Home buying thread
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Sheriff Cad
scientia potentia est
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Are you trying to say I'm a boomer?
Is there something in the water this morning? Fuck everyone is so hostile.
Haus
I am Big Balls!
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It's not. But the degree to which rent is outpacing median household income tells the better story IMHO... (Can't believe I'm reusing variants of this FRED chat twice in one day)
FRED Graph
Graph and download economic data for Real Median Household Income in the United States from Dec 1914 to Sep 2025 about households, median, income, real, USA, primary, rent, urban, consumer, CPI, inflation, price index, indexes, and price.
fred.stlouisfed.org
In roughly the last quarter century rent prices have gone up 140%
Median Income? It's gone up less than 20%
Look at this before you ask why more kids are living longer at home with their parents....
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Khane
Got something right about marriage
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800 to 2400 in that timeframe is significantly higher than the national average. And this debate really amounts to my impression of young people and their refusal to do things most of the rest of us kind of just understood as necessary when we were younger.
Like finding a shitty apartment with your friends and having roommates for a while.
Like finding a shitty apartment with your friends and having roommates for a while.
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Furry
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While there is truth to what you are saying being the path to owning a home, it's objectively true that this path is more difficult than it used to be and rent is too damn high. It's an inevitable problem of importing 100m poor retards and not building housing to accommodate them. I can definitely understand why a young person wanting to afford a home would be angry about it, even if better self control would probably help them clear this barrier.
Sheriff Cad
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Wonder how much the rent is influenced by section 8 always setting rent floors.It's not. But the degree to which rent is outpacing median household income tells the better story IMHO... (Can't believe I'm reusing variants of this FRED chat twice in one day)
View attachment 609259
FRED Graph
Graph and download economic data for Real Median Household Income in the United States from Dec 1914 to Sep 2025 about households, median, income, real, USA, primary, rent, urban, consumer, CPI, inflation, price index, indexes, and price.fred.stlouisfed.org
In roughly the last quarter century rent prices have gone up 140%
Median Income? It's gone up less than 20%
Look at this before you ask why more kids are living longer at home with their parents....
Here's a good trivia question, when did section 8 start paying directly for private residences as opposed to being "public housing" and what did that graph look like prior to that time?
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Sanrith Descartes
I was forced to self-deport from the /pol thread
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I believe the #1 variable to price is still location. Small rural areas still have affordable rents. Mainly because illegals and H1bs dont come here combined with the pay not being the same as big cities.
You can rent a 2/1 SFH on about 7000 sq ft lot in a pretty much all white area for 900-1200 a month. Not an apt, a house. And if you are willing to take the NY-style commute, you can be working in Orlando or Tampa. So Orlando pay and rural rents. You just gotta be willing to drive each way.
You can rent a 2/1 SFH on about 7000 sq ft lot in a pretty much all white area for 900-1200 a month. Not an apt, a house. And if you are willing to take the NY-style commute, you can be working in Orlando or Tampa. So Orlando pay and rural rents. You just gotta be willing to drive each way.
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Daidraco
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Sheriff Cad
scientia potentia est
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Sanrith Descartes
I was forced to self-deport from the /pol thread
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Sheriff Cad
scientia potentia est
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I don't know what you mean by calling the kettle black.
Your graph here shows income and rent being very tightly correlated. Haus's graph shows rent steadily rising while income does not.
Which is it?
Haus
I am Big Balls!
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My chart shows it as percentage increase, his shows it on three different axes/scales which allows it to line up the trends in a different way :
FRED only goes back to the early 80's for it's median household income trend. This chart shows the percentage change, not the absolute number changes in dollars. If we set them to treat May 1984 as the "base point" (100%) and track change since then we get this :
Here you see that between May 1984 (chosen because that's when the median household income data table starts, and this table doesn't even have 2024 and 2025 full data in it, so it's limited in that regard, as is a lot of the FRED data, but it's still one of the best sources I have for my data tinkering) with both at 100% value in 1984 that by 2024 (40 years later) Median household income has only gone up 38.6% , but median rent has gone up 294.7%
If you had only gotten 38.6% return on an investment over 40 years would you consider it a winner? I measure my career earnings performance based on how much I outperform that line. Which since my graduation in 1987 I have done decent at outperforming. What I don't know are the dates where Section 8 changes took place.
Kithani
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I personally don’t trust median household income data. I think there’s a ton of people working under the table and a massive amount of small business owners significantly underreporting their income. I don’t think it has gone up 300% like rent but you can’t convince me the “median” household is really only making 30% more than in 1984.
Sheriff Cad
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The thing that weirds me out about that graph is it says "real" increase in income which makes me think it is adjusting that income down for inflation, but then not adjusting the rent one for inflation. Can you tell if thats what it is?
Haus
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The names of the data sets are...
Real Median Household Income in the United States, 2024 C-CPI-U Dollars, Not Seasonally Adjusted (MEHOINUSA672N)
Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Rent of Primary Residence in U.S. City Average, Index 1982-1984=100, Not Seasonally Adjusted (CUUR0000SEHA)
Neither say they're seasonally adjusted, but no mention anywhere of inflation adjustments. but I don't think they could for the household income as it's a component of C-CPI-U which is literally what they calculate the inflation rate off of. Here's the link to the sheet on the FRED site, it's highly customizable and open to anybody who wants to dig into data. The Trend Analysis nerd in my loves that site.
Average Price: Ground Beef, 100% Beef (Cost per Pound/453.6 Grams) in U.S. City Average | FRED | St. Louis Fed
Graph and download economic data for Average Price: Ground Beef, 100% Beef (Cost per Pound/453.6 Grams) in U.S. City Average from Nov 1978 to Sep 2025 about meat, retail, price, USA, dairy products, electricity, and energy.
fred.stlouisfed.org
You can clear it all and build a chart for yourself and they have an absolute myriad of datasets to search through.
Sheriff Cad
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2024 C-CPI-U dollars means it's constant 2024 dollars, yea? Which means they've adjusted it for inflation, and then compared the adjusted for inflation income with the inflation rate...
I think what you'd want to see is rent as a percentage of income and see if that has changed overtime, the inflation numbers + income numbers are too easily "adjusted" by factors to know what we're really looking at.
My guess is rent goes up as a percentage of income during bad economy cycles and goes down as a percentage of income during good cycles, but probably has been trending upwards as housing has gotten more expensive overall.
Haus
I am Big Balls!
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Closest I can find right this second.. (but now it will bug me until my 'tism finds it...) is...
Re-racked to start with a baseline of the end of the 2008 crash (in may 2009). Seems a very modest growth in household income compared to rent overtaking it and really never looking back except a slight dip after the covid crash, then rent goes to crazytown...