I do not mean to offend anyone but rent control, subsidized apartments, and public housing are all nice in theory but are terrible in real world execution. All three lead to poor living environments, siphoned development, and increased rent in the long run. It’s a nice thought and definitely a buzzword for politicians trying to win elections, however, in practice, it creates an even greater problem for growing cities
I’m with you. Also interesting that in the other thread I hear we’re a small city and not on anyone’s radar nationally, yet here I see $1700 is a great price for a 1 bdrm here. Which is it?
I think it’s clear the demand is currently here to support these prices, but I wonder how long it’s sustainable. Raleigh has reached a point where a lot of people outside the bubble of this forum are seriously re-evaluating whether it’s worth it to still live here. Charging big-city prices for small-city quality buildings doesn’t help when housing is now comparable (or in some cases more expensive) here than Chicago or Philadelphia.
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Well technically that’s still highly competitive… as of last month the average rent for a 1bdr across the nation was just above $1,700 a month meanwhile Raleigh’s average for a 1bdr was about $1,500 so given the current market Raleigh is still a competitive option for people who need or want to live in a city.
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Sure, but the mean is also inflated by places like NYC and San Francisco where rent is literally double what it is here. Median rent for 1bdrms is $1393.
I still think the numbers make sense for our area, personally, but only just barely. I’m seeing this over and over and over on reddit – the perception is Raleigh has historically offered good bang for your buck, but this is no longer the case. Most mid-sized peer cities offer more amenities and more vibrancy than us, and a huge chunk of the edge we had over them was affordability.
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If enough of them leave then the prices will go down!
I am for opportunity zoning in Miami they let people who work in expensive apartments and residential development live there. And developers get tax benefits from investing in low-income areas.
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Plus i’ll solve some of the affordable housing problems here, and the NIMBYs can stop complaining about it even though they’re not really serious, and it could satisfy them probably not, but it would be nice for them to shut up for once.
That’s the price of the growth we all want, be careful what you wish for.
The same could be said of the entirety of suburbia, but somehow it’s only urban development that seems to get this criticism.
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It’s a lesser problem (but still a problem!). In DTR, can you live there if you have a household income under $100,000/year? I think to lease something it’s in the $2k+/mo range. I do see some options to purchase in the $400k-$500k range, but there are like 3 choices at that price point.
In the suburbs, you can find apartments going for $1200/mo. Before this year when housing costs exploded, you could pretty easily find somewhere to rent for under $1000/mo. If you make $15-$18 an hour, which some of these folks are making less, you can barely afford $1k a month in rent.
2021 numbers had the average rent in dtr at $1,700 for a 1 bdr (according to the dtr alliance). I’m actually moving to skyhouse in septmeber and my rent for an 18th floor studio is only $1450 so there is quite a range… The standard in dtr (from my own experience) is 3 times the annual rent in income so hypothetically anyone making ~50k+ a year with a decent credit score and clean rent history could rent a unit just like mine… also there were a few cheaper and a few more expensive studio options at skyhouse so it will vary.
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Well, I suppose that it also matters if you live alone or with a roommate. When I was early in career, I couldn’t survive without a roommate and that was living in a non-luxury apartment without AC near NC State.
I would think that with some digging and some luck, one could find some options in and around downtown that aren’t amenity rich luxury apartments.
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VERY TRUE and thank you for bringing this up because whenever we use statistics in our points it’s CRUCIAL that we all understand how the data was calculated…
For example, many people argue that “a $15 an hr wage is not a livable wage because the average apartment in the us is over $1,200” and to that I ask, well how is that calculated?
what I found is that
a) that is the AVERAGE and
b) the “1,200” is actually the average for a 2 bdr…
sooo not only is that the average, meaning there will inevitably be some units that cost more AND many units that cost less… also, hello, it’s a 2 bdr so if you have 2 adults making $15 an hour working full time and splitting the rent it is most defiantly an affordable apartment
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Well, yes and no. While I think that expectations and the supply of housing has gone way too high end in the downtown market and the Triangle market in general, I also think that the market has endured too much income stagnation in the service and working class industries. This has pushed incomes and housing further apart and makes finding an affordable place (even with a roommate) more difficult.
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I don’t have a sense, not even a little bit, if this is enough to help affordable housing but when anyone says that the city isn’t doing anything, here’s a nice list to share of the efforts they are doing. Could it be more? Again, I can’t say but the easy question for any critics would be, “would would you do and how?”
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I think the current council has definitely made strides within their power to improve the option and availability of affordable projects and some maybe indirect increasing density/infill.
Leo, you’re 100% on point with the simple ask of, if you’re going to shout the affordable housing policy to get attention, explain WHAT you’re going to do, because being a city council member doesn’t give you magical powers to solve issues like this.
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In new buildings? (No. Right now, I’m seeing $1600 for new 1BRs in North Raleigh.) You wouldn’t price-compare new and used cars, so why price-compare new and old houses?
Only 1% of Americans live in new buildings. We shouldn’t expect that shiny, brand-new things, built to more stringent standards, will be inexpensive - much less new downtown high-rises, aka the most expensive and difficult buildings to construct, sitting on the most valuable land.
75% of the country’s affordable housing is “naturally occurring affordable housing”: older, privately owned buildings that have depreciated to the point where they charge lower rents. One of Raleigh’s problems is that as a relatively recently built-up city, there just isn’t a lot of older housing of any sort - much less a lot of 30+ year old apartments. (Small cities don’t have lots of multifamily, and especially not exclusionarily zoned cities like Raleigh which encouraged large-lot houses instead.) What few older houses we do have sit on large parcels of now-valuable land, so (a) they’re not cheap, and (b) they’re ripe for redevelopment into… expensive new houses.
(Which is why I’m excited that Raleigh recently legalized flag lots!)
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It still shocks me that Raleigh is the most dense large city in the state while most of our built environment seems to be single-family house neighborhoods and subdivisions. Doesn’t really feel like it if you drive around. I wonder how much longer before Charlotte takes that title with the amount of large apartment complexes in South End and the neighborhoods surrounding uptown.
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Charlotte has 100s of square miles more suburbia to deal with. They are over 300 square miles of land while Raleigh is less than half their physical size.
They may have a lot going on in Southend, but Raleigh has a lot happening downtown and midtown. It’s going to take a lot of densification in either city to substantially move the needle on citywide density metrics.
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