Red Mosquito

I got an opportunity zone for ya

but what other variables affect rent prices other than just "greed"

my old apartment i lived in one of the four units for all but 3 years from 1983 until 2023. for a 3 floor unit with a basement, main floor of a living room and a kitchen/dining room and two bedrooms and a bathroom on the top floor. when we were leaving arguing with the management company they brought up how they could get double our rent from new tenants. we were paying 650 a month.

why did they think they could get that much? in our instance Shell had opened a cracker plant about 6 miles away. out of state workers would rent a place and split it three ways as each person worked a different shift so there were only 2 people at home at any given time. it was no problem for each worker to pony up $500 a month each to pay for a place.

many other houses/apartments were running the same price with the influx of these workers. now that the plant has opened and most of the out of state workers left the workers arent here to pay those prices. my stepfathers place which was right next to mine was just rented after being empty since easter of 2023. i moved out july 1st of 2023 and the place is still empty because no-one is ready to pay 1200 for a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom

tragabigzanda wrote:No I think it’s a fair criticism of my comment. My argument would be that despite general trends, some places are growing, and others poised to grow with the influx of CHIPS dollars. So in some places where rental demand will continue to outstrip supply, the speculative investors will — absent regulation — build units and rent them out.

Sure.

What do you mean by "speculative" investors? I think I've noticed you use similar terminology a lot lately, I guess I'm not sure what you mean by it. I picture that meaning people who bid up prices (and don't add anything of value) solely based on the expectation that the price will go up further still. In your comment, though, it seems to be equated to the actual production of new housing, which is literally exactly what we need. Maybe I'm reading judgement/negativity into that sentence that isn't intended, but what you describe as speculative investing sounds like investing and producing to me.

Peeps wrote:but what other variables affect rent prices other than just "greed"

my old apartment i lived in one of the four units for all but 3 years from 1983 until 2023. for a 3 floor unit with a basement, main floor of a living room and a kitchen/dining room and two bedrooms and a bathroom on the top floor. when we were leaving arguing with the management company they brought up how they could get double our rent from new tenants. we were paying 650 a month.

why did they think they could get that much? in our instance Shell had opened a cracker plant about 6 miles away. out of state workers would rent a place and split it three ways as each person worked a different shift so there were only 2 people at home at any given time. it was no problem for each worker to pony up $500 a month each to pay for a place.

many other houses/apartments were running the same price with the influx of these workers. now that the plant has opened and most of the out of state workers left the workers arent here to pay those prices. my stepfathers place which was right next to mine was just rented after being empty since easter of 2023. i moved out july 1st of 2023 and the place is still empty because no-one is ready to pay 1200 for a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom

I see supply and demand all over this. The thing about "greed" as an explanation is that it can only explain price changes if you're willing to ascribe rising prices to "people got greedier" and falling prices to "people became less greedy." I don't find either of those particularly compelling.

Besides, insofar as there is "greed" it's exhibited by both buyer and seller. The seller wants to sell (or rent in this case) for the highest price possible while the buyer (renter) would like to obtain the most desirable housing possible while paying the lowest price possible. I don't think it's useful to ascribe either of these desires to "greed," I think it's just people trying to do the best they can for themselves. (Of course greed exists, I'm not saying that it doesn't.)

In your example, the demand for rentals shot up, without a corresponding increase in housing so the price went up. So, I'd explain that price increase by an increase in demand. Then that demand fell (and there may well have been an increase in supply, as that typically happens when rents shoot up, other people want to rent properties for those higher juicy rents) when the workers left. Both of these things put downward pressure on rents.

The fact that apartment is still sitting vacant after 13 months is evidence that the price is too high. You can probably get into a lot of psychological explanations to attempt to explain why the landlord wouldn't drop his price in spite of the clear evidence that he should do so, seems like he's being wildly foolish. Maybe he's loss-harvesting or something, idk. Maybe he is being particularly greedy. If so, it doesn't seem to be working as the market appears to be telling him his price is too high.

Ive got something built to flip for you

‘morning, trag.

Chyyyyna

My town spurred lots of new apartments. All they had to do was stop being dicks in the approval process.

no problems with that in Austin. Going up all over the place. Damn gentrifiers! GTFO!

