 euros is considered 'social housing'.
If you live off social minimum, the tax office will grant you subsidies, coming down to you yourself having to pay 300 euros rent, and the state paying the rest. This is only possible if you live in social rental housing (rent below the 750 mark).
Housing in the social rental sector is in very short supply. Living with your parents until 35-40 is no exaggeration, nor a joke nowadays. Expect to have to wait 15-20 years to be egligable for such a home.

So from an income of 1120 euros, you pay 300 euros rent, the state pays the rest. If your income increases, the subsidy decreases.
You pay between 100 and 300 euros for gas and electricity, depending on how much isolation and other sustainability measures have been taken in your home by your rental company.
You also pay somewhere between 140 and 180 euros each month for health insurance. Mandatory. Not having / paying for a health insurance is an offence, punishable by getting an extra expensive health insurance.

It gets complicated when you get a job that pays just a little too much, but not that much. If you already have social rental housing, you're lucky-ish. You'll lose your subsidies, but at least your rent will never rise above the 750 (adjusting upwards with inflation over time) mark.
You are egliable for social rent up to somewher about 120% of minimum wage, which would be an income of netto 2300 euros per month
Above that, if you're still living at home and are looking for a home, you're screwed. You're no longer eligable for social rental, because your income is too high.
Welcome to the free capitalist rental market. Expect your rent to be somewhere between 1200 and 2000 euros. Even if you only earn 2400 per month. No subsidies.
People earning just a few dimes under 40h minimum wage living in a social rental home are pretty lucky in this, as are people who earn a ton but have a social rental home from back when they didn't earn a ton.


EDIT: in answer to your other questions: building in the Netherlands is mostly prevented by EU nitrogen and CO2 emission restrictions. We need many more houses but we are not allowed to build them.
Asylum seekers that get granted residence get priority over natives in the social housing sector (which in my opinion is not unreasonable and fair. Asylum procedures take years. People granted residence becuse of valid asylum reasons already have spent years and years in internment camps, so yeah, give them a home).
Most expat workers are not egligable for social rent. They will need to find housing in the commercial sector.

[mikekchar]

Where I live in rural Japan a 2 bedroom apartment with 2 parking spaces used to cost me about $600 US per month.  That was about 3 years ago.  I've bought a house since (used, 3 bedrooms with a small garden for about $160K US).  Basically real estate prices crashed and then froze in 1998 when the bubble burst.  I've heard so many foreign politicians saying "We don't want to end up like the Japanese with their 'lost decade'".  Note: It's now a "lost 2 decades" and, yes, you *do* want to end up like this.  It's vastly preferable to what you have now.

Some caveats:

The apartment was small compared to most western apartments.  Essentially the main bedroom and the living room were one room with sliding doors that could separate them.  You would not want to have a bed.  The Japanese style of using a futon which you put away in the closet every day makes this small space seem very nice.  We didn't even have a couch.  We sat on the floor (still do that in my house).  Not having furniture improves your health (you need to be flexible :-) ) and gives you a *lot* more space.  But lots of people aren't going to like that.

Even the kitchen in my house is ridiculously small by western standards.  This is just a Japanese thing.  There was a time and motion study done in the 1920s that showed that ridiculously small kitchens are *way* more efficient than large ones if you know what you are doing.  Even now the "stay at home mom who cooks 3 meals a day" is a thing.  Sometimes the "works a job but still cooks 3 meals a day mom" is a thing.  I'm used to it now.  It's arguably better to have a tiny kitchen.  You could run an entire restaurant in the kitchens I had in Canada.  I miss cupboard space, though.

Houses in Japan depreciate.  We bought a 10 year old house.  When it was new it would have gone for $300K.  If you hold a house for 30 years, it will be literally worthless (or even worth negative amounts of money).  Nobody buys used houses and so the house itself loses value over time pretty quickly.  The land also doesn't increase in value (remember the "lost decade"?)  Buying a house is not really an investment other than it's cheaper long term than renting.  That's hard for people to wrap their heads around.  Also, after 30 years you will have to throw a ton of money into the house because it won't stand up to the frequent earthquakes here -- part of the reason nobody wants an old house.

This is in rural Japan.  As a remote developer, I'm in a good place.  There are very few jobs around here, though.  The small towns are dying as everyone moves to Tokyo and Osaka.  This means that shops close over time. Things get more difficult, not easier.  You need to understand that the town will almost certainly shrink while you live there (unless some economic trends are reversed).  If you lose your job, you may have to move.  If you bought a house, it's a huge risk because you will lose a ton of cash.  Renting is often a better strategy, especially because there are more and more vacancies in rural areas over time.

Where I live heating is expensive.  Electricity is about 30 cents per kilowatt hour and realistically you need to heat with electricity (or kerosene -- you don't want to heat with kerosene heaters in your apartment, though).  On the other hand, we have a mild climate and often apartments have good sunlight which heats them up.  It's still fairly expensive if you want to live comfortably.  I live a more traditional Japanese lifestyle and don't heat the whole house.  Usually just the room I'm in (and sometimes not even that).  The toilet is cold.  That's why Japanese people have heated toilet seats!

[NJW2000]

I'm in the UK, renting somewhere that's mean to be just above functional. Entry-level white collar job. Paying 25% of my net income on rent but living with a partner... it'd be 35-40% with friends, and 50% if I tried to make it on my own.

The renting market is awful here. I'm know fairly lucky, and I wouldn't complain at all if the place was in good repair, but the landlord/renting agency is unhelpful to the point of criminality and requires endless prompting to do anything at all. I know I might be able to get some of my money back due to the problems in the long run, but to be honest, I'd happily pay a little more just have a home without serious issues. It's pretty depressing

[scriver]

I lucked out and through a friend who was moving out got a really nice little apartment in a very nice area. It's an old Manor rebuild into an apartment house with the landlord still living in one of them. It's a 1.5 roomer, but the living room and the kitchen are pretty big, and the house is pretty old so it's cheap. Comparatively, it costs the same per month or less as one-room apartments in shittier areas or less than newly built ones. I think it's because it hasn't been renovated in what feels like ages, but it's a sturdy old house, I've had no "this is so old it breaks" issues yet.

It still costs half of my pay, roughly, but I'm on sick leave so I don't have a "normal wage". It would cost about a third or a fourth of a normal wage, I think, unless my standards of wages are out of modern perspective.

Generally though, Sweden is in the shitter when it comes to housing. The old housing projects of the 50's and 60's are falling apart and the governments has privatised all their building organs so no affordable housing is being built. There's lots of place to live, but no ability or infrastructure to live there, because the countryside has been sacrificed on the altar of hipness and productivity.

[nenjin]

1 bed, 1 bath, 800sq foot apartment, plus pets and utilities, costs me about 1/3rd of my monthly income.

[None]

I'm renting a 3br2bth house for pretty close to 45% of my take-home pay. My partner would contribute, but she's pretty quickly zapped of all funds once debts (school loans, medical bills, etc) factor in, so sometimes I catch the utilities too and that pushes it up to/past 50%.

My savings have only gone down this year, unfortunately.

The rent is too damn high, but it's a home and there's a yard for the dogs to play in.

[Loud Whispers]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

one of my friends comes from a minted family. Their matriarch of their esteemed elder clan owns something like 3 estates internationally and 5 houses in London and at least 1 other somewhere in England, maybe more. They use the rents from this income to live large, do drugs and pay for their retirement. No one asks what future generations will do when they reach their 60s with no savings, no house, no way to pay for retirement, because they spent all of their most productive years paying for someone else's