4/5 wrote:

Peeps wrote:but what other variables affect rent prices other than just "greed"

my old apartment i lived in one of the four units for all but 3 years from 1983 until 2023. for a 3 floor unit with a basement, main floor of a living room and a kitchen/dining room and two bedrooms and a bathroom on the top floor. when we were leaving arguing with the management company they brought up how they could get double our rent from new tenants. we were paying 650 a month.

why did they think they could get that much? in our instance Shell had opened a cracker plant about 6 miles away. out of state workers would rent a place and split it three ways as each person worked a different shift so there were only 2 people at home at any given time. it was no problem for each worker to pony up $500 a month each to pay for a place.

many other houses/apartments were running the same price with the influx of these workers. now that the plant has opened and most of the out of state workers left the workers arent here to pay those prices. my stepfathers place which was right next to mine was just rented after being empty since easter of 2023. i moved out july 1st of 2023 and the place is still empty because no-one is ready to pay 1200 for a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom

I see supply and demand all over this. The thing about "greed" as an explanation is that it can only explain price changes if you're willing to ascribe rising prices to "people got greedier" and falling prices to "people became less greedy." I don't find either of those particularly compelling.

Besides, insofar as there is "greed" it's exhibited by both buyer and seller. The seller wants to sell (or rent in this case) for the highest price possible while the buyer (renter) would like to obtain the most desirable housing possible while paying the lowest price possible. I don't think it's useful to ascribe either of these desires to "greed," I think it's just people trying to do the best they can for themselves. (Of course greed exists, I'm not saying that it doesn't.)

In your example, the demand for rentals shot up, without a corresponding increase in housing so the price went up. So, I'd explain that price increase by an increase in demand. Then that demand fell (and there may well have been an increase in supply, as that typically happens when rents shoot up, other people want to rent properties for those higher juicy rents) when the workers left. Both of these things put downward pressure on rents.

The fact that apartment is still sitting vacant after 13 months is evidence that the price is too high. You can probably get into a lot of psychological explanations to attempt to explain why the landlord wouldn't drop his price in spite of the clear evidence that he should do so, seems like he's being wildly foolish. Maybe he's loss-harvesting or something, idk. Maybe he is being particularly greedy. If so, it doesn't seem to be working as the market appears to be telling him his price is too high.

i think my use of "greed" was too vague. the building mangement company is literally he and his wife. the more they collect in rent the more they get a % of. the original owners were very old school. if you came across as reliable and a "good" tenant" they were more than happy to have you on board as a tenant at a lower rent price. this gave them peace of mind and since they owned the buildings (there are two) they didnt want anyone damaging them.

now the management company wants to get as much as they can and will not admit they have the rent too high

when the B and Peeps accounts start discoursing on economics i sit my white ass down and listen

B wrote:

What, specifically, did they do? This was the closest I could find from lefty news sites:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/kroger-egg-prices

In May 2022, for example, both Walmart and Meijer dropped egg prices by 14 cents a dozen, but Mariano's opted to keep its pricing the same to match the higher price at Jewel-Osco, Marx said. A year later, in April 2023, as egg prices again soared, Mariano's opted to keep its pricing near Jewel-Osco's even as Walmart was lowering its own."

And the crazy high prices were because of the 2022 bird flu outbreak:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/11/why-egg ... lling.html

I came across it here:

https://www.businessinsider.com/kroger- ... ort-2024-8

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... judge-told

McParadigm wrote:I came across it here:

https://www.businessinsider.com/kroger- ... ort-2024-8

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... judge-told

Thanks, but I am still not seeing what they did that was price gouging. It just looks like they tracked market pricing. like any consumer business does, aligned prices with high-end competitors vs low end ones on this one product (and possibly milk). Is 14 cents really gouging?

There's a quote in the article where an executive says that retail inflation was higher than cost inflation. That seems to be the full extent of it from what I saw.

--- wrote:when the B and Peeps accounts start discoursing on economics i sit my white ass down and listen

tragabigzanda wrote:

Some major intellectual superiority flexing going on in this thread.